Peugeot Forums banner

My 407 (project probably)

12K views 54 replies 8 participants last post by  BigSlavey 
#1 · (Edited)
Ok so this weekend, hopefully I'll be getting myself a 56 plate 2.0 HDi 135 407 sw - SE model in Black metallic (probably Obsidian EXL - that's the common black met. from my experience).

I say it'll probably be a project because it's a Cat-D write off which I'm buying from a guy I know through work (he bought it to repair and sell on but he's happy to sell it to be as is which will save me a lump)

Car needs a new o/s headlamp, o/s wing and front bumper, and there is a repair to do on the o/s/f door (not caused by the original accident - caused by some muppet pushing the door open too far and going into the damaged wing). No suspension or airbag issues - car starts and drives just fine. There are a couple minor dents on the tailgate which I'll also be sorting out, and there's a small amount of moisture and a tiny crack in the o/s/r lamp so that'll also go on the to-do list.

On the plus side - the car is coming with all the parts needed :D included in the price - like I said, he was going to fix it himself.

Car will definitely need a VIC check and taxing, and probably an MOT. I already have everything I need except the actual paint for the repairs which I'll do the majority of myself with mates doing the little bits I can't.

So in summary, late 06 car, below 80k (76 I think) and I'm looking at £2350, plus £41 for the VIC, £30 for an MOT, £90 for the tax and £15 for some basecoat. OTR for £2.5k (instead of the £3k he was thinking for it fixed). Every car I've found of a similar spec on ebay or autotrader has been close to £4k - seems the mileage being below 100k is something of a rarity - not surprising with the RepMobile popularity of these SW's....

Aiming to have her on the road in time to tax at the start of next month, then I'll wave my 306 estate a farewell (probably after a quick MOT which will require a couple anti-roll bars and ball joints to get through)

Before I go dive into this, any thoughts/suggestions/ideas from you guys?
 
See less See more
#3 ·
Not quite as simple as it used to be with the whole Cat D Cat C thing - now it comes down to the insurance company - if they inform the DVLA that a car has been written off, irrespective of category, the DVLA puts a VIC marker on it - after all, why not - it's £41 for as little as 5 minutes work - more road tax effectively.... I know it used to be a case of Cat D - no test, Cat C - sometimes a test etc but things they are a-changing (apparently)

I've already checked with the DVLA and it definitely needs a VIC test

As for the 306 - it's the 1.9D non-turbo and the lack of power is driving me nuts - recently had a new baby and when me, the wife, my 16 year old and the baby are in the car, along with a half-bootful, I'm ending up in 3rd on hills, never mind 4th...
 
#4 ·
WRONG only cat C needs vic test i put 2 back on road this month

1cat C 1 cat D

cat C vic marker vic test required

Cat D no vic marker but no v5 so you need to tax at dvla local office and pay for v5 £25

If yours has a marker then its cat C

I would STILL keep the 306 :)
 
#5 ·
What do you know - just threw £3 at mycarcheck and it IS Cat C. Doesn't really change anything from my personal point of view - I saw the car straight off of the transporter from the Salvage yard and to be honest I thought it was a joke that they wrote it off at all, and a big part of my job is insurance estimates at the body shop - seriously I'd have quoted £350 labour and £200 paint & materials for the job (and that's being a little greedy) - add maybe a grand for parts and the car would have been back on the road, fixed to a high standard for about £1600 (allowing a bit for misc etc) - the insurance company paid out £4400 for the car and I know the guy I'm buying it from paid about £1600 for it so someone make a mistake somewhere!

If I was buying the car to sell on I'd be a little more concerned about the value but I'm buying it to keep - need something I can semi-depend on to last me 4-5 years (which I'm almost certain the 02-02 306 won't do) till I move abroad.
 
