My Peugeot 'Merde-mobile' drove me nuts today...

I have a Peugeot 1007 and today it scared me silly. You know those aircraft disaster documentaries when a warning light comes on in the cockpit, then the Fire Warning and Master Alarm lights, then every other warning light comes on and things go downhill rapidly from there? I had one of those.

I was heading to work on the M60 and it was raining, I was in the inside lane doing 55 to 60 when all of a sudden I heard a beep go off three times, usually a sign that something's not quite right, although I thought it was reminding me that a service is due.

A message on the screen in the dash suddenly flashed up 'Auto Gearbox Fault Warning' and this was quickly followed in succession by 'ABS Fault Warning', 'ESP Fault Warning', then 'Airbag Fault Warning', the radio went off, the Battery Warning light began flashing and then the dash lit up like a Christmas tree, just about every single warning light was on!!

I started to panic and thought "So what's left on this car that IS working!!" and knew that I needed to get off the motorway fast. I came off at the junction that I normally do, but the car didn't make it fully up the off ramp before it spluttered and died. ARRGGHHH!! It wouldn't start and I couldn't get the Tiptronic gearbox into Neutral to restart it, my heart sank.

There I was, blocking the middle lane of the Denton Island off-ramp, about 40 feet from the traffic lights at the top. I put my hazard warning lights on (about the only thing that was still working at that time) on and rang the emergency rescue; meanwhile, the rush-hour traffic was going majorly sick at me, for blocking the ramp - it's not like I did it deliberately, fer Gawd's sake.

The leftmost lane of the off-ramp was coned off, as they are doing road works on the filter lane to Hyde Road and while I waited, I was thinking of trying to push it over to the left and get inside the coned-off area. Coincidentally, another car broke down on the off ramp with clutch cable trouble and I was able to get him and his friends in the car to help me push it into the coned area and unblock the ramp.

The Highway Agency guys eventually turned up and I explained that my car seemed to be electrically just about dead, not good for a semi-automatic with a Tiptronic gearbox. they kindly towed me off the ramp and onto Hyde Road and after having thanked them, I rang the wife, to ask her to bring my spare car battery out to me.

I fitted the battery and the car started, so I continued on my way to work. I had got to the last corner before turning onto the street where my work is when it did it again!! I just managed to coast onto the car park at work and park up. Not good.

I asked the engineers at work to loan me a battery charger and I charged both batteries during the day, hoping that both would get me home and I could spend more time diagnosing the problem. Everything pointed to a broken alternator, so I was dreading driving home and maybe having to swap batteries on the way.

The weather cleared up during the day and by the time I left work, it was sunny and dry. My car drove home perfectly fine with no warning lights or error messages whatsoever and I would have expected a Battery Warning light at idle, if the alternator had gone to meet it's maker. Not a peep, it drove home perfectly.

This just underlines my thoughts about French car electrics and some of the 'interesting' ideas that they have .

I think I'll replace the battery, but I can only conclude at this point that damp in the electrical system, together with a run down battery was the cause of my problems this morning.

The 'joys of motoring', eh? Yeah, right.

 

yeah, erm peugoets........
kind of a common fault that used to come in when i worked in halfrauds. only fix... get rid of it or pay somebody like me £500.
new battery, depending on your mileage... maybe an alternator at some point and wd40 some of the connections that are exposed underneath. its water getting into the system.

we had the 307 ? a while ago as the family motor. never again. were sticking to fords, vauxhalls and hondas now lol

 

I hate modern cars with electronics. All lights lit up on the dashboard is in some ways reassuring. it means 'there is nothing mechanically wrong. But I have developed embryonic artificial intelligence. Now you will push me'.

 

It gets even better, NOT. We've tested the battery and that's OK, it's the alternator that's fookerised. I checked on the DVLA website's 'How Many Are Left' and it seems that Peugeot only sold about 7,500 of the 1007s, not enough for even Haynes to get out of bed to make a workshop manual for it - about 7,200 are still on the road. I'm having to charge the battery all night at home and all day at work just to get there and back every day .

I rang a local parts dealer/breaker, Pugbitz and they aren't sure which model of alternator is on the car or even how to remove it from this model of car, as they've never done the job and aren't 100% sure if they have one to fit it.

So, my bag of French 'Merde' is potentially 'An appreciating classic' and is turning into a money pit. I think it's time that I parted company with it, once I've dragged it through an MOT in May. This is a car that was worth 13 large new, but Peugeot couldn't sell them and I bought mine for 8 grand seven years ago and it's probably worth 2 grand absolute tops now; it's depreciated faster than the Ugandan Shilling...

 

So, I changed the Alternator for a reconditioned one today. Back in the 1980s, this took about ten to fifteen minutes on a Mk. 2 Ford Escort; you'd think today that it would take a similar amount of time, right?

Wrong! This is the sequence of events that I've had to endure today to change the Alternator over.

