A myriad of electrical weirdness

[dissolved]

Hi

I was wondering if people could help, I bought a V plate 1.8 saloon in March and it had one fault with the electrics, it's now developed a couple of others which are just flat out annoying.

Here they are:

- No alarm for leaving the lights on (was there when I got the car)
- No indicator noise (as above)
- Outside temperate always wrong. It reckoned it was -5 last night and during the summer it has proudly proclaimed it to be 40 degrees plus outside. The figures are wildly inaccurate most of the time.
- now the radio only comes on if you flick the fog lights on and off

I know French electrics aren't on a par with the food and culture but they have to be better than this

any ideas?

[highlander]

Hello, welcome, and commiserations on the electrical gremlins on your otherwise-fine automobile.

Can you check the footwell carpets (all of them) to ensure they're not full of water? There's some rather important electrical connectors buried under the sound insulation (which is under the carpeting) that don't take too well to water. You should also check the spare wheel well under the boot carpet to see if it is a swimming pool. Water ingress is responsible for a fair number of electrical gremlins in the 406s, especially the older ones which don't have the fully-multiplexed wiring (which came in during mid-to-late 2001).

The alarm that you hear when you leave the lights on will be played through the same little loudspeaker that plays the indicator clicking noise. Unfortunately I've no idea where it is - my old V-reg 1.8 saloon went to the scrapyard early on this year, so I can't go and check. My Coupe is fully-multiplexed and fitted with the COM2000 control system, so this function is not implemented in the same way between the two cars.

The outside temperature being wrong is a very common thing on the 406, but it is annoying, especially since this figure is used by the car's climate control system (though it's not a really big problem). Thankfully it's a cheap fix - on the passenger-side door mirror, you will find a small bump on the bottom of it - this is where the temperature sensor is housed. When mine went on my old saloon, I went to a garage/dismantler, and asked them for a replacement door mirror unit. Cost very little for the parts, and that was it fixed then and there. You could get a replacement sensor from Peugeot's dealership network, and then either ask them to replace it (=£££) or you could remove the glass from that mirror, cut out the old sensor, and solder in a new one, all by yourself.

Hope this helps.

[dissolved]

thanks highlander - I'll check the lot

is there a chance it's a relay gone on the clicking/alarm?