New 406 owner in Newcastle

[d0pefish]

Hi there

Picked up a 2003 HDi 90 S a few weeks ago as a cheap means of getting to college and back every day This is my first Peugeot.
I'm actually really enjoying it as a car, comfy, economical, lots of electrical toys. I'm impressed by how cheap some of the parts are for it, which is great!

I only paid £550 for it, with a year's MOT/tax and a full tank of diesel! It needs a bit of work to make it nice, however I've already got many things ticked off the list.

It needs a new exhaust system, so it's on order and I'll hopefully be putting that on next week.

At some point, someone changed the stock cloth seats to leather ones, which is nice, but the driver's electric seat adjustment isn't wired up - it is a memory seat, and my car doesn't have memory plugs/harnesses/ECU, so I believe I need a non-memory driver's side switch to remedy that. Until then I'm having to drive at a bit of an awkward position as I can't adjust the seat :p

Main mission at the moment apart from the exhaust is to extinguish the airbag light.
Somewhere along the line the airbag and pretensioner wiring was butchered, so I went to the scrap yard, chopped off a length of new underseat loom, and soldered on the missing airbag and pretensioner plugs according to the wire numbers on Service Box/SEDRE (very helpful!). Sadly, the light didn't go out. I decided that investing in a Planet Peugeot kit from eBay would help with many other things besides this, so I went and got that.

I was able to clear the airbag faults (many open circuits for obvious reasons) and to my delight the light went out, but the next day it reappeared. After another check with PP2000, the open circuit faults had stayed away, but there was a Controller Fault or something on the airbag ECU (need to check again for the specific code). This one won't stay cleared. I think I need to find another airbag ECU - anyone got one spare for a D9 I can try?

I also need to find a new rear-half floor carpet as this one is soaked with oil/mud and has holes in it where it's disintegrated Hoping to find a replacement soon so that things are bit less unpleasant for passengers in the back

I've actually started a list of jobs to do: http://goo.gl/VvwUj

I'm enjoying working on this car, it's reasonably simple to work on and gives me something to do when not studying.

Have found the forum a great resource so far, has answered many of my questions just by reading other peoples' topics.

Cheers!

[teamster1975]

Welcome mate! You're bloomin' jammy getting it for that price, enjoy!

[jonsowman]

Instead of buying a new drivers side seat switch, you can bodge your current switch if you don't mind spending a bit of time with some wire cutters and a soldering iron. Let me know if you'd like some details on this.

Airbag ECUs don't often go wrong, a scrapyard might be your best bet for this.

Enjoy the car

[d0pefish]

Thanks guys

@jon:
That could be an option, soldering's no problem. Although I did see a 'leccy seated 406 with no memory in the scrapyard last time I went, so I might try and get that if it's not too much of a faff to separate from the seat.

My airbag fault code is: "SAC_CENT_AUTOLIV_2: Permanent fault. Control unit ."
It also seems to ignore the state of the passenger bag disable switch - it's always seen as "disabled" whether the switch is on, off, or unplugged. I took the switch apart and cleaned it, it seems to be fine, though I need to sort my multimeter out to be sure.

Today, while remedying a boot leak, I removed the water-destroyed remains of the sat-nav unit from the boot - and a VAN-bus error has disappeared from the BSI
There's a 2003 navigation disc still in there though, so maybe I can carefully extract it and pass it onto another member.

[steve_earwig]

The airbag ecu on my D8 went south...

Btw hello

[jonsowman]

You will want the switch and associated wiring from a GTX, these were the only ones (AFAIK) to have electric non-memory seats. I think they should just plug straight into the existing wiring.

I've been through all the faff of rewiring a memory seat switch to bypass the ECU and memory system, so we'll get this sorted somehow

[d0pefish]

Just got back from the scrapyard with a seat adjustment switch and an airbag ECU!

Plugged in the switch, nothing. Looked at fuse 16, blown! Replaced it, and now the seat moves!

Only thing is that sliding it backward makes the seat go forwards and vice versa, so maybe there's a wiring difference. It was a D8 estate I took it from. But at least all motors are working!

I'm about to test out the new airbag ECU - wish me luck!

[steve_earwig]

Reach in through open window to turn the ignition on, keep below the steering wheel...

Luck!

[d0pefish]

Cheers for the reminder!

I think we have a cure
Time will tell if it sticks, but when the ignition went on, the lights went off, and there was no Airbag Fault beep on the screen!
I then tried the passenger airbag override switch and it worked perfectly - passenger airbag light came on, reminder displayed on the screen.

I haven't checked the unit yet with PP2000 as it's getting dark and I wanted to get the console reassembled, but tomorrow I'll make sure the fault list is clean.

Looks like my ECU was toast. Time for a beer!

[steve_earwig]

Sounds like you cracked it

It's ok for you guys, my ignition barrel is on the wrong side of my steering wheel

[Captain Jack]

A picture is worth a 1000 words.

Steve, you can always sit in the passenger seat instead of standing in the rain like the rest of us (disable passenger airbag first).

[gumby6371]

Welcome in mate and congrats on a 'potential' bargain.

Maybe the previous owner was looking at dealer prices to fix the niggling faults and got shot of it on the cheap, in which case you're a right jammy so and so!!

[jonsowman]

Glad it's sorted, well done!

[d0pefish]

A picture is worth a 1000 words.

Well, there's not that much to see, she has a couple of pretty dented doors which I want to sort out once I've finished with the servicing etc. Happily though it's just the doors, which can be swapped easily enough. Seems like a common colour, too


Other than that it's fairly tidy. I think it's an ex-taxi going by the company name on the numberplates!
The interior was a disaster but things are gradually being removed, washed and reinstalled, or just replaced.

For example:


Absolutely shocking

This was the state of the wiring under each seat:


Now everything has its original plug, taken from a donor car and carefully soldered on and sealed with heatshrink.
Really happy with the airbag repair Today I had my first journey without any bongs or warning lights

This Thursday if the weather's alright it's going up on the ramps and this is getting installed:


The current system is shot - there are repair welds everywhere which are cracking and the fluted ends where the silencer would have clamped on is pretty much destroyed. Still waiting on the new rear silencer but at least it'll be ready to accept one now Amazingly, I didn't notice until recently that it was missing the silencer - this diesel is pretty damn quiet!

I like the car enough to want to tidy it up, as a student I couldn't really ask for a better vehicle, it's brilliant.
I'm not shy of taking a wrench to it; I owned a 1992 Toyota MR2 Turbo for 3 years when I was employed, which needed constant attention, and my friend taught me a lot about doing basic repairs and part swaps. I sold it to fund college, sad to see it go, but without an income it wasn't feasible to keep - pretty expensive car to run.

I'll take more pictures next time I do something, if you're interested.
Thanks for the kind words, guys

[lozz]

Looks alright that mate,
at that price you carnt complain,


as of the dents, with abit of paitience you couid pop some of them out,
carpets, if there oiled, strip them out on a Dry day, Jet wash them and hang them over a washing line,

Iwouidnt bother too much,if its been a Taxi it will still plod on,
You Might be able to tell if its been a Taxi off Mot history, check it out
on Mot info.gov.uk.