#6 ·

I'm thinking the car spent 6 months with a hire company (only people I can think of who do 6 month leases then return the cars to the dealers) - then the next owner kept it till he crashed it. It's immaculate inside, all the toys work and it starts with no problems whatsoever so there's still a pretty good chance this'll be the daily driver come April :)
 
#8 ·
People worry to much about write offs not all are wrecks

M 04 clio dci had a bashed door

my subaru had a scraped bumper none were wrecks by any means both cost less than £500 on the road both are reliable

more reliable than some of the newer stuff on here :)
 
#11 ·
Thats your opinion and your welcome to it makes no difference to me 3/4 of all my cars are write offs none have been troublesome all have run true as you call it :)

Car i just retired was bought with a sore face 5 years ago had 400k miles on it when finaly retired it is tired yes but thats miles not damage that caused its retirement

Insurance companies write cars off for nothing nowadays as its cheaper in long run for them due to high repair costs

its all down to ££££££ nothing to do with whether its bent like a banana or not

I have a rover 75 diesel here 95000 miles written of not because it was badly damaged no you can hardly notice the damage probably because part was no longer available car drives lovely
 
#10 ·
I'm not too worried about the accident damage - I saw the car with the damaged parts removed and there's literally a half inch bend in the end of the front bumper reinforcer, and one of the wing brackets was bent (went back into shape by hand, almost no force).

Looking on autotrader, I can't find anything like what you suggest - 2.5k seems to either get you 100k+ miles or 04/54 plates at best. Course autotrader definitely isn't the only place to buy a car but it's usually a half-decent representation of prices/spec.
 
#15 ·
I did a load of digging on the 1.6 initially - and to be honest, as long as they get 5w40 every time they get oil, they go pretty much forever - too many people just grab a gallon of 10w40 and it burns and clogs the filter on the turbo's oil pickup pipe. Once it kills one turbo, chances are it'll kill every one you replace it with unless you spend a small fortune on a total engine de-coke and rebuild - even following the instructions to replace the pickup pipe and filters etc etc can't guarantee anything.

Every time I see one with "Brand new turbo just fitted" I think, yup, that's one to avoid....

I was worried about the insurance jump - my 306 is the 69hp 1.9D and the 2.0HDI at 135hp had me worried about a big hike but it isn't as bad as I expected and I'm fairly sure the better mpg will more than cover the extra insurance....
 
#16 ·
It will be quieter not sure about using less fuel though

1.6 is a victim of its own popularity as you say poor maintenance takes its toll

110hp from a tiny turbo is asking for trouble though my subaru is 260hp with 2 turbos and they are both bigger than the 1.6 one :)
 
#17 ·
I've heard a remap and DPF removal can get a decent HP upgrade as well as better MPG - to be honest, I'm not too bothered about the extra power - I imagine going from 69 (well 69 at the factory - probably low-mid 50's now) to 135 will be enough of a step up - I'm not particularly interested in going fast....
 
#18 ·
The 2 litre is the same as our taxis and its plenty fast enough they can suffer cam belt failures though so budget for that its not a terribly hard job though

our taxis do not have dpf though the 2 brand new ones with euro 5 engines do have it that will be fun changing glowplugs etc when they start playing up :(
 
#19 ·
Actually I don't know if this car has a dpf or not - I think it probably does but I know there are some out there without - won't matter in the short term - my driving habits are pretty much perfect for DPF maintenance anyway - I never drive less than 15 mins, and 4 times a week I have a 15 mile each way motorway run when I go to a neighbouring town to pick up/drop off my son
 
#20 ·
first hello and welcome :cool:
now to the original questions, i dont think you've got it very cheap but you havnt paid too much over the top either, bearing in mind if/when you come to sell it people will be put off that its been a write off previously.Have you got any pictures of the original damage, if so i would keep them so you can show potential buyers that it 'wasnt that bad'. In December i paid 2700 for a 2006 saloon 2.0 hdi with 68,000 in good condition.

if yours is a late 56 it should have the upgraded balljoints so the shouldnt give problems, same with the fading MFD other than that you sound fairly clued up so enjoy your car, and i wouldnt even consider a remap its not needed on the 2.0 i'm on my second and theres plenty of power in them. Have you got any pic's of the car as it is now so we can assess the damage for ourselves?
oh nearly forgot, which bit of Tyne & Wear you in ?? I'm in South Shields
 
#22 ·
I'm in Sunderland, but I'm from South Shields. I'm going to try to get some pics if I can later on - depends on if the seller is working today or not. As for late 56 - the car was first registered in November of 06 so she's fairly pretty much bang in the middle of the Sep-Feb period covered by the 56 plate so fingers crossed on the ball joint issue.

