I'm back!

[mjb]

Germany
Oh yes, autobahns - the speed limit on the sat nav disappears because THERE ISN'T ONE When I was a lad I'd have gone bananas at that, standing on the throttle until I reached my destination or the engine exploded

It's not that exciting... There's only a few places where you can properly open a car up, and only at certain times of the day...

There were a fair few roadworks, mostly on the bits where there are three lanes each way. They divide the remaining half of the carriageway into 4 lanes - two each way, with either armco or concrete blocks down the middle. The lanes aren't that wide to start off with, even narrower divided up this way - I saw a sign saying the overtaking lane is 2 meters wide, so getting past lorries is a bit of a challenge what with the lorries wandering about and the row of concrete blocks not exactly straight it feels like a video game where you have to get through a maze without being squished. For real At one point I was pontificating getting past 3 lorries when an Audi came up behind me, so I felt like I had no alternative than to go for it. After I'd made it past I looked behind to see the Audi still picking his moment to get past the first. Pussy

I know those all too well, and in a RHD car it can get quite "interesting" as you find yourself ignoring what's in front of you and staring at the 2" gap between the passenger mirror and the barrier, while having your foot planted to get past the trucks as quickly as possible Wish they'd lay those barriers a bit straighter...

Btw a tip for the service stations - you have to pay 0.70€ for the bogs but you get a 0.50€ coupon for coffee. A bit of a bluddy nuisance if you want to have a slash just before you leave

Ah, but have you seen the awesomeness of the porcelain thrones? After you move away from them, they start whirring as they AUTOMATICALLY CLEAN THE SEAT!!!

Belgium
Sloppy driving central - they don't actually seem to be thinking at all.

Antwerp ring road, south of the Kennedy Tunnel. You don't want to be driving a car there if the cost for bodywork repairs has to come out of your own wallet...

France
It's still there. The ferry terminal at Dunkirk was a bit weird, it seems like you're heading off into waste land, the sat nav says they are roads everywhere but it's hard to see them because there's no buildings or anything. Finally, just as I was beginning to think the sat nav had gone mad, the terminal appeared.

Yeah, it's awful

The Ferry
I've not actually done much on ferries, the only other time I took my own vehicle on one it was the Transit I drove out to Croatia in, and then there were three of us. This time I was on my own (sort of...) and I was rather anxious. I spent two hours wondering how hard I'd put the handbrake on, worrying that it was spending the whole voyage smashing into the cars parked in front and behind it and was very relieved to find it undamaged when we got to Dover. On the way back I made damn sure it was on really hard and left it in gear too.

Don't forget the alarm schtum button as well next time

The Car
The only thing that's not working are the heaters

Give up now.

What's that red light for?
About 100km from our hotel in Regensburg, Germany, I had the coolant warning light come on the dash.

The light will have been the low coolant light, not the over temperature light (comes on about 120c iirc), so you could have found a better place to stop The side of the autobahn's a really f***ing scary place to be isn't it? I ended up on it last year after my throttle jammed wide open (spare a thought for my poor smoking brake pads as I was doing well over 100 when it went...).

I've lost the bleed cap on all 4 petrol 406s I've messed with, and replaced them all with tyre valve covers without a problem, even though as you say it feels like the thread's about to give way on 'em, they still hold. If your mate did put your cap back on properly, it might be worth grabbing a new expansion tank cap if pressure was allowed to build up enough to pop it, and be glad it wasn't a rusty patch on your radiator that went instead

With the light coming back on, chances are it was due to the thermostat (gone cold with no coolant heating it) opening letting all your water into the radiator

[steve_earwig]

My car doesn't have an alarm on it I knew it was the coolant level light but I felt safe so long as the temp stayed normal, I didn't fancy stopping on the hard shoulder of an autobahn and I was hoping for a rest stop or something so I could look at it in safety. However, when the temp started to go up I realised it needed immediate investigation, which is how I came to end up on the hard shoulder of two autobahns

I didn't experience the bogs, my wife gave them a glowing report though

I dunno what's up with the seat heaters, I guess it's just the switches not pushed fully home, rather than something needing to be configured. They test fine, just no power. Anyway, if the worst comes to the worst, I'll just run my own feed to the switches.

