Anyone owned a 405?

[annie]

just came across a lovely clean 405glx with high miles but even air con works. bangs and crashes like a 406 but cant rememebr their suspension layout.. ie quick fix or not
i remember these being nice appointed and well made cars except around 1991 when they had some seruios gearbox problems. we ran a few as taxis once.
coming up to classic insurance age aswell.
has anyone had one or still got one...? anecdotes welcome

[lozz]

The 405 was a good motor..
I've still got one I bought 2 years back..its sat in dry storage.
Never botherd with it.. Diesel.

I've had a petrol model.years back .it died of hg failure..heater matrix was by passed for a year before it went..
I was skint then and it was a cheap car ..58 quid off eBay..

Much better than this modern garbage..

[annie]

seen a few for sale in pretty good condition. just tempted as a retro car . some of the later ones were very well equipt. if i rememebr rightly the xud is unburstable with regualr maintenance. i kow the non turbo is as slow as heck but i like older cars like these.

[lozz]

I bought mine off..preloved.
They pop up on there cheap sometimes..

Just check out the sills and the floor before buying one..
Afew out there but they may be rotten.

[FarmerPug]

I have a turbo diesel estate for spares, bought for £150. The back axles i think can give bother in the same way the 306 does havent really looked too much into what actually goes wrong there, electrics, and mechanical bits all fairly straighforward and reliable. But they do rust, i put mine on the lift and the rear boot area, sills and front slam panel were rusted badly much worse than the old 305s, the front slam panel is particualrly bad very little good metal holding it there so check this over.

[annie]

thanks.. i idint know they rusted that badly..

[GingerMagic]

Hi Annie, my Dad had a red 405 estate - diesel of course. It was an older XUD ( 1870cc ) and it was a beauty. He was a mechanic so it wanted for nothing, it went from Christchurch to Stoke Manderville once a week, Scotland three or four times a year too.
The speedo broke at around 225K, and wasn't fixed 5 years later so heaven knows how many miles were on it.
It was comfortable, relatively well spec'd and the only thing wrong with it was a saggy headlining.

It was passed to my Bro-in-Law when Dad died, and it was never the same and then binned a few years later - I wish I kept it

[Doggy]

My bro had an M-reg 1.9 TD estate, fairly posh one - a GTX, I think. He had it for a few years and really liked it after initial glow plug / starting issues. Ran it on veg too.
It got rear ended by some muppet in a Seat Leon and was written off.

[PeterN]

I had a TD estate some years ago, very nice car except for the seats which were very uncomfortable for me but that was only on the last model, some of the earlier ones were fine. I bought several of these cars for other people, I reckon they were the best value for money used car you could get at the time, they have now been replaced by the 406.

There used to be lots of them about in the west country and there still are a few and they still look in pretty good condition. Nearly all estates though and diesel, rarely saw a saloon down here.

Peter

[annie]

the 405estate seems a lot bulkier and less pretty than the 406 but the 405 saloon could be made to look cool, a little lower maybe

[PeterN]

More useful though.

Peter

[Doggy]

Estates seem to age more gracefully too.

[annie]

i think pininfarina got it right with the 405 saloon and spot on with the 406 saloon and estate.. not sure on 405 chunkier looking rear end but it would fit my lifestyle having another estate.

we have new cars but its cheaper to run an old 406 estate than rip or damage the interior of the new cars. 405 estate with attidtude as my 17yr old would say...

[PeterN]

I wouldn't buy anything newer than my 406 Hdi estate, it does everything I want it to do and costs peanuts to run compared with a modern car. Tax is cheap, insurance is cheap and at 50-60mpg it doesn't cost a lot in fuel either and its bigger inside than most newer estates. I have a C5 with the same running gear, even bigger than the 406 and a nice ride but I still prefer the 406 and do about 10k miles per year in it. Its done nearly 240k miles and nothing serious has gone wrong yet - I will probably wish I hadn't said that.

Peter

[annie]

ive been through my 406 now and every problem bar the new rear engine mount has been solved.. ive done 2 miles in the last 8 weeks and averaged 50mpg with aircon never switched off.

my eyes are being drawn by other 406 estates esp. a nice 2.2hdi exexutive with all the toys but it would all have to work as the aircon is something i wont compromise on...seen a nice looking exex on ebay i may start a thread on for advice.


ive made 7 calls today about 405 sallons and estates and they are mostly trouble in disguise, where as if i get a cheap one like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151738046230? ... EBIDX%3AIT

will keep mine but get this asanother project now mine is nearly done..