406V6

Following on the theme of badly named Volkswagens, who wants to drive something with Toe rag  (*) on the badge ?

 

(*) I may have spelt it wrong

There’s a huge amount of interesting material on the site, especially discussions with industry figures.

What happens going forward is anyone’s guess. I’ve been following the site long enough to remember a couple of occasions like this in the past when Keith lost interest. The first when it was handed over to Craig Cheetham. The second when there was some kind of partnership with the Honest John site. In both cases the site came back to Keith after long enough for him to recover his interest. Lately the site has been in a poor state, though, with numerous crashes, lockups, cookie loops and other woes.

Mine had a speed sensor fault a few years back. The symptom was that the speedo needle would intermittently drop to zero and the mileometer in the trip wouldn’t increment. No error codes generated that I’m aware of.  I had a new speed sensor fitted when it was serviced. The part was widely shared among PSA cars, cheap and easily obtained.

Good choice. I got some of these for the 406 a few months back – all 4. Initially I was disappointed as the general feel of the car was quite coarse and they were noisy. After around a hundred miles they changed character for the better and since then have been quiet and smooth with decent grip and  handling. MPG seemed to improve slightly too compared to the previous Michelin Pilots.

Nissan Tiida anyone ?  Had this one for a few days in Ireland in 2010. OK to drive without being memorable in any way. They weren't sold officially in the UK as far as I know but a few were imported and sold by Arnie Clark.

 

This is fantastic work navigating your way through all the bodgery. If you’re not already familiar with the work of DiagnoseDan on Youtube, it should be right up your street although I don’t think he’s worked on any Jags.

On 12/10/2022 at 1:20 AM, somewhatfoolish said:

Oil temp gauges are pointless on road cars unless they have aircooled engines, it will just follow the water temp.

Have to disagree on this one. My 406 has an oil temp gauge and the oil takes a long time to warm up – at least 15 miles – while the water is warm within a couple of miles. Once up to temp it’s close to the water temperature.

A couple of years ago I made the mistake of taking it to its MOT before it was properly warmed up and it struggled with the emissions part of the test. Now I give it a 10-15 mile run before the test (checked on the oil temp gauge) and it gets through the emissions test without difficulty.

Impressive. Unfortunately the early images are not available – suspect there is some sort of timer on the output space and the images are deleted within a few hours

My car at the time, taken in May 1986.

 

On 9/2/2022 at 6:35 PM, TwyRob said:

Also, the speedo randomly dropped to 0 a few times today within a few mins.

On mine this was a simple fix - new speed sensor (replaced by me garage, not me)

These are good cars - would be a shame to scrap it for minor problems.

Back in around 1994 on holiday in the USA I had a Dynasty as a hire car. Previously I’d mostly had GM hire cars such as the Pontiac Grand Am which always drove fairly well. The styling of the Dodge sets the scene for something that ought to handle like a battleship but actually I thought it drove very well. The (4-cylinder in this case) engine was refined and torquey while the handling was fine on US roads.

I had a new non-turbo MG Metro back in the day and it was great fun to drive on any road apart from the motorway where an Astra 1.3 beat the pants off it. As already said, those bad-mouthing the Metro either haven’t driven one in good shape or have no sense of fun. Despite all this, £7k for a car needing engine work and paint is far too much. If you really really want it, then it’s your money, spend it. I would have thought £3k tops.

On 5/13/2022 at 2:46 PM, inconsistant said:

Nice! From the era when top of the range meant velour, not leather. 

Velour for me instead of leather every day of the week.

I used to examine the company car list like a hawk, and at the time of this car I’m pretty sure that leather was standard on the CD but you could get it deleted for a £1000 credit. This would probably have helped company car taxation based on the list price, although I can't recall 30 years on whether the taxation at this time was based on engine size or list price.

Loving the MG Metro. ❤️

The black car is a Tatra T613: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_613#/media/File:1976TatraT-613-rear.jpg
The beigecar appears to be an NSU Prinz 1000 like this one:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NSU_Prinz_1000_at_Schaffen-Diest_2018_-_Copy.jpg

12 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Is that not an Isuzu 117? The C pillar doesn't look right for a Sunbeam.