[steve_earwig]

I've just remembered, I was going to say how many 406s I saw on the roads. So,

Slimevenia - zero
Austria - zero
Germany - 1
Belgium - 1 (a banged up coupé)
France - 6
GB - zillions of the buggers.

Also, while I was going back through Germany I saw a few lorries full of 508s going the other way. From where exactly, and why where they all white??

[Doggy]

while I was going back through Germany I saw a few lorries full of 508s going the other way. From where exactly,

Trnava?

and why where they all white??

Only part baked?

[steve_earwig]

Trnava?

Interesting, I suppose it's obvious that PSA would farm out its work to countries where the labour is cheaper, just like everyone else It just seemed odd they should be heading towards France...

SOmeone's fleet I guess, I didn't get close enough to see what side they had the steering wheel on though...

[waue1978]

He'd probably just tried to deliver them, but got turned away because he missed his booking time & was now heading home.

[sirwiggum]

Saw my first 508 today. An SW - in white.

A dealer demonstrator, driving along the A55 outer ring in Belfast.

First thoughts, from the side when I saw it I thought it was some sort of Merc. From the back its quite tidy, didn't see the front though.

[steve_earwig]

It's still got a touch of the blobfish about it but not as bad as some recent Pug abominations.

[sirwiggum]

It's starting to get back to clean Pug designs. Maybe the facelift in a few years time will look slightly better.

[highlander]

Still wish they'd send one to Pininfarina and ask them to have a go at making a Coupe

[FarmerPug]

on the ad its a bit blobfish but the worst of the blobfish designs was the 308 especially the convertable. your right they should get pininfarina to do a bit of designing for them again.
the new c5 which ive seen a few off look great.
i seen 3 nissan jukes in a row on the road, i lost my appetite for a week.

[highlander]

the worst of the blobfish designs was the 308

Which is what they based the RCZ on, oddly. I mean it's exactly the same front-end - most unfortunately.

I moaned about how ugly the nose of the RCZ is over at the 406 Coupe Club forums and somebody told me the RCZ was amazing and I must be mental

[FarmerPug]

your not mental at all i agree.
the rcz viewed from the side is a nice looking car, but from the front its like the jaguar s class, a disaster.

[teamster1975]

That was an epic read, thanks for sharing Steve!
Top marks to doggy on our personality profiles

[steve_earwig]

I found one problem when I had the seats out, I thought I'd have a look at this troublesome lift pump and I found:

Further investigation required

I finally got around to sorting this (after driving around for a couple of months only putting 100Kn's worth in at a time )

You will need:
2 people and a 2 post lift

I thought I'd have a crack at this yesterday, I've read some that say the pump will go through the hole, some that say it won't but now I'm in a better position to tell you categorically - the locking ring will not go through the hole, no how, no way. I had to get it all back together again so I could drive the car and the locking ring is a pain to put back on right - it took me about an hour and it was even a pig to put back together with the tank sitting on the ground.

And there is absolutely no way you can change the seal because it has to line up on the edge, which you can't see with the tank in situ.

I know you can make the hole bigger but I'm not keen on doing that to my car:

I still think you'd have trouble getting the seal to sit in there right.

So this morning I've been to the new workshop and tried out one of the new lifts You have to shift the handbrake cable (undo the adjuster and dislocate the join on the r/h cable), shift the exhaust (pull off the rubber mountings and leave it hanging on something - an old timing belt is ideal ), undo the filler pipe (the clamp really does unclip), hold the tank up while a second person undoes all the bolts, undo the connections and unclip the pipes from the tank, then lower it to the ground. Enjoy the feeling of diesel running down your arm while you're at it - it really didn't help that my gauge is rubbish (par for the course on an HDI it seems) so the tank wasn't anywhere near as empty as the gauge said

You will need two people with chisel-ended screwdrivers to hammer the locking ring round. Both ways

Have some pickies: