306 wiring loom problem - car written off!

Hi,

Long story short.....my mum's W reg 306 developed a fault with the rear
wind screeen wiper (kept blowing fuses in the main fuse box). She took
the the car a local Peugeot garage, who carried out a "dignostic check"
and said the motor in the wiper had gone and needed replacing. Nearly 5
weeks later, they are now saying the wiring loom is fried and that they
are suprised that there has not been an electrical fire before today.
The repair estimate has gone from £80, to £200 for a replacement
wiper unit, up to £400 for part of the wiring loom to be replaced to
an estimate of £1300 to fix all the problems they've now found.
They've estimated that the car, W reg perfect nick 46,000 miles, is
worh £1500 and that the repair is not worth doing. They have said that
they "won't see my mum without a car" and if she goes in they'll sort
out a deal with a new car.

The car has not had any probs, electrical or otherwise, indeed the only
fault that has developed since she had it is the blown fuse for the
rear wiper. 5 weeks seems to be an inordinate amount of time to find
the fault and since they've had it, they have dragged their heels
diagnosing/fixing it. I'm starting to wonder if these more serious
problems actually existed prior to them starting the repairs. Any
advice on how to proceed? Anyone else had a similar problem?

Mark.

 

I wish I could get one for that much!

Ah there's the rub.

Go to an independent garage for a second opinion.

 

Hi,

Long story short.....my mum's W reg 306 developed a fault with the rear
wind screeen wiper (kept blowing fuses in the main fuse box). She took
the the car a local Peugeot garage, who carried out a "dignostic check"
and said the motor in the wiper had gone and needed replacing. Nearly 5
weeks later, they are now saying the wiring loom is fried and that they
are suprised that there has not been an electrical fire before today.
The repair estimate has gone from £80, to £200 for a replacement
wiper unit, up to £400 for part of the wiring loom to be replaced to
an estimate of £1300 to fix all the problems they've now found.
They've estimated that the car, W reg perfect nick 46,000 miles, is
worh £1500 and that the repair is not worth doing. They have said that
they "won't see my mum without a car" and if she goes in they'll sort
out a deal with a new car.

The car has not had any probs, electrical or otherwise, indeed the only
fault that has developed since she had it is the blown fuse for the
rear wiper. 5 weeks seems to be an inordinate amount of time to find
the fault and since they've had it, they have dragged their heels
diagnosing/fixing it. I'm starting to wonder if these more serious
problems actually existed prior to them starting the repairs. Any
advice on how to proceed? Anyone else had a similar problem?


If their valuation is as good as there work then you should certainly get a
second opinion. Parkers value the lowest spec 306 (LX, 1.4, 5 door) at
£2,270 part exchange value and over £3,000 if bought from a dealer. You
definitely want to get another opinion (ideally an autoelectrics
specialist). If your mother trades it in on their valuation they stand to
make a killing.

 

Now remind me why I don't trust garages.

 

I had the same fault, and it cost me about £15 to fix myself.

The rear-wiper usually blows fuses because there's water-ingress to the
rear wiper-motor relay through the wiper aperture: it shorts it, and
blows a fuse. For a Phase III, this is also on the same circuit as the
alternator and electric windows. I think it's fuse 26 or 28.

You do not need a new car (or a new wiper, I suspect).

Keep your 306 as long as possible because the 307 is a massive
disappointment.

My advice is to get the car back, fit another relay and fuse, step away
from the main dealer (your car is no longer under its original 3-year
warranty, so why bother?) and take it to an good independent, if the
relay and fuse fails to fix the fault.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

 

Thanks to all for the advice - as far as I'm aware the garage have done
so much "repairing" to the electrics that the service manager has
indicated that the car is not "driveable". I'm off to see them at lunch
time, so stay tuned for more exploits...........

 

If you never authorised any work (apart from basic diagnostics), I would
question whether they were allowed to turn it into an undriveable state.
You originally said your mum "took the car to a local Peugeot garage",
so I assume it was driveable then.

Unless you authorised them to do work which could render the care
undriveable, I would suggest they return it to the original state for free.

D

 

I agree. Plus I doubt whether a halfway decent garage would have failed to
diagnose such a catastrophic failure earlier.

I bet the car is driveable too. That's what fuses are for innit, to protect
the wiring. If the fuses had failed to protect the wiring then someone must
have bodged things earlier.

 

The fault might be the wiring loom where it goes through the little rubber
tube into the tailgate. Common cause of broken wires, but not cause to write
the vehicle off.

 

Yes and shoould still be protected by the fuse box

 

Sorry I should have said that my mum had okay'd the repairs to replace
the wiper relay, then the wipe unit when that was found to be faulty
and then the loom at the rear.

I saw the car on Wednesday and they'd found, and I clearly saw, that
wiring in the instrument panel harness had fused together Somehow at
the wiper end the relused had all but melted, killing the motor and at
the other end wires had melted. There was no obvious damage in the
wiring runs in between and the fuse box appeared ok (other than the
fuses, 26 or 28 can't remember) that blew initially. I hada good
rummage around with one of the service guys.

The upshot of it all is that she's decided to bin the car, for a number
of reasons - she was looking at replacing in the summer anyway, clutch
needed doing and in the intervening time the tax + MOT needed doing and
a major service, so the timing for this was almost right. The garage (+
even the sales guys) were very helpful and with a few web pages printed
out, she managed to get a nice deal on another car so she's happy.
Thanks to all for the comments and happy trails..................