Renovating a house takes a lot of time and leaves little time for a blog. However, here are a few moments of reflection over what appears to be a year of no posts!
Peugeot 206
OK. talked about that in the previous post. Rear suspension failure.
Clio 2
Quite a few things happened to our 2001 Clio 2. Mostly electrical which seems to be the Achilles heal of the Clio. Learnt that damp is the enemy. They begin to leak water a bit and get wet inside.
ECU suffers from damp
This affects the rather basic ECU causing corrosion. If you get weird faults then take this apart and clean off any corrosion on the circuit board. Our fault was hazard warning lights coming on randomly. Even at night which flattened the battery. The corrosion might seem insignificant but it's not. And fix the leaks and then the Va Va Voom will return!
Fan motor stopped
The Clio also suffered from another water related problem. The fan stopped working. The problem was the engine compartment drainage hole located beneath the fan motor had become blocked by leaves and the motor was sitting in a pool of water. Some corrosion damage had occured but a good clean got it working again!
BMW320D
The BMW 320D soldiers on. A great car and still going without the swirl flaps.
Radiator flaps not working
The venetian blind flaps that regulate the air flow through the radiator have now stopped working. This uses the same type of electronic vacuum valve (Part no 11747810831) that the swirl flaps use so it's more or less answered my question on the swirl flaps. That is, is it the swirl flap valve or actuator that has failed? It looks like the electronic vacuum valve that is the culprit so I need to buy 2.
Air bag seat sensor failure and work around
Another problem was the air bag warning light which was coming on causing a potential problem for the MOT (not to mention safety!). Thanks to a fantastic forum post (sorry didn't save it but a search for seat sensor problems should find it) I found a solution for the MOT saving loads of money by avoiding specialist help. The problem was caused by the seat occupancy sensor which fail. The temporary fix for the MOT is to replace the occupancy sensor with two simple electrical components obtained from Maplin! It tricks the ECU into thinking the sensor is working. It also enables the fault to be confirmed as the problem without the use of an expensive diagnostic tool or specialist.
However, it is only a temporary fix since the seat sensor is there for a reason!
