DD-ing a 15 year old French-Italian coupe for 2.5 years, expensive?

"duurtlang" (duurtlang)
04/19/2015 at 17:11 • Filed to: peugeot 406 coupe, peugeot 406, 406 coupe, duurtlang

My daily driver is a 2000 Peugeot 406 coupe, which I own for 2.5 years now. How expensive has it been? I did these !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but due to a development I thought I needed to post an update.

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Why do I believe I need to post an update? Well, because costs just went up dramatically. It’s not the car’s fault though.

Chronology: I bought the car October first 2012 with 167k km on the odometer.

Until September 2014 I’d spent a total of €1020 on maintenance, very little done by myself. See previous link. No maintenance done between September 2014 and April 2015.

Mid April 2014. The car desperately needed service. It’s at 245k km now, and 240k was a major interval. The bill I got after everything was fixed? €1040. I delivered some of the parts myself, for a total of €110, so the total cost is €1150. Damn it.

What has been done this month?

Filters (oil, air, interior, fuel)

Fluids (motor oil, coolant)

Spark plugs

Radiator (preventative)

Timing belt + water pump + pulley + tensioner

Serpentine belt + pulley + tensioner

Valve cover gasket

Oil cap (it was leaking...)

Exhaust (mid section only)

Door mechanism

Something with the anti-roll bar. I’m not sure about the translation Control arm

A light bulb

The door mechanism broke, meaning the door wouldn’t stay open without me holding the door. Other than that mechanism and maybe the oil cap all of this is expected maintenance for the big 240k interval I guess.

There’s zero rust on the car, despite our road salt during winter. Mechanical condition is astounding, considering the mileage. According to my mechanic.

With almost fully outsourced maintenance I paid a total of €2170 in maintenance for 78k km (48.5k miles, $2350). That’s less than €0.03 a km ($0.05 a mile). In addition I now have a car that won’t be needing any expensive maintenance for a long time. Except summer tires, will need to do all four of those half a year from now.

So tell me Oppo, is this less, about right or more money than expected for a car like this? Especially considering the fact that I outsource most of the work.

Yes I suck at taking pictures. The 205 GTI is my weekend car.

DISCUSSION (23)

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 17:18

It’s not really that bad if it continues to be reliable. My 5 year old Twingo is due a major service that’s in the £500 range in a few months. All cars cost you cash some time.

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 17:27

All your big stuff is done, so I think you’ve just been unlucky with the timing of it all. If she still drives like a champ then you’re good! You wont have any bodywork issues in the near future (yay old Peugeot), and aside from suspension or engine failure, I can’t think much else will haunt you. High five on those rims btw.

duurtlang > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30
04/19/2015 at 17:33

Agreed, save for the tires and a major breakdown I should be safe for another 40k km or more. I drive so many highway kms my brake pads aren’t even half worn. The previous owner was the one who last replaced them...

The wheels are vintage 205 GTI 1.9 wheels. With winter tires. I’ll swap the original starfish wheels with summer tires back on this week. The GTI 1.9 wheels are a bit too narrow for this car though, 185 tires versus the stock 205 or 215 depending on the version. The offset is another 5 mm off.

Schaefft > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 17:34

2 grand for 78k km doesn’t sound bad at all. You could have done half of the things mentioned above yourself so it maybe could have been a bit cheaper. The question is whether the car is worth investing the money. The reason why these cars cars are getting run into the ground at this age is the low market value and lack of emotional connection from its owners. Not expensive to maintain but often not worth it either.

duurtlang > Schaefft
04/19/2015 at 17:38

Exactly. It’s so wasteful. This car can easily reach 400k km, but only if people keep maintaining it like I’m doing here. Market value right now: €2k I guess, so I invested over 50%. I think many people would’ve sold it in stead of having this work done, resulting in cars that aren’t really that worn ending up in the junk yard. It might be logical, I consider it wasteful.

Schaefft > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 17:41

Its even worse here in the UK. Its incredible what cars are showing up in the junkyards on a regular basis. I could buy sub-1 grand E39s and E46s all day long!

duurtlang > Schaefft
04/19/2015 at 17:45

Depreciation in the UK is insane. I’m hearing lots of focus groups talking about durability. They could try to do something about that depreciation, as it’s a huge cause for anti-durable behavior.

Cé hé sin > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 18:17

Older cars cost money I’m afraid. My FTO is on 250,000 km and is worth very little. There’s a bearing going on the a/c compressor, it eats catalysts, the exhaust has been patched rather than replaced, all because it’s not worth putting money into it at this stage.

BATC42 > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 18:24

I do love those wheels!

I think my equally as old Xsara cost me around 1000€ in way less time (excluding regular maintenance). I had to do:

Winter 2013: out of the blue, the ventilation decided to constantly be at full throttle. Had to get it change, went to our local Peugeot garage (the Xsara is basically a 306). Cost: a bit less than 500€.

Early 2013: the previous owner was a cheap bastard, so he cheaped out on the tyres and the brakes. Result I had to change all 4 brake discs and pads. Don’t know why but the calipers springs that old the pads were broken. When I got the car in November 2012, all was in perfect shape. Cost of that, around 400€.

Summer 2013: the AC crapped out on me. Turns out the fluid just needed to ba changed. But it was also not working correctly. Went to Citroën because they had a deal on AC change. They did repair some stuff in the AC compressor to (can’t remember what). Cost me around 80€ all included.

In Winter 2013 I also had to change the front bushings (they had 170,000 km on them), and one of the front control arms. This one might entirely be my fault though (might have went a bit hard on the inside of a corner...). Cost: around 300€.

