SAFRANE owners thread. Now with added Jaaag content.

[RustyNuts]

That's a bloody good price I've never got below £400 and that was in 2010!

I'm now 43 and paid £700 with admiral. I do have a few claims though in the last 3 years..

[andyberg]

11 minutes ago, RustyNuts said:

That's a bloody good price I've never got below £400 and that was in 2010!

I'm now 43 and paid £700 with admiral. I do have a few claims though in the last 3 years..

I’m 56 and with SAGA. I think that helps 🤣🤣

[andyberg]

Took the Jazz to Heathrow and back today. 
Not bad for a 19 year old car with 152k miles. That’s from full (42ltr) quite happy with that

[andyberg]

As mentioned on the for sale thread I picked up a ‘free’ Jaaaag today. 
Thanks to the outstanding generosity of @Laney I now own a Jaguar X type diesel.  Honestly it’s a lovely thing, I have always wanted a Jag. And yes I know some will say it’s not a proper Jag but it is actually a very nice place to be. It goes in for an MOT on the 1st April, I have a budget in mind in case it fails. There are a few small things I will sort depending on the result. Thermostat, at speed the car runs almost at the cold stop. Better in town though. Will see if there’s an easy inline fix a la rover 75. And a serious lack of boost. On idle I can hear the air leak sound so egr or boost pipe is needed, maybe even to get passed the MOT emissions? Still returned 52mpg on my drive home so I can’t grumble. 
If it gets through the MOT it’s then a difficult decision to make. I can’t keep three cars, at least one will have to go. At the moment it could be the Jazz as like for like the Jag will be cheaper to run (using man maths) Insurance is cheaper!? Tax is the same. MPGs are the same or slightly better. BUT the Jazz does everything a simple car can and does it well. The Safrane, I love that car even with its frenchness creeping in. I get in it and just smile, that goes for its MOT on the 16th April, should pass as I have only done 2000 miles in it since the last MOT. 

It’s going to be an interesting month. 

[andyberg]

This is the Jag at mine. Really struggling not to titivate and do stuff. I have time to get her clean and ready for the mot. She really is a nice looking car, controversial I know. Also found the service book stamped up to 88k and all major garages too! 

[andyberg]

Couldn’t resist. I have ordered a wheel off eBay. 
I also did a bit of reading and apparently the egr on the Jag can be blanked off without causing the EML to come on. So I have bought a blanking plate. Yes I know I shouldn’t have but I want the car to live. I’ll try not to buy anything else now until the MOT. This is the last MOT. 

[andyberg]

Put the EGR blanking plate on today, can confirm the EML has not made an appearance 😁 seems to have made a difference but it’s been a while since I drove a diesel I’m not sure if it’s ‘cured’ the lack of boost or not. Seems more sprightly in the lower gears. Only a very short trip around my village as it’s not insured yet. The new wheel is due to arrive early next week so I’ll get that fitted and insure for a day and give it a run to work. 

[andyberg]

Insured the Jaaaag for a couple of days so took it for a bit of a run today. The EGR blanking plate has made a difference. It’s definitely more peppy in 1st and 2nd but definitely not a speed machine. It will also keep its speed better and will gain speed if you put your foot down at 50mph in top, it point blank refused before. Had a look underneath and it looks pretty ok to my untrained eye, I couldn’t see any crispness even with a bit of pokeage from a screwdriver. Also adjusted the handbrake, it no longer comes up vertical! But one side is not working as well as the other. Slapped on lanoguard anyway. MOT is booked for 1st April 🙄🙄 I’ll take it out a couple more times before then for some Italian tuning. I’m about 80% confident it will only need something minor to pass, handbrake and possible drop link as there is a slight knock over bigger bumps from the front. 

[RustyNuts]

On 06/03/2025 at 20:18, andyberg said:

If it gets through the MOT it’s then a difficult decision to make. I can’t keep three cars, at least one will have to go. At the moment it could be the Jazz as like for like the Jag will be cheaper to run (using man maths) Insurance is cheaper!? Tax is the same. MPGs are the same or slightly better. BUT the Jazz does everything a simple car can and does it well. The Safrane, I love that car even with its frenchness creeping in. I get in it and just smile, that goes for its MOT on the 16th April, should pass as I have only done 2000 miles in it since the last MOT. 

It’s going to be an interesting month. 

Let me put it to you like this. Safranes are rare and if you let it go you WILL miss it and at some point regret it. You'll also find it hard to find another.

Been there and done that with two other Safranes. Thankfully I still had the first and although it's been an absolute cretin towards me, I eventually taught it who's boss and got it back on the road.

[andyberg]

6 hours ago, RustyNuts said:

Let me put it to you like this. Safranes are rare and if you let it go you WILL miss it and at some point regret it. You'll also find it hard to find another.

