New blower loom for a 307 - How F***ing much!!!

[gumby6371]

I've just ordered a replacement heater blower loom for the 307 from the stealers
A hand full of connectors and some wire - £110 !!!!

A very common fault that the guy at the stealers knew all about when I rang which to my way of thinking should be a recall if it's that common. The multi plug into the resistor was melted and No.1 and 2 wires were melted a good inch past that. I spent 2 days trawling the breakers and guess which bit had been pinched from every 307 I found.
Amazingly it was £5 cheaper from the dealers than on ebay

Hopefully I can clean up the contacts on the resistor and refit the original but they at least are only £10 on the bay, £50 from the stealers.

It looks like a bitch to change so if anyone lives near Telford and has nothing to do tomorrow you could spend a few hours laughing and pointing at a man shouting, and generally kicking the crap out of a 307 dashboard.

[mjb]

If the resistor's knackered, it'll fry your shiny new £110 bit of wire in short order, so if I were you I'd replace it while you're at it... Consider it akin to buying life insurance alongside a box of pre-lit fireworks...

[gumby6371]

Message received and understood, just ordered a new resistor. I'll do the loom over the weekend as fitting the resistor is a 5 minute job and can be done any time.

[Welly]

I always look at it this way: if you hadn't done the research yourself and you weren't willing and able to do the fix yourself then you'd be looking at a bill for £300/£400.00 at least - with that in mind the £110.00 loom looks 'cheap'

This is one of the best things about the internet; it allows keen motorists to research problems and narrow-down the source to save a lot of time and money later on.

[gumby6371]

Picked up the replacement loom from the stealers at 10 a.m. Saturday morning, had a quick chat with the guy on the desk about whether he had any info on the cable routing but he only had the same diagram I'd got from servicebox. He did say it was down as a 1 1/2 hour job for a trained Pug technician.
Cracked on when I got home and all done and dusted in 3 hours which I was quite pleased with as I was working in the dark for a lot of it.

On the negative side after inspecting the old loom in daylight it's pretty clear I could have just cleaned up the terminals and re-used it as you can see from the pic!!!!!!

[Welly]

it's pretty clear I could have just cleaned up the terminals and re-used it as you can see from the pic!!!!!!

Eh? I wouldn't re-use stuff like that mate

[gumby6371]

Maybe I should have added a smiley on that Welly???

It's a good point about putting in the effort and saving cash on DIY repairs, the general consensus was around £300 for a garage repair and I've done it for £125 for the loom and an ebay resistor.
Not sure how to factor in the cost of ralgex and plasters but I reckon I've still saved a fair few quid.

You also have to look at that feeling of pride in tackling and completing the task yourself.

Next job is cleaning the carb on my lawn mower which decided to eat most of the air filter on saturday afternoon - thank god for you tube is all I can say!!

[jasper5]

Interesting

This exact same problem is common to the Fiat Grande Puntos

[steve_earwig]

Eating the air filter? I've never had a lawnmower do that, there *should* be a guard there so no matter how much crud gets into the flimsy foam thing, the engine can't suck it in there Maybe on a McPillock, they'd probably forget to fit something like that. Hmm, maybe they make engines for FIATs too

*steve_earwig has just rebuilt the carb on his Husqvarna strimmer and is right chuffed that the death wand lives again

[jasper5]

Just for clarity,I was talking about the Fiat Grande Punto having the same wiring / resistor burn problem

[mjb]

From what I can tell, it's a common problem for every make of car - european at least. Would it really kill them to use thicker gauge wiring for fan motors and higher rated parts for current limitation?

[gumby6371]

I bought the lawn mower 3 years ago second hand for £20, in that three years I have done precisely nothing to it but add fuel. The filter is a block of foam which had presumably got damp and dried out many many times and decided to disintegrate.
I'll be stripping the carb down one of the nights this week with the idea that if I can't fix it I'll skip it as it owes me nothing.

[Bailes1992]

Could have probably made a new loom yourself for £20 or so!

[steve_earwig]

That was my thought but then there's sourcing the connectors - it's not always easy to find out which ones they used...

Just for clarity,I was talking about the Fiat Grande Punto having the same wiring / resistor burn problem

I suspected as much I must confess but the idea of FIATs using McCulloch engines in their cars was too tempting