Maybe this one should be in "Bangernomics", and in fact it would have started off there, but the scope of the project has grown a bit, so now it’s got a little page of its own. As a bit of background, “The Emmas” a frustrated “Boy Racer”. She likes her cars, and she likes them fast. She’s had some nice cars in the past, and still has. As of June 2023, there was a couple of Subaru Impreza's a Subaru Brat and a Peugeot 206 GTI in her stable, with the 206 being used as a daily driver, Autotest fun car, and general run around.
Whilst I don’t have much to do with the fast cars, (they’re her hobby) the little 206 has needed quite a bit of work in the past, mainly because it’s been abused over the last few years, and falling strictly into the "Bangernomics" camp, I’ve had my greasy little fingers in it, maintaining it.
Over the last year or so I’ve replaced both front shock absorbers and top mounts, both drop links, steering arm inner ends and ball joints, both lower wishbones, anti-roll bar bushes, an Injector, the coolant temperature sensor, fixed the cooling fan and horn, replaced the bonnet and cooling fan mountings when she hit a deer on the way to work, replaced the auxiliary drive belt and tensioners, and probably a few other things that I’ve forgotten about.
Then the exhaust back box fell off! While I was underneath fixing that, I noticed a few rust patches appearing, so while the exhaust was off and I had a bit of space, it made sense to sort that out too.
And then, at the start of July 2023 it failed its MOT. Not just a little failure either. Excessive play in the rear axle bearings, fog lights fail to operate or stay on, and a couple of other little bits. The rear axle and the lights were the problem though. The lighting issue turned out to be the electronics unit behind the steering wheel, although I did go down a bit of a blind path to start with as "The Emma" was convinced that it was the indicator stalk and fog light switch that was the problem, and the rear axle is a known Peugeot 206 problem.
What to do though? Was it worth fixing, or should it just go for scrap?
Throwing a further spanner into the conundrum, “The Emma’s” Dad was thinking about upgrading his current car, and Emma had first dibs on his old one.
Having already done a load of work on the little 206, I hated to think of it just going for scrap though. I’ve actually got quite a soft spot for it, and a quick look on "How many left" showed that as of July 23, there were only 656 from the 13000 originally registered still on the road. Which to my mind, meant it was probably worth saving.
The Emma eventually decided that she was going to have her Dads old car (Ford Fiesta ST), which left us with too many cars. What to do then? There were a couple of options. Bodge the 206 GTI up to pass the MOT, then sell it, or do the job properly, keep it and get rid of something else.
So which way did we go?
Well, keep it of course! it’s a nice little car, it’s a nice little rolling project, and they’re getting rarer by the minute. With a bit of jiggling around, “The Emma” got her Fiesta ST, and I’ve ended up with the 206 GTI as a run around and ongoing project, under the proviso that “The Emma” can use it for Autotest’s etc, which sounds like a fair deal to me.
So, let’s get into the nitty gritty and get it back on the road and go from there!