I know the car already has the replacement wing fitted so original damage pics might be a problem but I'll see what I can do.

As things stand, my wife and I are planning (sorta) to move to the USA in about 4 years and that's one of the reasons for the purchase - I'm fairly confident that this car will easily last me until then whereas I'm not confident that the 306 has another 4-5 years in it without spending WAY too much on the ongoing repairs which have started to crop up (and frankly I'm sick of using the accelerator pedal like an on-off switch - foot is to the floor pretty much everywhere with it being so flat).

As for the remap - it wasn't REALLY about the power (course it wouldn't hurt heh) - I've read it adds lumps of torque and really smooths out the power delivery too, and shaves a little off of the thirst too.
 
#23 ·
As for the remap - it wasn't REALLY about the power (course it wouldn't hurt heh) - I've read it adds lumps of torque and really smooths out the power delivery too, and shaves a little off of the thirst too.
theres oodles of Torque on the 2.0 as it stands (have you driven one yet?)
and the DMF is a bit suspect on these so i wouldnt want to put any extra pressure on it and as for mpg i get a reasonable figure. as for smoothness mine pulls smoothly from 1k rpm right through but if its not smooth a egr blanking plate can be bought for about £3 which helps with that
 
#24 ·
Ok well remember heh - you asked for it - PICS :p

Lets start outside....




Have to say, those taillights look like they're desperately in need of a tint (not black but a tint) and there isn't a mark on the wheels - someone was careful with the curbs!

Whups - 4 image limit - might be a few posts here....
 
#25 ·
On to the dashboard...


Gotta be £50 worth of Diesel in there!!



MP3, Bluetooth etc - date is wrong but I imagine the car has had the battery off at some point


I don't like the look of this - hate obviously bolted on stuff....
 
#26 ·
And the bad bits...


Odd bump on the n/s headlamp - not a chip - it's actually a high spot - hopefully will sand and polish off. Very minor dent on n/s wing - dent removal guy should be able to get that. Even smaller dent on the tailgate which is too sharp for dent removal - will need repair and paint. Crack in the replacement front bumper - 5 mins of plastic welding should get rid of that followed by repair & paint.


This should give an idea of how hard the car was hit (or rather how not hard) - there's little more than a scrape on the corner of the bumper support.


Crack in the corner and scratches along the side of the old headlamp - again I think this points to how minor a bump this was as the headlamp pretty much took the worst of it.



Damn crack in the taillight is letting water in so it'll have to be replaced - not cheap either - £60+ seems to be the norm... Not a priority though - no white light showing so not an MOT issue but I don't want the water doing any more damage inside so it'll have to be done​

I have a few more pics but they don't show much more - car has auto lights, auto wipers, cruise control, and the sunroof doesn't close properly - seems jammed at the back as the electrical part of it is fine.

I did notice the car has the 2 lever centre armrest so I might also have a squeaky one heh.

Regarding the lower ball joints - is it possible to tell from a look if its the old or new - I got a couple pics but dont want to bother posting them unless it'll help...
 
#27 ·
looks like a tidy motor or will be when its finished and polished, see thats why i asked for pictures because without them a damaged panel can be anything from a scratch to something like this


theres a gadget thing on amazon/ebay at the moment that people are raving about for getting rid of dents etc might be worth looking into

As for the balljoints any sign of rust is a sure sign there knackered look at the pic here
http://www.peugeotforums.com/forums/407-41/407-lower-balljoint-replacement-13760/
 
#28 ·
Ok so here's your original pic...



And here are the best two pics I got under the car - not perfect because I wasn't actually looking - just held the camera under there and took a dozen or so pics until I was relatively sure I'd got something heh... Taken from in front of the wheels and I'm thinking taking them from behind the wheels under the doors might have been (in hindsight) a better idea...




The pics certainly LOOK a lot cleaner but I don't really know what I'm looking for (other than a lack of orange dust!)
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top