Been there and done that with two other Safranes. Thankfully I still had the first and although it's been an absolute cretin towards me, I eventually taught it who's boss and got it back on the road.

I have decided that the Safrane will be staying. I took it out a couple of days ago and there is no way I’m letting her go anywhere. The Jazz will be for the chop. 

[andyberg]

Jaaag goes in for its MOT tomorrow. I have found out why it seems down on power. The turbo actuator isn’t working. Being a Euro3 engine the actuator is vacuum operated so it’s either the vacuum pump or the pipe going to the actuator. I can move the actuator with a lever(screwdriver)  and can hear the turbo spool up when I do. I’ll see what the MOT is like tomorrow but I don’t want to spend lots to get the actuator working. 

[Cookiesouwest]

41 minutes ago, andyberg said:

Jaaag goes in for its MOT tomorrow. I have found out why it seems down on power. The turbo actuator isn’t working. Being a Euro3 engine the actuator is vacuum operated so it’s either the vacuum pump or the pipe going to the actuator. I can move the actuator with a lever(screwdriver)  and can hear the turbo spool up when I do. I’ll see what the MOT is like tomorrow but I don’t want to spend lots to get the actuator working. 

Split pipe?

[andyberg]

8 hours ago, Cookiesouwest said:

Split pipe?

Possibly. It disappears under the battery. If the fail is not too drastic I’ll take a look. If the fail is more than I want to spend on the car then the bridge beckons for it. I’m not throwing money at it when I have a needy Safrane and a fairly decent Jazz anyway. 

[andyberg]

Jaaag got through the MOT, just a couple of advisories for tyre which I’ll sort soon. Vacuum pipe to turbo was found to have a hole, new pipe acquired but still not boosting properly. Goes back to the garage on Friday for investigation. 
With the Jaaag passing the MOT the Jazz was put up for sale, sold within a couple of hours on here, new owner will pick it up after its MOT next month. Will be sad to see it go. It ticks a lot of boxes at just being a car, but having a Jag even if it’s not a proper* Jag is something I need to do before I leave this godforsaken country. 

[stuboy]

Hi all eclectic mix from yesterday's meet old... new.. fast... slow and generally crap..ie my mondeo...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[andyberg]

The Safrane goes in for its MOT next week. Only done about 1500 miles in it so not too worried. However I have had an ongoing problem with the wipers, sometimes the just won’t work or go halfway up the screen then stop. And I have never had fast speed. So today I set about taking the linkage apart and re greasing it. Before I did though I switched on the wipers with the linkage disconnected, the motor didn’t even work😡 in frustration I gave it a gentle* tap with a handy hammer. It only bloody well sprang into life AND I also have fast speed now! ‘When in doubt, give it a clout’ 🤣

I’ll try it again tomorrow as before they have worked one day and not the next. But I’m fairly confident. 

[RustyNuts]

On 08/04/2025 at 17:01, andyberg said:

The Safrane goes in for its MOT next week. Only done about 1500 miles in it so not too worried. However I have had an ongoing problem with the wipers, sometimes the just won’t work or go halfway up the screen then stop. And I have never had fast speed. So today I set about taking the linkage apart and re greasing it. Before I did though I switched on the wipers with the linkage disconnected, the motor didn’t even work😡 in frustration I gave it a gentle* tap with a handy hammer. It only bloody well sprang into life AND I also have fast speed now! ‘When in doubt, give it a clout’ 🤣

I’ll try it again tomorrow as before they have worked one day and not the next. But I’m fairly confident. 

That's definitely an odd one, never heard of that with a safrane before but well done for getting it working again!

[carlo]

I keep getting tempted by very cheap X-Types, I'd be interested to have your opinion about their ride quality.  How does it compare to the Safrane?  (My money's on the Safrane)..

[andyberg]

2 hours ago, carlo said:

I keep getting tempted by very cheap X-Types, I'd be interested to have your opinion about their ride quality.  How does it compare to the Safrane?  (My money's on the Safrane)..

Your money has been put in the right place! 
The Jag is nice, it’s comfy and goes well. However the Safrane out performs it everywhere. The seats are amongst the most comfortable I have sat in, the suspension wafts beautifully but still manages to keep the car steady if you decide to go a bit quicker around the bends. Ergonomically the Jag just shades it from the drivers seat, but it doesn’t bring the same smile to my face as getting into the Safrane. Don’t get me wrong the Jag is still a very lovely car and I’m glad I have it. But if I needed to choose the Safrane would be the one I kept, even with its French foibles and much higher running costs. 

[carlo]

One reason why I've kept my 405 so long, I get disappointed with ride capability whenever I try something more modern

[andyberg]

2 hours ago, carlo said:

One reason why I've kept my 405 so long, I get disappointed with ride capability whenever I try something more modern

I do think 90’s French got it just about spot on with eat comfort and ride quality. 

