General Restoration.

[Hawker]

Hello Everybody,

This is my first time posting on the forum, joined today!! I live in France and have a fantastic 406 3ltr V6 red leather interior model, and I just wanted to find out if there is anywhere in England that I can take my car for a full re-manufacture? To explain, I bought the car in 2006 with 100,00kms on the clock and have used ever since for my journey to work in Bordeaux 80 kms away, 3 times a month. The car has been 100% reliable since then and now has 210,000, never letting me down - in fact the only time it did was when the battery died on me one early morning. But that's it - nothing since. I have been so impressed with its reliability, and with an auto box! I was getting a little concerned with its future and decided to sell it while the going was good, but nobody wanted it even for €1500.00!!!!! I bought a Jaguar XKR to replace the 406 but you know what......... It's not so comfortable and the bloody thing is so noisy- it's got some sort of stainless steel 'boy racer' exhaust that gets on my ear Hole!!!! So with the 406 sitting on the garage for about 6 months I decided to see if it was still working. I turned the key and it fired first time!!! What a car!!!!

So I have decided to keep it and give a full restoration/remanufacture and here's my question; Do any of you guys know of a company that can give the Full Monty restoration. It need a full respray, brakes, discs, and a timing belt and a few other minor things, BUT I want it done in England, as the French (bless their little cottons) do not have a feel for this kind of thing. Any suggestions would be very well appreciated!!

A very enthusiastic 406 owner!!!!!!

[dirtydirtydiesel]

Faircharm Restorations in Leicestershire are very, very good but it'll cost you loads & loads

www.faircharm.co.uk

[piglet]

Look at it another way.
What was the price of that car when new?
Allow for inflation and you probably have a sum between 20K & 30K GBP.
What level of restoration can one get for the new price of a car?

[Welly]

To the OP (welcome) I would think you'd struggle to find anyone with the relevant knowledge and experience to fully restore a 406, simply because I fail to see a market for it. Don't get me wrong the 406 is a very good car but it was never going to be put on a pedestal and admired/collected, it was made to be used and as you've found it is (was) good at it.

I think you would have to manage your own restoration using specialists but you will have to do all the running.

The beginning of a VERY long list could included:

engine refurb (head and valves reconditioned, new oil pump, re-honing bores and new rings etc)
suspension strip down, sandblast and new paint
new suspension links, dampers, etc
Gearbox refurb and new clutch
car body inspection and repair any corrosion
new paint
oh gees the list goes on

Or why not see how many miles (KMs) you can achieve with the car as it stands with just routine maintenance?

I've seen 'fully restored' cars before and, to me anyway, they never quite seem to look 'factory fresh' for some reason. The risk also is that if you did spend big dollar on the car then would you want to actually use it everyday?

[PeterN]

I would agree that the 406 is probably the best car Peugeot have made, especially the diesel, but as has already been stated they are not worth much, I bought the ones I have now which are both diesels for £400 and £350 respectively and there are still quite a few available and even immaculate examples don't make much over £1000.

If I were you I would just keep running it and pay for necessary repairs as you go along, it will be very much cheaper than refurbishing it, which in itself will not necessarily make it any more reliable The part which needs most looking after will be the auto box, the manuals usually last the life of the car but not usually the autos so get the oil changed regularly.

Peter