Window shape and curved front bonnet look to me like a Vauxhall Victor FD. Hard to tell on this obscured view.

Interesting topic. I can’t think of any ways in which a current car is noticeably better than my 22 year-old 406. While built-in satnav is very good, a phone with nav app is almost as good.

Comparing the 406 to a car 20 years older there are so many ways that it’s better:

• fuel injection. Driveability in all weathers transformed
• ABS.
• climate control. No more overheating of the driver and the ability to clear a steamed-up car in the winter
• Air bags if the worst happens
• Power steering (which a modest car would not have had in 1980)
• Autobox has 4-speeds with lockup. These only really appeared in the mid/late 80s.
• Good fuel economy given the performance on offer

 

Regarding the CF problem, I don’t know much about C6s. CF cards and similar are more my area. As the C6 is ancient in IT terms the hard drive or CF-equivalent replacement will need to bear that in mind and use similarly old technology. Keep the size of the CF card to be around the same as the old hard drive and also use the same file system.  I’m going to guess the next bit – that the hard drive is less than 2 GB in size and uses FAT16 file format - whereas if you were putting in a CF card today it would be much larger and therefore use FAT32. I could be wrong on this but it’s worth checking if you have the tools.  The Wikipedia page on CF cards is worth reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompactFlash

Good luck.  Love reading about your adventures with this fine French machine.

Any news on the Horsebollox ?

Meanwhile here's a recent roadside spot from Princes Risborough.

 

For me Astra Mark 1 1300. The engines on these were so far ahead of the competition that it was the dawn of a new era.  Possibly an Allegro as the road behaviour on these was pretty good although the engines were slow. Wildcard would be a Vauxhall FE Ventora – always wanted to drive one of these with the 3.3 L six. On the Vauxhalls rust would be a major potential problem.

On 10/2/2021 at 8:04 PM, Longbridge Apologist said:

What do they handle and steer like? I do like the look of this era and Vauxhall engines but never pedalled a Griffin that I’ve liked the steering or gear change on!

In my SRi the ride quality was good while the handling was just about OK. There’s not a lot of feel through the steering so it didn’t inspire a great deal of confidence. The 406 V6 that followed it is in a different league for handling.

I borrowed a Vectra GSi when I was choosing a replacement for the SRi and it was appalling. The ride was so jolty that it gave me lower back pain and I had to stop driving it. No other car has ever done that.

Lovely engine in these. I had an SRi V6 back when P reg was current. Powerful, smooth and pretty economical unless you're very heavy with the right foot. Engine built in the Ellesmere Port factory too.

For me it’s late 90s to early 2000s.

By then the rampant rusting of the 70s had been tamed.
Engines ran so much better with fuel injection and computer control. No more faffing with a choke and worrying if the car would start. It did. On the nose. Every time (*).
Most cars had ABS and airbags to improve safety.
Reasonable quality FM radios across the board.
Crash worthiness was much improved but cars weren’t all 2m wide (exaggeration but close).
Later cars (early 2000s on) have better diagnostics via OBD port
Before the ridiculous fad for leather seats. Who wants to sit on what feels like a sheet of plastic that gets baking hot in summer, cold in winter and makes farting noises as you move around.
Before the stupid fad for big wheels and tyres as thick as a sheet of paper.
Before ride comfort on mainstream cars degenerated (better handling innit).
When the windscreen pillars weren’t 6 inches thick and a danger to seeing other cars.
When 6 cylinder cars weren’t crucified by tax structures and could still deliver decent MPG.

 

Black was very common on cars from the 1900s through to the late 50s and I suppose the disappearance of it as a popular colour was a reaction to this. In much the same way bathroom suites were always white up until the 1960s when every colour of the rainbow started to be used (cue the avacado bathroom) and continued up until the end of the 1980s when white took over. These days you can't buy any bathroom suites that aren't white. In the same way, with cars you generally can't buy the standard rainbow colours, just shades of white, blue and grey (there are exceptions, naturally, I'm generalising).

Interesting feature on Invacars on the BBC News Channel this morning. It appeared in a piece called Witness History about 745am.  Likely to be repeated again and maybe on the IPlayer.