• Jack the car up
• Remove the front driver's side wheel
• Remove the wheel arch liner
• Hunt around to find a 16mm socket to back off the belt tensioner
• Remove the auxiliary belt from the Aircon Unit and Alternator
• Disconnect the battery
• Remove two mounting bolts holding the Alternator on through the driver's side wheel arch.
• Struggle to remove the third Alternator mounting bolt, that can't really be seen as it's above the starter motor. The clearance is such that you can't get a ratchet wrench onto the socket, so I had to use a spanner to undo the bolt - luckily the socket had a nut end to allow this.
• Spray all fittings with WD-40, as they all looked corroded and probably wouldn't let go easily
• Disconnect the Alternator wiring
• Struggle for half an hour, skinning my knuckles and swearing trying to remove the Alternator from above, as there was no way to remove it from below due to the starter motor
• Change of plan. Fetch an axle stand, place that under the engine then loosen the driver's side engine mounting and lower the car to tilt the engine slightly, to create more clearance to get the Alternator out
• Success!!
• Time for a quick brew and a think before Round 2
• Change over the mounting peg to the new Alternator (the new one didn't come with One but it unbolts easily)
• Fit the new Alternator and bolt it back in
• Raise the car back up to refit the engine mounting bolts and remove the axle stand
• Struggle to refit the hidden third Alternator mounting bolt then reconnect the wiring
• Refit the Auxiliary belt
• Refit the wheel arch liner
• Refit the driver's side front wheel
• Reconnect the battery
• Finished!!

All told, from start to finish, this job took about three hours. I maybe could have done it quicker, but there's no workshop manual for my car so I had to 'Freestyle' how to do it.

I dread to think what the Peugeot stealer would have charged me to do this, maybe about £120.

They call this progress?

 

ARRRRGHHHHHH!!!! :

This car is giving me the red mist!! I've changed the alternator, then I've fitted a new battery. Following this I did the recommended battery reset procedure, I ran Peugeot diagnostic software on it and read then cleared out all of the error codes, most of which were "Low Voltage Error" for various bits of hardware - thanks, Captain Obvious!!

I'm now over £100 in the hole with this and no further forward. The car started with the battery warning light on the way home tonight and really started going off on one just as I arrived home. I've got the battery on charge overnight, ready for tomorrow but this fault is really starting to get to me. The engine 'mis-management' isn't charging the battery properly and I'm tempted to hot wire the digital signal wire high to energise the coils all the time.

Some Peugeot alternators have a freewheeling clutch in them so that they don't spin down so quickly when the engine revs drop but I don't think the one I have has one. I'm going to get the old alternator tested later this week and I suspect that it's not defective.

If it's an ECU or a BSI fault, then things are going to get very expensive very quickly and this might be a show-stopper, as I can't afford to repair the car if it turns into a money pit and it's starting to look that way.

 

If you were closer id offer to load a van up with diagnostic equiptment and shit tons of tools, i was talking to my boss today about the problem your having and hes had a car in before with a similar issue, ended up being stripped for spares and sold on ebay.
strip the alternator down if you can and take a look at the freewheeling clutch, failing that look for another peugoet in a breakers yard or on ebay that may have an alternator that will fit that you know works, if that fails id be looking at sensors, wiring and the ECU. the ECU might be bad and telling itself, oh shit noooo theres not enough electric noooo lets send the car fucking nuts. i hate peugoets with a passion now.
have you got use of the actual peugoet diagnostic equiptment and not just the halfords stuff?

 

Big hammer?

 

I have the Peugeot Planet 2000 and Diagbox software and the Lexia 3 lead. So far, I've not seen any error codes that throw me a clue apart from loads of 'Low Voltage Error' messages (thanks, Captain Obvious).

I've cheked the earth connections tonight and only one looked slightly suspect so that was cleaned up. The rest look OK. I'm charging the battery for tomorrow morning at the moment, so I'll run the diagnostics later in the week when I know the car has a full battery.

The place that sold me the recon alternator is going to test my old one on Friday. If my old one checks out OK, then I'll put the old one back on as the recon one is noisy, possibly bearing noise.

 

I took my old alternator to the reconditioning company that sold the recon one to me this afternoon and they tested it for me free of charge (pardon the pun).

It turns out that the original alternator had a burned out rectifier and regulator, presumably from trying to keep up with the car's electrics as the old battery died. They told me that it was highly unlikely that it had damaged the ECU and that's a big relief. I told them to keep it and recondition it for someone else, as that is what they do and it was not much use to me in a broken state.

I mentioned to them that the recon one they sold me was noisy, it was struggling to keep the battery charged and was making a pronounced whirring noise. Then they guy went back into the stores and came out with a brand new Valeo alternator!!

All I have to do now is swap them over and given them the recon one back - no problem..

I just want to say a BIG thanks to QX Components in Urmston, for going the extra mile to help me. They have won a loyal customer for electrical bits in the future.

 

I couldn't fit the alternator last weekend as it rained both days. I have finally fitted the new one. The fitting time came down to two hours and the new alternator is fitted. It took a bit more wrangling and adjusting the engine height, as well as removing the exhaust heat shield, as the new alternator is quite a lot larger then the old one . I am now re-charging the battery ready for Monday.

 

Then what happened????

 

I did, but I just need answers