Got to have a look at the car tomorrow. The ride has become pretty awful and mainly revolves around cornering or rough surfaces. Feels like I’m driving a 2CV at times with the amount of roll I’m experiencing. I would presume drop links but there’s none of the usual clunking that you would expect when worn. No random steering issues other than wheels out of balance so presume bushes in the arms are ok. Suspension seems ok [bounce test] and no visible leaks.

Going to have a proper look at it all tomorrow but if anyone has any suggestions as to where to look before I start on it. Rather avoid a wild goose chase if possible.

Anti-roll bar as a first guess.
There will be a U shaped steel bar underneath, with the base of the U attached to the floor and the ends attached to short vertical links.
Check all rubber mountings and bolts.

Probably looks a bit like this.

Or this.

(Mechanic here) What graham said above plus I’d check your suspension dampers (shocks), press down heavily on each corner of the car and let go quickly, the car should return to its ride height within one cycle and without bouncing up and down. If it does bounce then your shocks have either lost or blown gas or oil seals.
What car do you own?.

Got a pug 206. To be fair the shocks could probably do with being replaced as I reckon they have done pretty well. I’ve not changed them and they looked original when I bought it. Now on 87k so it wouldn’t surprise me if most of the bushes had gone.

That’s the rear anti-roll bar isn’t it? Don’t remember seeing one on the front.

I pressed down on both front shocks and they do return to stationary within one bounce. The rear is the same

Also to note is it feels like the front wheels that dip rather than the rear which feel like they lift.

When was the last time you checked your tyre pressures?

I’d bet money on tired shocks and springs if you feel it diving under braking

The bottom picture is a front anti-roll bar, you can see the steering bit between the two wishbones.
I don’t know if your car will have them front and back.
Could be a broken spring. Sounds daft, but measure them or count the coils. Sometimes they can break and the piece can drop out on the road, leaving the broken end sitting on its seat and looking OK at first glance.

Have you checked the tyre logos line up properly with the valves?

few weeks back. It isn’t that as that was my first point of call. It also feels a little excessive for underinflated tyres. Rear tyres are perished and need changing. Front ones half way through so will be balanced along with new rear tyres [changed to front]

Anti roll bars can snap. Happened to a mate’s car – comedy amounts of roll. I think there is one on the front in some cars, isn’t there?

I’d be looking at the shocks too. Good way is to get someone (with a bit of savvy) to follow, or drive beside, you on a dual carriage way and see if the car ‘bounces’ as it hits bumps in the road. If they are really goosed then the car will ‘bounce’ along the road for a fair period of time and is quite amusing to watch. You may not have noticed due to the fact it has become a slow downgrade in performance rather than something breaking and seeing an instant performance loss.

However as SomaFunk and Graham have mentioned there is a possibility it could be roll bar. I’d be very surprised if it had broken but one of the drop links may have failed and fallen off therefore removing the link between both sides of the vehicle and registering the roll bar useless. The bonus about this is you should be able to see the failure quite easily.

HTH

Sunday

Slow Wobler – when I’m driving I can feel it bouncing on bumpy sections. It’s awful along general A-Roads let along back country roads!

Molgrips – yes there is one each side. Normally plastic and I’ve known them to break although not on my car. I did change my old 306 to steel ones when they were worn to avoid this.

WCA – You may be on to something. I also have odd valve caps. The difference in weight may be presenting an issue! 😉

Rear trailing arms maybe? Does it look like its running any camber on the rear?

PITA to fix and generally if you can see its running camber the stub axle is worn and replacing the bushing doesn’t last that long.

Rear axle seems fine. I know the pugs are known to end up replacing the rear bearings due to camber which normally means a reconditioned axle. Seems pretty straight to be honest so think it’s fine. Will still have a better gander tomorrow though

You’d probably hear it knocking before it was effected handling TBH.

Good luck with the hunt!

Based on what you’re saying Taff I’d definitely be starting by looking at the front shock absorbers, unless you find something obvious adrift when you look under the car.

If you are familiar with car suspension systems than you could possibly remove the shock abosrbers and make sure they are functioning correctly before just replacing? Make sure you have some spring compressors to clamp the springs before attempting to remove the shock from the front strut assembly!!

Thanks SW, I’ll have a gander. Not done much on modern cars but know the basics. Got spring compressors that could be a painful mistake without them 😳

Sorted wiper out had to cut the olive off. Wiper removal tool was as much use as a chocolate fire guard.