[andyberg]

Jaaag has been fixed. 
The ex @calebaaront X type that was generously donated to me post roffle by @Laney is now fully roadworthy. For the MOT it required a new rear caliper and handbrake cable. It went back it to sort the boost issue. Initially thought to be the vacuum pipe to the turbo because that had a hole, this was fixed but still no boost. The other common fail point is the EGR to intercooler pipe splitting. Sure enough it had. Genuine Jaguar replacement later and it’s a completely different car. Gets a nice shift on now. Total cost £366, I’m pleased with that. 
Been dailying the Safrane as the Jazz has been sold and I re realised how bloody lovely that car is. The Safrane is in for its MOT tomorrow, 2000 miles since the last one so should be a pass 🤞

[andyberg]

Safrane passed the MOT. advisories for slight exhaust leak, probably where I put a new cat on, and slight misting of oil from a rear shock. Not bad for a 27year old French car😁

[RustyNuts]

On 16/04/2025 at 11:41, andyberg said:

Safrane passed the MOT. advisories for slight exhaust leak, probably where I put a new cat on, and slight misting of oil from a rear shock. Not bad for a 27year old French car😁

What cat did you put on? - Was it a BM product? - I put one on 3 years ago and now it's rattling but i don't think the OEM is available from renault now.

[andyberg]

4 minutes ago, RustyNuts said:

What cat did you put on? - Was it a BM product? - I put one on 3 years ago and now it's rattling but i don't think the OEM is available from renault now.

Yeah it was a BM cat, just under £60. I know it will never be as good as original but it’s basically all I could find. The innards of the old one had broken up and were seriously restricting exhaust flow and performance. It does sound a bit ‘rorty’ and I don’t expect it will last very long. But as I only did 2000 miles in her last year I may get a few years out of it. 

[RustyNuts]

11 hours ago, andyberg said:

Yeah it was a BM cat, just under £60. I know it will never be as good as original but it’s basically all I could find. The innards of the old one had broken up and were seriously restricting exhaust flow and performance. It does sound a bit ‘rorty’ and I don’t expect it will last very long. But as I only did 2000 miles in her last year I may get a few years out of it. 

They're not great but we should be grateful they exist as nobody else makes them for this car! 

I need to get another one as my BM has started rattling badly. The OEM was over £500 so BM while not being great do provide a helpful substitute.

[andyberg]

@RustyNuts

I ask as you have a much bigger understanding of the Safrane than me. Could I daily one? I have been driving mine a fair bit recently and although the Jag is a nice car the Safrane is a much nicer place to be, by a long way. It’s more thirsty and costs more to tax but I’m more worried about stuff breaking long term. I know some things are pretty unobtainable now, front shocks for one, but I do love to drive this car. Mine has been well looked after and doesn’t seem to be showing signs of crispyness. I value your opinion. Thank you. 

[RustyNuts]

9 hours ago, andyberg said:

@RustyNuts

I ask as you have a much bigger understanding of the Safrane than me. Could I daily one? I have been driving mine a fair bit recently and although the Jag is a nice car the Safrane is a much nicer place to be, by a long way. It’s more thirsty and costs more to tax but I’m more worried about stuff breaking long term. I know some things are pretty unobtainable now, front shocks for one, but I do love to drive this car. Mine has been well looked after and doesn’t seem to be showing signs of crispyness. I value your opinion. Thank you. 

I wasn't aware of the lack of front shocks. With that said, the front shocks on these are very unusual in that the piston is sucked back into the main body rather than pushed out. By that I mean if you take them out of the car and remove the top cap and spring, the piston will retract. Most shock absorbers push the piston out and when new, come compressed with a strap around them to keep the piston inside. The safrane fronts do the opposite, - they retract inwards by default which is a real effing pain when you're trying to refit the spring and top mount and then you've got to fight the shock to pull the rod back up. So with that explained, the front of the car is pretty much riding on the springs anyway with the shock trying to pull the car down instead of pushing it up. It's weird but thats a safrane for you, nothing normal about them.

Daily it? Well ours is a daily right now and it's in a pretty bad way if i'm honest but still keeps going (just). The paint is knackered, the drivers door lock keeps refusing to open (I'll get to it one day), the exhaust isn't great and there's a few other faults too but it's in daily use right now doing school runs twice a day then my work at the weekend. It is literally in use 7 days a week and desperately needs a rest so i can start fixing stuff (I'm working on my van now to achieve that aim).

