Peugeot 206 - Engine cut out problem

Hi there,

I have a pretty dangerous fault with my Peugeot 206.

It started last night. I'd been driving for about 20 minutes, at about 50mph. My engine gave a small judder, almost like I'd hit a small bump in the road, and my engine warning light came on. About a second later, the engine warning light turned off. I decided to not worry about it too much, and carried on driving. About 5 minutes later, I was approaching a roundabout - and as I started slowing down (so, traveling between 30mph and 40mph at this point), my engine cut out completely. As in, no judders, it wasn't a stall - one minute, the engine was ticking over fine, then it just turned itself off.

After the car came to a halt (with some difficulty, since I'd lost the electric assistance for my brakes and power steering), I restarted it again with no problem. Hoping it was a one-off, I continued my journey. Right up until the same thing happened at the next roundabout I approached. At this stage, I decided that continuing to drive may be somewhat dangerous, especially as I was heading into a town centre, so I called the AA. However, after waiting an hour and a half for the nice man to arrive, he told me that since the engine warning light had turned off there was no point in even hooking up the machine for a roadside test, so he towed me home.

I took my car into a garage this morning (as it's easy for me to work from home) - a few hours later I have a £53 bill and they've not managed to find anything wrong with the car, and the problem hasn't happened again even after driving it around for about 45 minutes. This prompted me to google the issue, and I was horrified to find that this problem is not unique to my car - but is certainly a problem that was featured on watchdog in 2004.

So, I phoned the Peugeot dealership, who first of all tried to tell me I shouldn't believe everything I read on the internet (right up until I pointed out I'd seen the Watchdog program), and then informed me that to troubleshoot the problem, they will have to charge me £45 for a full Peugeot flavour diagnostic test, which may result in a new download to my ECU (also chargable) - which may not work. And then after that, I will be charged £75 for each hour my car is being looked at, and if the test comes back clean, then a 2 hour test (also chargeable!) will be carried out.

I feel stuck in a bind. I've told the Peugeot Dealers to pick it up when they can (Friday) so they can check it out. I can't really afford this kind of money. Peugeot seem reluctant to deal with this suitably unless you phone them armed with the fact that the issue was on Watchdog in 2004.

Given that this problem has been pretty widely publicised in the past, I'm pretty disgusted that Peugeot are even now still refusing to admit that the issue is with their car, and are so gleeful about charging such extortionate prices for procedures that they admit may not work.

I've written to Watchdog, saying that the problem is alive and well, and that Peugeot are making silly amounts of money off it. And in the meantime, I'm having to work from home, I daren't drive my car, and I'm facing the prospect of a somewhat lonley birthday (or at least an expensive train journey) since I certainly won't feel safe driving a 3 hour trek on what will be mostly motorway!

Well, cutting this long story to an end - I was wondering if anyone here had dealt with this issue at all, and if they managed to get Peugeot to accept any ownership of the fault at all? Also, if anyone has any ideas of what it could be, I could at least go to my local - and much cheaper! - garage and ask them to check a particular thing on the car.