To that I have to add the 4 winter tyres I got just after buying it (went for some Michelin Alpin 4, because we got a deal on them) to get rid of the crappy chinese tyres that were on. And a few month later I got 4 complete wheels: genuine Citroën alloys and 4 almost new Firestones (with less than 3,000 km on them) for 300€.

I bought the car in November 2012 with 155,000 km and when I left France in February it had around 190,000 km on it.

At least the regular maintenance on it is cheap. Not like my parents car. Because it’s a Passat with a large engine (2.5l V6 TDI) it requires quite a lot of man-hour just to the belt change. We did it a couple times since we got the car, and each time it’s around 1000€ to do....

duurtlang > BATC42
04/19/2015 at 18:29

That’s a lot of money, for a Passat. The 406 has a modest 2.0L engine and a LPG conversion. I do have to add that my mechanic does my car in his spare time, when he charges me €25 an hour. Much more than when I’d do the work myself but much less than what a dealer would charge. Of the €1000 bill about €300 was for his time.

DasWauto > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 19:11

All in all that is perfectly reasonable, especially as most of the work was done by someone else. Just goes to show that one of these cars is no less reliable that any contemporary car when maintained properly.

How is the clutch doing? At that mileage I’d expect wear to become noticeable. Our Mazda3 is at 260k km and while it isn’t slipping yet, the clutch is getting quite high on the pedal and I’m guessing 300k km would be a stretch on that.

Also, I might be able to offer a translation for the anti-roll bar if you write it in Dutch.

BATC42 > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 19:28

That’s nice to know good mechanics. That’s usually what we do too, just sometimes our usual garage is quite busy (their main activity revolves around selling and mounting tyres, so winter time is a pain, because everyone wants winter tyres when it starts snowing....).

Yeah, maintenance on the Passat is quite expensive, but most of it goes away for the hours spent working on it. To change the cam belt (and you change all at the same time), you have get all the front fascia off of the car.

tapzz > Schaefft
04/19/2015 at 19:39

I don’t often look for those, tbh, and I’m certainly no expert, but a sub £1k E39 sounds like bad news waiting to happen. I can see quite a few rusting away on the streets...

tapzz > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 19:44

Sounds a lot better than I expected, tbh. It’s 15 years old and with those kms, and a mechanic doing the work, thats not bad. Do you keep it outside?

BJ > duurtlang
04/19/2015 at 20:58

That 205 is a beautiful machine. I would love to have one, but getting parts here in Canada would be tricky.

duurtlang > DasWauto
04/20/2015 at 01:11

Part of the cause for the condition are my highway kilometres (99%). Like I mentioned in another reply, my brake pads were last replaced by the previous owner, yet they still have half their thread and I’ve driven the car 78k km. My mechanic told me he was thoroughly impressed by the mechanical condition considering the kms.

No problem with the clutch, although the transmission can be a bit moody

duurtlang > tapzz
04/20/2015 at 01:17

Yes, I park it on the street. There’s zero rust on the car itself, although the exhaust did rust through.

duurtlang > BJ
04/20/2015 at 01:20

In 1988? Sure. But nowadays, with the internet? Shipping will take longer and will cost more, but parts availability is good for these. You can get parts from the UK if you’re afraid of a language barrier. The 205 gti is quite popular in the UK.

pip bip - choose Corrour > duurtlang
04/20/2015 at 04:37

quite reasonable really.

Schaefft > tapzz
04/20/2015 at 14:16

Most of them seem to be in good shape, definitely better than what you would get in Germany for twice or more.

Hugh Logie > duurtlang
08/23/2016 at 11:23

I now have one, in Canada. A 2000 2.0 5-speed in Ariane blue (AKA Bleu Riviera) with 146000 km. I absolutely love it. Planning to import a V6/5-speed version from France in the near future. I don’t anticipate problems getting parts despite my poor command of the French language, as support appears to be very good in the UK.

duurtlang > Hugh Logie
08/23/2016 at 11:53

Congrats! Do you get responses from people? Did you import it yourself? If you’d like you should really post a (preferably illustrated) story on Oppositelock about having a ‘recent’ import like this in Canada. I’m quite interested. If you’d like Oppo author privileges I could help.

It’s a great car in my opinion. I now have 278k km on mine. Still faultless really. It’ll have to pass the yearly inspection next Thursday. I did a little pre-inspection myself and couldn’t find any problem, other than one rear license plate light being burnt out. Oh, I do have one issue. The paint is pealing on the front of the hood, due to stone chips.

Mine stopped being a work vehicle around the time I wrote the above, so early 2015. I got a company car then. I only use the 406 for private stuff now. Which means it’s mostly run on highways as I don’t use a car in town. The computer tells me my average speed in the last 9999 km is 88 km/h if I’m not mistaken.

Mechanical parts should be and should stay easy in the UK. Especially with the 2.0, as that’s a very prevalent engine in many PSA cars. Only when it gets to bumpers and the like it could get a bit more troublesome.

I fitted 17" Peugeot 307 wheels earlier this year:

Kinja'd!!!

Hugh Logie > duurtlang
11/02/2016 at 08:23

For some reason I didn’t see your reply until just now. Sorry for taking so long to reply back! I’d be very happy to do a write-up; the story of how I acquired the car is a bit of an adventure and the car itself very nearly wound up being crushed. I inquired about it just in time. The new wheels look fantastic, but I have to say I love the look of those 15" Speedlines on the coupe. I’m thinking about getting a set for my own. Did you have any issues with them or did they just bolt up? Are the offsets close enough to stock that the handling was unaffected? Your car is an absolute stunner and I’m really glad that you are keeping it. With mainly highway miles from this point on, it should last for a very long time and you obviously know how to look after it properly.