Confusion over Peugeot fault & garage bill

[aliasojo]

Son has a Peugeot 106 which is overheating constantly. There has also been an engine warning light on the dashboard (orange). We dont know if these are linked or separate problems.

I booked it into a garage and told them about the warning light and the overheating. The fan comes on almost immediately and stays on.

Garage said car was ready today but when son picked it up, they said they thought there was a 'cat fault' and that they had 'flushed the system out' and the warning light had gone out but that it could come back at any time and he needed the cat looked at.

As soon as he drove off, the overheating started again so that had obviously not been fixed.

He'd only been charged £45 but he still has the same problem although the warning light issue has been dealt with, albeit possibly just temporarily.

Neither of us have the first clue and as he's young and I'm female, we both feel we get a raw deal from garages tbh.

Does anyone have any idea if these problems are linked? Does it sound like a 'cat ' problem? Is this bad news?

I suspect he may have to bite the bullet and put it into the Peugeot garage but as those kind of dealerships tend to be pricier than smaller garages, he's not keen to do that.

Be glad of opinions?

[goldspanners]

dont put it into a dealer,its an older car so not worth paying dealer prices,get it to an independant garage,its a common car so im sure most garages will have some experience of them.
i doubt the engine overheating is linked to the cat,but i could be wrong.
main things to expect when over heating would be faulty thermostat, blocked cooling system,water pump worn out or the radiator core is done.
the thermostat would be the cheapest and easiest to change first.
just to make sure, he has checked there is plenty of coolant in the reservoir hasnt he?
is it just that the fan is coming on instantly or is the temp gauge actually going up a bit too far?

[aliasojo]

Yes..plenty coolant. The fan is coming on within a mile or so and the temp gauge is in the red as far up as it will go.

It was an independant we put it into but as they seemed to not know much or actually fix the thing, I wondered if we were going to have to put it into a dealer just to get the right knowledge.

I'll phone around a few garages today.

[steveo3002]

what logo does the orange light have? im thinking thats possibly indicating the cat /o2 fault

and the overheating is another problem , id suggest you dont drive it if really is overheating as it will cause further problems

[hewhoisnotintheknow]

with any electrical fault light on any car i always undo the battery for 1 hour then reconnect it 50% of the time it clears any fault light, if it then comes back you know you have an issue

Any independant garage would read the fault code with a reader for a few quid, might tell you something interesting

DO NOT TAKE IT TO A MAIN DEALER

[TiTheRev]

It could be a faulty fan/temp switch? Reads the temp as in the red hence switches the fan on, but nothing actually wrong? You need to know what the light on the dash represents before we can discount the cat issue. It tells you all the codes in the handbook...if you still have it?

[LandyAndy]

It could be a faulty fan/temp switch? Reads the temp as in the red hence switches the fan on, but nothing actually wrong? You need to know what the light on the dash represents before we can discount the cat issue. It tells you all the codes in the handbook...if you still have it?

Has there been any evidence of overheating apart from a high reading gauge / fan?

[aliasojo]

what logo does the orange light have? im thinking thats possibly indicating the cat /o2 fault

and the overheating is another problem , id suggest you dont drive it if really is overheating as it will cause further problems

The logo is like a rectangle with a squiggle in the middle. Kinda like you'd see on a heart monitor. Sorry, dont know how else to describe it. :o I dont have the book to hand, it's in the car and son had to drive it to get to work today.

[aliasojo]

Has there been any evidence of overheating apart from a high reading gauge / fan?

I'm embarrassed to admit, I'm not certain. The engine does get hot, you can feel the heat if you lay your hand on the bonnet but I have no idea if this is normal or excessive.

[espresso]

It could be a faulty fan/temp switch? Reads the temp as in the red hence switches the fan on, but nothing actually wrong?

No because the fan sensor and the temperature gauge sensor are totality independent sensors.

aliasojo

It sounds to me like they only investigated the warning light and did not even look into the over heating problem, which is more important!

[aliasojo]

Yes I think so too espresso. I even suspect they did what hewhoisnotintheknow mentioned...and just disconnected the battery.

In fact, now I'm thinking about it ... when son went into the office to pay, one of the mechanics came out and went to his car and leant into the dash for a minute, (I was in another car in the car park waiting). I wondered what he was doing, but I'm now thinking he might have been resetting the clock.

So it's possible he got £45 for simply disconnecting the battery and connecting it again and he didn't 'flush the system' at all. :rolleyes: No proof of that though.

[Pew Pew Pew Lasers!]

Flushing the system is very easy, you just disconnect the top and bottom pipes and out the coolant comes, a hosepipe in the top to help get everything out. Should be easy enough to tell if they've done it, have a look at the radiator pipe clips to see if they've been disturbed.

[hewhoisnotintheknow]

Flushing the system is very easy, you just disconnect the top and bottom pipes and out the coolant comes, a hosepipe in the top to help get everything out. Should be easy enough to tell if they've done it, have a look at the radiator pipe clips to see if they've been disturbed.

How tricky is it to bleed the air out afterwards?

[Pew Pew Pew Lasers!]

Not at all difficult with the engine running and someone manually massaging the pipes. Radiator or reservoir cap off to allow the air to be burped out. As the air comes out, put more coolant in.

[hewhoisnotintheknow]

Not at all difficult with the engine running and someone manually massaging the pipes. Radiator or reservoir cap off to allow the air to be burped out. As the air comes out, put more coolant in.

i had to play with the wifes nipples to make her waterworks bleed

[aliasojo]

Thought I'd bump this to update.

Car is finally fixed. Turned out there was a hole in the radiator, hence the overheating. The garage's diagnostic prog still showed up a Cat problem so it must be 2 different things.

The car is running ok ... not overheating and the fan isn't coming on, but the temp guage is a bit erratic and swings up and down (although it's never in the red now).

The first garage had the car for 3 days so I'm surprised they didn't find the radiator problem. I'm also wondering if son checked the right thing when he originally checked the coolant levels. :confused:

Anyway, it's safer to drive now and all the warning lights are off so if there IS some sort of Cat problem lurking in the background, it surely can't be too serious. At least for now.

Thanks again for all your advice.

[goldspanners]

Thought I'd bump this to update.

Car is finally fixed. Turned out there was a hole in the radiator, hence the overheating. The garage's diagnostic prog still showed up a Cat problem so it must be 2 different things.

The car is running ok ... not overheating and the fan isn't coming on, but the temp guage is a bit erratic and swings up and down (although it's never in the red now).

The first garage had the car for 3 days so I'm surprised they didn't find the radiator problem. I'm also wondering if son checked the right thing when he originally checked the coolant levels. :confused:

Anyway, it's safer to drive now and all the warning lights are off so if there IS some sort of Cat problem lurking in the background, it surely can't be too serious. At least for now.

Thanks again for all your advice.

the cat problem will have been the fact that the engine was overheating and the cat was far too warm.

[espresso]

Thought I'd bump this to update.

Car is finally fixed. Turned out there was a hole in the radiator, hence the overheating. The garage's diagnostic prog still showed up a Cat problem so it must be 2 different things.................



Thanks for the update, it's nice when people can be bothered to post an update. I just hope that when the engine was overheating, it did not caused any damage!

[aliasojo]

I spoke too soon. The same engine light came on again last night.

No overheating problems and fan didn't come on though.

Looks like it's back to the garage again.

[hewhoisnotintheknow]

undo the battery for 1 hour and put it back on