Question, rear suspension feels a bit crap. Would that effect the feel of the front too?

Won’t be the anti-roll bar – unless it has dropped off! (it’s just a dumb bit of metal). Typical ARB problems are the drop links knocking (worn out) or the ARB itself knocking when the bushes wear out.

Deffo sounds like front struts.

Good luck working on it, I have a couple of friends with 206s and they are bloody horrible to work on compared to 306s. The inner wishbone pivots are horizontally mounted bushes so don’t have much articulation like the 306 one.

Rear can affect the front a bit but if the rear dampers have gone then the fronts could also be pretty shot too if the same age and had the same use.

Also check for play in the ball joints and bushes as it can make the handling nervous and uncertain.

Yes rear shocks will affect handling. Blew a seal on my xsara (same rear beam as pug). Felt like driving a boat. The road to Afan was hilarious. Back end swings all over the place got to over correct all the time. On the up side piece of pish to change half hour a side. Make sure you change both at the same time.

Could be a broken spring. Sounds daft, but measure them or count the coils. Sometimes they can break and the piece can drop out on the road, leaving the broken end sitting on its seat and looking OK at first glance.

I was thinking this at first too. I have had this on my car a few times over the years but its not sounding like it could be this at fault with what he described.

I’m not sure if the 206 is similar to the 106 but I’ve had a broken spring like Graham said (clunking during slower turning but not really affecting the ride)

I’ve had Ball joint probs – worn but not really feeling like they affected the ride like you talked about either.

drop links were replaced but only to freshen everything up.

I’ve had a few pugs and even with high miles, never had probs with arb’s.

If it’s the same setup as a 106 gti then the struts are a pain to remove compared to the struts in my Seat Ibiza. There’s more faff and harder to do in ‘the garden’. It’s a lot easier to pull a driveshaft out of the pug too (not what you really want). Once they are off,the spring removal is easy but the nut at the top of the strut to remove the damper is a specialist tool ,although a rough back alley garage would whip them off with some make-do wrench. It removes them but it marks the nut.

If you want to tackle it yourself and haven’t bought spring compression tools etc.. I would probably pay for someone to have a look at it first. It might not cost as much as you’d expect and it’ll save disrupting stuff that might be running perfectly.

Sometimes the home mechanic/I can do it myself approach wastes time and money.. leaving you with a sore head (with pugs) ;O)

Just come back from a meal out and the rear end feels funny especially on tight roundabouts. Feels a bit like the rear end wants to skip out (no not hooning it). Just tried lifting the rear arches and the near side shock is very stiff in comparison to the off side. Reckon you’re right probably front and rear gone given the age. I do find that the Fromm wheels follow deviations in the road ie tar lines but that is wheel balancing I’m sure. Feels nothing like when my wishbone bushes went on the 306.

Although I swore when working on the 306 I hadn’t realised how spoilt I was until I got the 206! Everything is awkward an trees no such thing as any easy task. Even removing a wiper arm took ages.

Is it a 1.9 diesel?

1.6 16v petrol

If front end wandering, track rod ends, grab wheel at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock position and try turning wheel left and right fast TRE will knock.
If its really bad you can do reach around rock back edge of front wheel and feel movement at TRE ball joint

pray it’s not the trailing arm bearings like 306’s get…

If it is the I’ll be buying a new car!!

Following deviations in the road is nothing to do with wheel balancing, that is tracking which is probably related to worn shocks,tired springs/knackered top mounts along with worn suspension arm bushes.

It sounds like it could be a rather expensive repair if everything on the car is original fitment and never been touched or replaced in almost 90,000 miles.

Your car has a beam rear axle, if the bushes in the rear axle where it connects to the chassis wear out or perish then you can get a self steering effect on the rear where it feels like the rear wants to overtake the front, then again worn shocks or even wheel bearings can cause this but if it was wheel bearings you’d hear a loud droning noise.

I’d take it to a good back street Peugeot garage as recommended by friends or post on some of the peugeot forums and let them advise you of where to take it.

Not that I think this has anything to do with the problem but it would be good to jack a corner up at the rear and block the wheels elsewhere. Let the handbrake off and grab the wheel at not only 12&6 o’clock/9&3 o’clock.. but also try 8&2 o`clock on the rear nearside wheel. Jack the other side up and feel for it at those points along with 10 & 4 o’clock.

The 8&2 o’clock nearside / 10&4 o’clock offside was where I found play in my axle. It felt fine elsewhere but it wasn’t too expensive to sort it out as I caught it in time.

