A penny for your thoughts.

[Nigel]

I have a bit of a dilemma looming, and I wondered what the fine people of this forum would do in the same situation.
You may have read elsewhere on this forum that I have had a few troubles with the old GTi of late. Well this is the state of play, there is no warranty left and the following problems have arisen.
1 : the door locks refused to lock, common bouncing problem. Local independent tried, with no success to locate a new relay that would fit, rather than buy a whole set of actuators, but was unable to do so. Car is lockable via passenger door key at the moment but no alarm after offending relay disabled/removed.

2 : Fan problem has resolve itself for the time being i.e. it is not staying on but the temp reading is still a bit on the low side, reading 75-80 Deg, I'm sure it used to read 90 Deg i.e. vertical needle position most of the time.
3 : Tickover is very erratic when air con is switched to eco, and will occasionally stall when left ticking over for 5 mins or so. This problem has now started to occur with air con switched on, despite the revs idling at about 850 rather than the 700 when in Eco mode.

The last time I hade the tick over problems the ECU was cleared and reset, this made a dramatic difference to the whole performance of the car and solved the problems, but only lasted about 3 months.

Now what should I do?
let the independent try to fix all of the above.

Let the independent finish the work on the locks but have Peugeot sort the engine.

Let Peugeot sort the lot.

I trust the independent to charge me a fair price for the lock work despite now having to get a full set of actuators from Peugeot, but wonder if he will be able to sort the engine without the Peugeot diagnostic equipment.
I do not trust Peugeot to charge a reasonable fee for any of the above, and also expect them to tell me that I need a new ECU,Radiator, Fan, Coil, Stepper motor etc. etc.

[Mullet]

I would still go with Pug to sort the lot, for two reasons:

The work they carry out on the engine and anything else will essentially be 'guarenteed' for a short time i.e. the work you pay them to do (as with any garage). So if they say they've fixed your problem you can take it back and go 'you said you fixed this, i paid you in good faith to do it, it's not done please fix it and i'm not paying again.'
Also as you've brought your car from them and it's just out of warrenty you may (due to the number of faults) be able to get a 'good will' percentage payment to the total cost of the work... If you're lucky!
I honestly can't see the advantage in going 'non-pug', i appreciate it might be cheaper, but if he's spending three hours working out everything cos he's not familiar with the engine etc then you're not gonna end up saving much.....

[Sale]

Not at all because i like to contradict to other people opinions, but i honestly feel completely different to Mullet, here's why:

1. First of all, how many times have you asked the Pug mechanics to fix the faults you have listed? Did they fix them? Obviously not, because they're still there. So what makes you thing they'll fix any of these faults in near future? The only thing that makes the Pug dealers "special" is the fact that they usually have to take care of your car to keep the warranty valid, at least that's the case most of the time. I know the Pug is a fairly "electronized" car, but that's the whole problem. Although it IS highly computerized, there are still some things that do not require a computer to be fixed. Pug dealers, more out of habit now, just hook up the car on a computer, and single mindedly read out what the stupid machine tells them to tell you. They seem to have lost the ability to diagnose any fault, or fix anything without a help of a bloody computer, or at least rely 99% on the computer's diagnose of the problem! So what happens? Computer is as good as the program in it, which is not much judging by Peugeot's history of ECU faults. Hence, the Peugeot mechanics have a very narow perspective on what's happening or what might be wrong with the car, and have become very single minded about it. All they can say these days is "stepper motor gone, change it, coil pack needs replacing..." etc. Why? Because computer tells them that. But WHY has the stepper failed? Why the coil pack? Why the injectors or whatever else has stopped working as it should?? How many posts are there on the board stating that at least 10 diferent things have been changed (take a look at the stalling problem thread) to no avail? What, i should replace half of the car for them to finally determine what's wrong? I could've done that without them telling me! Why is he any better than any other mechanic then? Even my grandma could fix a fault like that, by pure trial and error!

2. About the tickover and stalling, being temporarily resolved by resetting the ECU, take a look at the "Rough idle" thread, posted by Mullet, i think it's in FAQ now. It only proves my point.

3. About what Mullet said, about taking the car back in if it's not fixed and fixing it again for no charge - any, half decent independent garage should have a similar practice, why should it be unique to Pug garages only??? Why couldn't you work out the same deal (work on it again if it's not fixed) with an independant as with Peugeot? There are MANY things independant can do as good as Peugeot - change suspension parts, regular maintenance, any sort of mechanical trouble - that's what they DO! On the other hand, lack of proper diagnostic equipment can even be a plus. Having to rely completely on your experience, mechanical knowledge and BRAIN instead of single-midedly reverting to the all-mighty DIAG as the universal fortune teller (that's what it is mostly), always gets MY vote!

I don't think the independant will charge you any more than Peugeot, because they have to fight hard for any "branded car maker" customer and tend to keep them. If you like, bring them parts you want installed so basically all you'll get is a same service provided by an independant at, probably, lower cost.

I say you ALWAYS got to an independant first, let HIM work on the car and try to determine the fault, and i bet a half decent independant will 99% of the time bring the same conclusion as the Pug mechanics after dozen of trial and error DIAG sessions, at a fraction of the cost. Then you could go to Pug for some specialistic ECU work if required. Of course, don't go to some dud, backwater garage who knows nothing of modern engine design and let them stare at the engine for hours, carefully choose a reputable garage with people with long mechanical experience. Pug engines and cars, although highly electronized, are still just cars, still obey the same principles as other plain engined cars (if there are any left...) and 99% of the time it only takes a working brain and some good mechanical experience to figure out the problem - Pug dealers do not seem to possess any of those two any longer!

[BigOL]

I kinda agree with Sale, you can still find decent independant garages. Most of the time you can find an independent car specialist on your particular make.

The independant I use, used to work for Citroen and set up on his own. Working on my Pug is like second nature to him as the two companies still share an amazing amount and still use parts that, although now have had slight redesigns were used when he worked on them so he still knows his way round.

If you are out of warranty then I would try a good independant garage, more so, one who even specialise in your car. They are more often cheaper, have better knowledge of mechanics, and most now have electronics that allows them to read some of the diagnostics too. For simple/average mechanical problems I would use independant and use Pug as a backup. If I had major problems, then I would probably approach Pug first.

[NZGTi]

I'm just going to deal with problem #1 Big, as that's the only one I have experienced first hand.

My GTi started with the bounceback problem virtually straight after I purchased it.

As it's a '99 it only has the remote central locking, no Pug alarm so I had an aftermarket system installed. After the installer thought long & hard about the problem (after Peugeot here said they had never come across the problem before!) he just removed the unlock ability from the BSI (by cutting the 'track' of solder I beleive). You can still lock the car with the key or the original remote & both lock & unlock (arming the alarm) with the alarm remote. No matter if the car wants to unlock itself it can't... as that function is only now available to the alarm.

Not the best solution probably... but, was only NZ$100 (on top of the alarm price) & a lot less than trying to get Peugeot to fix it.

Cheers.