What I would say, is that with a safrane, if looked after properly it will out live you and it will still want to burn tyres. However I must have got the friday car with all three of ours as they all had woes. The 1st i still with us (as described above) and was off the road 12.5 years with an electrical cooling fault which nobody including the experts could fathom (and as per usual, turned out to be a simple thing - after locking up a £5k snap-on diagnostic computer). The 2nd literally stunk of a wet dog and wasn't in great condition. When it's MOT came up and i could see a broken steering rack boot I knew it wouldn't pass so started dismantling. Then as luck would have it, the first got damaged so i used the partly dismembered one for parts. The 3rd was neglected - the engine hadn't had an oil change for years and was very clogged up - so badly so that within a couple of months of buying it, it would stall as soon as i put it into drive (and we all know autos don't stall unless they're in trouble). It was also sporting a spoinler with peeled paint and a few other things that i knew i'd have trouble dealing with so when i ended up unemployed, that got the piranha treatment too (and I'm not joking, there was literally just a shell left). Unfortunately two house moves saw my stockpile of decades worth of safrane-ing, go to the recyclers so I'm a bit stumped now for spares too. I had everything.. bumpers, shocks, doors, boot, windscreen (a brand new one that had never had the heating element used) seats.. if you can think of it, I had it (though I do still have a sunroof and bonnet plus spare front bumper and grille in storage). Anyway eventually got number 1 sorted and back on the road but it's not in the best condition however it is doing the daily thing and despite a coolant leak and ever increasing rust, it's still going. Incidentally, it's still going on the engine from number 3 - the one that was stalling. Before i broke that car i did deal with the clogged breather and it ran sweet after that so when i stripped it, i kept that engine. The original engine in the current safrane developed HG failure due to lack of coolant for 14 months (another very long story) and the HG rotted away inside it. So i dropped in the engine from 3 (which by this time had also sat with no rust inhibiting coolant and that HG went too. Rather than dismantle the original engine and replace the HG I did it on the engine in the car and that was a real pain.

On the daily thing again there are still others out there in daily use. Round this way there is a blue 2.5 with the reg no V38 ELC - it sports a Turbo badge on it too. Now I last saw that around 2011/12 and then I lost sight of it. A couple of months ago it drove past me with the same driver so that should say something for you.

As for spares, can't help you much there now but leboncoin.fr and the french safrane facebook groups tend to see a lot of parts / tips etc. I'm sure if i dug about hard enough I'd find someone who could make replacement shocks for this car too but at present I have way too much going on

What i will say is avoid tinkering with the coolant pipes at all costs. They are fragile. The one at the bottom of the radiator is fine - if you need to do a flush, it's fine. The one at the top at the front of the engine to the radiator is generally fine but the bleed screws are weak on these (and naturally the pipes are not available now). The real cretin however is the coolant pipe at the back - the twin pipe that goes to the heater matrix. NEVER (and I do very seriously mean that) disconnect that from the bulkhead. Even the french on their safrane sites have posted many tales of woe trying to reconnect it. Again the bleed screw is fragile here too. If you see a safrane in any breakers yard grab the coolant pipes straight away. IF you need to get the timing belt changed, you have two inspection covers on the top of the timing belt where the engine mount is. Naturally they're brittle so if you lift them, they'll probably snap off now (timing cover unavailable). Timing belt is an absolute pig of a job - can't remember who or where (could even have been you?) but someone said they did theirs recently and spent ages on one bolt. It's not a nice job as the timing side is right up against the engine bay 'arm' and it has a stonking great mount on top which also has to be removed from the engine to get the timing cover off. It's an absolute pig (forgive me if it was you and i'm teaching you to suck eggs).

You're not the only one wanting to keep their safrane, I've had contact with many over the years who are in the same boat (and still are). I know of one guy in norfolk who keeps a breaker safrane in his shed for parts but still keeps that MOT'd too - but openly admits it's losing parts for his main safrane.

Anyway with the tales of my safrane adventures verbally diahorrea'd out, YES you can use your safrane as a daily and I would say you definitely SHOULD.

[andyberg]

Thank you for this. I am quite lucky my local garage is happy to work on my car. As for the front shocks it’s the spring cups that are NLA anywhere. Apparently they are unique to the Safrane. 
I’m daily ing her this week and probably next just to see how things go, and how much fuel she is going to use!!!

[RustyNuts]

7 minutes ago, andyberg said:

Thank you for this. I am quite lucky my local garage is happy to work on my car. As for the front shocks it’s the spring cups that are NLA anywhere. Apparently they are unique to the Safrane. 
I’m daily ing her this week and probably next just to see how things go, and how much fuel she is going to use!!!

Ah yes I knew about the cups a decade back lol hence stockpiling shocks but those went to the recycler too. The rubber on them deteriorates. I've yet to work out if that can be replaced somehow.. There must be someone out there who made these or can replicate them. We need Mike Brewer - he always knows someone lol.

I'm averaging 20mpg at the moment which is rather ghastly and that's a mix of town and dual carriageway but i've had it drop to 17mpg in the past. Highest i've achieved was 36. I'm pretty skint and still fuelling this monster (no choice really lol) so it depends how much you enjoy yours over the jag really as to whether you can afford it or not.