Rear beams are shotblasted/painted up here and kitted out with new bearings and stub pins etc for £340. Old beams are bought for £50.

Yeah, I’ll just shut up Kenny as I’m no car mechanic! Funny you should mention that steering with worn bushes under the beam fixing points. Before I got a new (recon) beam fitted I remember the rear feeling weird and braking was weird with odd pulling. I thought it was brake probs but it had new discs/pads all round. Maybe the chewing gum-like bushes were causing it? I planned on getting harder one’s (not solid group A alloy ones!) but it never happened.

It’s a 206, bin it! Do you not remember how much nicer the 306 was to drive? :O) Unbolt the beam,snip the brake lines,get a scrappy to uplift (literally)leaving the beam behind and get £120 for it. Then take the beam elsewhere for £50 and put the rest towards….

Pistonheads’ shed of the week, a 306 gti with heated seats! £999. http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=26671 :O)

my 306 estate has a reconditioned rear beam – about 18 months to 2 years old. Wasn’t fitted by me.

They supplied the wrong beam (should have had a thicker ARB and torsion bars) as they didn’t match it and I have noticed more wear on the inside of the rear tyres. Not sure if that was due to me running 42psi on the rear or if they were on before the old beam was knackered but keeping an eye on my new tyres and have dropped them back down to 37psi – I run quite high pressures on my 306 diesels as I find newer tyres have a lot more grip and work better with a few more psi in. I am still within the ‘max load’ pressures though.

Martin’s got the right idea by jacking up all four wheels at once off the ground so there is no load bearing effect on the opposite side of the car, by only jacking up one side at a time you will twist the rear beam and pull any discrepancies or loose bushings tight.

How about trading it in and buying a Volkswagen or Seat or a Skoda even?, personally i don’t trust french cars in the slightest and i used to physically walk away and hide or pretend to be busy doing something else if they ever came into the garage for repairs of any sort, despicable things to work on and really cheap n’ nasty fasteners made of surrender monkey cheese.

Ahh, I was meaning just one corner (cos i’m lazy/don’t have enough stands etc and I never thought of relieving all 4 corners at once) but I see yer logic. Maybe if I did this I’d have felt the play in more area’s than I did.

It sounds like it could be a rather expensive repair

It’s a Peugeot – everything is expensive! Rear bushes seem ok visually but jacking up will tell a different story. Will wait until tomorrow. Got a local garage to my work who’ve been working on my cars for a few years or at last the task I can’t do or haven’t got the time to do.

I have four stands so that’s not a problem. It’s jacking points and axle stand points on this car – rubbish! I want either a ford focus/Mondeo for sheer storage but would rather a Leon or Octavia. The pug was cheap when I got it as it had very minor issues after a cat d write off – damage bumper and tailgate. Cost a mate a few hundred to sort it out. Bought if for 2250 with 39k on the clock so value for money has been good.

Went to Kwik Fit as the ground is sodden. Got them to put it on the jack and all suspension etc seems fine – I also had a gander not just them. They did point out that other than my rear tyres being fubared my front are on 2mm (3-3.5mm to you and me). Didn’t bother balancing them as a waste – cant believe I hadn’t noticed this before either!

It’s a Peugeot – everything is expensive! 

Seriously?! Never owned a bmw or Toyota then?Or Audi for that matter.

You want expensive repairs, try getting a new turbo for a Toyota engine, or doing a dealer clutch replacement on a 1991 celica (1200). Or replacing the in-car entertainment computer on a 5 series bmw (1800).

Recently had to replace most bushes on the front sus of my 306 at 158k, everything but the inner arm bushes for <100:). Replaced a pulley on it once too, 32 quid. I assume we are talking about newer pugs when saying they are expensive?

I’ve given up diagnosing cars over the internet, mainly because people rarely catch all symptoms and descriptions are very subjective. But I will say shocks can pass the bounce test and still be shafted, it only tests the slow speed response which worked with oldschool shock designs but doesn’t test high frequency response like stutter bumps on corners. Also play in bushes is not always obvious without a lot of load. “tired” bushes on the arb will generate higher roll without knocks, from experience.

– I run quite high pressures on my 306 diesels as I find newer tyres have a lot more grip and work better with a few more psi in.

Wtf? Grip goes down with increasing pressure (due to smaller contact patch and higher loads on remaining tyre material). The only time that may help is if you are using tyres that have a very soft sidewall and are not designed for that axle load and deform too much under cornering?