General MOT failure

[franglais]

i bought my marea 2 years ago for 800euros, which is only 3 or 4 hundred Euros above the gypsy price in france, now it is due it's Control technique (mot) and i know it will not pass, i have the knocking suspension, at the front and back, at least 2 new tyres, another diesel leak which along with a recent drop in power, leads me to believe the (replacement) injection pump is on it's way out, an oil leak near the oil cooler, and the starter motor sticks and won't budge when the motor is warm, so if i go out, i have to wait until it cools enough before i can whack it with a piece of steel tube to unstick it and drive off again.
All of this will cost a pretty packet, and i dont have the time, or a a workspace to do it myself, even if i pay a garage to make it pass it's CT, i will still be left with a pretty shoddy car at the end of it. there are many many things that dont work which are not on the control list, central locking only working from passenger side door, stiff windows, boot latch knackered and only just working due to being bodged together and has to be locked manually, upholtery in a bad way. etc etc on top of it all, it is an old TD100 and it smokes too much to pass new emissions standards due to arrive soon. in short she's heading to the scrap yard.

i am trying desperately to find a replacement, i can dip into all my savings and borrow a little from the kids account to scrape 2grand together, but this is an absolute maximum. trouble is, there are very few mareas left, nevermind ones in good condition and at this price range, all the low milage clean good ones are up around 3 or 4 grand. makes me wish i was still in the UK with the rediculous vehicule depreciation.

all this is making me look at other cars, and im serously considering going all grandad and getting a 406 hdi 110 estate. i shall try to avaoid it if at all possible but i have less than 1 months to find a suitable replacement.

tick tock tick tock

 

[g8rpi]

Get a Croma!

 

[CAMARGUAIS63]

What sadness to throw your Marea! She has many miles?

 

[franglais]

Get a Croma!

my freind has a croma, AWFUL CARS!! what a silly suggestion

have you ever tried loading a 4x10 bass cabinet with amplifier and PA system (2 large speakers and a 12U rack case, along with a multipair and mixing desk flight case and stage monitors into a croma? with it's tiny boot flap and bumper lip which prevents sliding anything in or out, also the rear seats that don't fold flat.
only thing better than the marea is the 6 speed box.

 

[franglais]

What sadness to throw your Marea! She has many miles?

only 260,000km the motor is good for another 100,000km, but everything else is dying.

 

[g8rpi]

my freind has a croma, AWFUL CARS!! what a silly suggestion

have you ever tried loading a 4x10 bass cabinet with amplifier and PA system (2 large speakers and a 12U rack case, along with a multipair and mixing desk flight case and stage monitors into a croma? with it's tiny boot flap and bumper lip which prevents sliding anything in or out, also the rear seats that don't fold flat.
only thing better than the marea is the 6 speed box.

I never even tried getting that much in my Marea Weekend (110 JTD), sounds like you need a Volvo
OK the boot space is not great (but is beeter without the dual level arrangement. The multijet 1.9 16V 150 engine is better than the TD100 and for my uses (you did not say you were a mobile disco) I wound not swap the Croma for a Marea, much as I liked my Marea.

Robert.

 

[franglais]

a multijet 150 and a 6 speed box would be lovely i have to admit.

 

[CAMARGUAIS63]

La Marea in 1.8L has 245,000 kms and only one window regulator knob broke my fault, if everything works, even centralization and alarm ..
Great car !!

 

[Peter Pick-Up]

Fiat Stilo sw jtd,


http://suchen.mobile.de/auto-insera...mbitCountry=FR&negativeFeatures=EXPORT&noec=1

(Alfa Romeo 159 sw jtd......)

 

[CAMARGUAIS63]

Nice car ! : Miam:

 

[franglais]

I can't say i like the styling of the Stylo, especially the estate, i'm sure it's a reasonble car, but i'd prefer to stick with the Marea, Alpha 159 is a gorgeous car, its been on my wish list for a while already, but the rear end is even more pointless than the Croma, putting tiny little boot flap on an estate, what were they thinking? i suppose the holiday luggage and golf clubs will fit in nicely, and that will do.

i'm swinging back to thinking, I'll see if i can sort out the oil leak if the weather gets any nicer, and then put it through it's test and see what they find and how much it'll cost me to fix up, at least if i do that, i'll have a good chance of selling it on, if i try and sell it with no MOT, i'll be lucky to get tuppence for it.
i have one month to run some good fuel, and a bottle or two of engine cleaner and anti smoke additive, get it nice and hot, then hammer it in 4th down the motorway to get some of the crud out the engine. hopefully the clunking suspensiion wont be to serious, but from the sloppy vague feel of the steering, and the imbalance in one or more of the wheels at multiples of 38kmh, i am not confident.
being prudent, i should wait until i have a job before splashing out on another car.

 

[Neverth]

Usually either ARB links to the shock or the ARB bushes to he subframe (and I've had the limiter on ARB break off and the bar move sideways until it hit something, nothing couple hoseclamps cant fix).

 

[SzilardMarea]

Sorry for your Marea

Is it applied with the Delphi-Lucas electro-mechanical injection system? If so, read on, if not, it may not be relevant.

I had a similar problem with my 1998 Marea Weekend TD100, 1000km after I bought the car it started to exhaust either white or black cloud (colour depending on the constellation between saturn and mars). It was so thick that it wouldn't pass any test, nor I could use any enclosed buildings to park the car (becuse of visibility-related reasons). First couple of service garages couldn't do anything with it, but then one of them simply disconnected the electrical part of the injection system, so it works as a clearly mechanical one.

Now it sometimes smokes gasoline, vibrates wildly because of misfirings, has the acoustics somewhere between a tractor, a rallye sportscar, and a caffee grinder. Luckily, at least in Hungary they don't really measure Gasoil in the exhaust during the MOT, nor is the deafening sound a problem to pass the test. And it still has the power, especially as the turbo kicks in.

Perhaps worth a try as a quick solution.

 

[Neverth]

Stuck/clogged EGR if it has never been cleaned?

 

[SzilardMarea]

Or the Borg Warner modulator. I once had problem with that and it messed up the engine pretty well. It could lead to similar problems as the EGR.

 

[franglais]

my car has a manual gearbox, so no vacuum modulator if i'm not mistaken.

Neveth, there are soo many things that have probably never been cleaned, EGR, crankcase vapour recirculation (my dispsick keeps popping out), just for starters. If i were to address everything, the car would never be on the road!
maybe if i can get her to scrape through the test at the end of the month, i will try and dedicate a bit of time this summer to her, but i have so many other things that demand my time it's unreal. 2 kids under 3 years old. i'm so tired. g'night!

 

[franglais]

no no, actually, im wrong, there IS one as part of the EGR system, i thought they were only part of automatic transmissions gear change sensor array..

 

[franglais]

well the results are in from this mornings test, she failed, as expected, but only just, i was expecting a LOT worse than that, and to be fair, i know that it is a lot worse than that, i suspect the tester was hung over, or expecting an easy day and had smoked a sly one before work, he was very relaxed.
the main points are tie rod end (TRE for further uses) on the drivers side, and flexible brake pipes for the rear, everything else was an advisory, he wasn't even fussed about the huge puddle of oil i left of his workshop floor, it was seriously a puddle, he had to wipe it up with a rag! I was very worried he would condemn the car on site, it's always the way, that slight drip of oil, becomes a Niagara falls leak the day before the test, i lost more than 1 litre in the last 3days!!! the rear view mirror fell of the day before yesterday to boot. i wonder if he put the oil leak as an advisory knowing that if it wasn't sorted ASAP, the car would be in the scrapyard with a dead engine well before the retest.

anyway, i have sorted it today, no more oil leak, it was the seal from the oil heat exchanger (EPER piece number 98429617 if anyone is actually interested), it had perished and cracked and one of the cracks had opened and started gushing. stroke of good luck though, it just so happens that the seal from my next oil filter (shop had a sale and i had a voucher, i bought 2 as i didn't know what else to get and i wasn't about to let a voucher expire) fitted almost perfectly, it was just a little too thick, but not too thick to be a problem, maybe 1mm.

so left on the list are the brake lines and a TRE, the brakes shouldn't be a problem, but what i would like some advice on is, if i change the TRE myself, would i have to take it straight to a garage, as the tracking would be shot (it is already but that's also just an advisory). is it one of these jobs that's just better to spend the money and have it all done in one place, or is it quite feasible to change and get right?

 

[Neverth]

Question 1: Do you want to buy new front tires more often?

Answer that and you have the other answer.

 

[varesecrazy]

Question 1: Do you want to buy new front tires more often?

Answer that and you have the other answer.

Slacken off the "locknut",
then put back to 1mm gap,

unscrew the old one, screw new one on..,
up to the locknut - 1mm short ,

tighten everything back ,
it SHOULD drive "straight"

in the UK my preferred places do "free tracking checks" I've always got the "it's fine" after such work..,
Charlie