Peugeot 406 Coupé
2003 PEUGEOT 406 COUPÉ 2.2 HDi
There’s always something that needs doing on a classic car that you’ve just bought, isn’t there? With the 406 Coupé, I had all these grand ideas to tidy up the interior trim and deal with some of the rust patches. But a more thorough inspection revealed many little jobs that needed carrying out first, just to keep the car functioning!
Firstly the coolant level light kept coming on, so with the bonnet raised I dived in and saw that it was a little low. No problem; I had bought coolant in anticipation of refitting a new radiator to my Ford Puma, although I’ll need some more now as the 406 guzzled so much.
Next up, the windscreen wipers were losing parts of the blade faster than a Formula One car loses rubber. Before the autumn rain set in I managed to acquire two rather expensive Bosch blades in the hope they would last longer than the usual budget variety I’ve gone for before. It was money well spent as there is a noticeable improvement in both wipe and noise (I really need to get out more…).
Just when I thought nothing else on the 406 could give up the ghost, the front nearside dip-beam bulb threw in the towel. Thankfully, Halfords had plenty in stock, so I bought two just to be on the safe side. On installing these, I realised that you needed fingers longer than the wiper blades I’d just fitted just to remove the duds. Strangely, though, I found something else in doing so; a previous owner had clearly had the same issue and had simply left one of the old bulbs just rattling around inside the headlamp housing. After removing double the amount of dead bulbs I had expected to find, I managed to fit a perfectly new one into the housing and had working headlamps once again.
While I was at Halfords, I bought a new air filter just for peace of mind. Removing the old filter revealed that it had been in there some time as it was more black than yellow. Getting into the housing was much easier than replacing the headlamp bulbs – a few screws later and I was in. With the new filter installed, I finally had a much healthier 406 Coupé.
Sadly, though, I had that feeling of only sorting out one per cent of what needs to be done on this car, but the journey is already proving to be good fun.