August 30, 2009

10,000km Service and DIY General Cleaning/Inspection

1. "FREE" 10,000th km SERVICE
August 1st. 2009 - Sent the car for the 10,000-km 'free service' to an authorised service center from where I bought my308 [almost six months ago] . I brought 'my' own oil. Paid RM64.70 for an oil filter, etc. ECU 'firmware' has been updated too for an additional function that my308 didn't have at the time it left France.

I think this particular Peugeot Service Center is one of if not the best in Klang Valley.


2. DIY SERVICE and INSPECTION
Today myPeugeot 308 just clocked 12,000km after 6-month of average usage. Taking advantage of long weekend [+National Day] I decided to clean and inspect the car inside out.

Step 1 of course wash the car first la...The paintwork still look shiny even though it has never been polished. Only cleaned with car shampoo and applied soft liquid wax once in a while...

Then open up the bonnet and cleaned everything in the engine bay.
After cleaning it was easy to start inspecting/checking. Battery terminal voltage was measured after the engine had been left sleeping for more than one-hour to ensure it was above 12volts.
Reads 12.71 Volts. Looks OK. If it fell below 12.0 Volts while sleeping there must be some troubles with the battery itself or/and the charging system [alternator, regulator, rectifier, etc..].

Next step was to check whether charging system OK or not. After firing the engine and waited almost a minute to stabilise, the a/cond and lightings were turned on. At idling engine speed the voltage should be roughly between 14.0~14.5Volts. More than 14.5 Volts is over and under 13.5volts is undercharged. Reads almost 14.1 Volts. Looks OK, but 14.2 Volts would be perfect. The voltage should be checked regularly to prevent premature death. If it does, hopefully before March 2010 or 20,000th km on the odometer for free replacement.

All hoses and wire connectors were checked for leak or/and loose. Everything was in perfect condition. Just like new. QC was excellent.The sky was overcast. Expecting light showers within an hour or so. The car was then pushed into the garage at ease, no squeaking sound of trapped sand or debris between the pad and the disk, also no problem with wheel bearings. Then crawled underneath to check for traces of oil or other fluid leaks. Also perfectly clean. No leaking, no seeping at all.
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The car was then driven to the front porch. Wheels were removed to inspect braking system.
Brake pads still got 10mm balance. The disks were all worn out evenly, both front disks already 0.5mm thinner on each surface though. Tyres were inspected but no damages found. Worn out evenly with approx. 80% of remaining thread depth.
Wheels were then cleaned and waxed to make them look like new again. No scratch at all hence polishing was absolutely unnecessary at then.

Tyre wells were also inspected and cleaned. Nothing went wrong. Everything in perfect condition. Both in front......and at the rear. The last test was 'pap smear'. To check for how effective the combustion and emission control was. The car was warmed up first. Tail pipe was cleaned from previous deposit of carbon black and then taken for a spin at normal pace. No hard acceleration. Upon returning to the porch a piece of tissue paper is rubbed on the inside surface of the tail pipe and here it is...
Very minimum carbon soot. Relatively clean backside, but a little bit smelly, ha haaa...

By then everything was inspected. Nothing went wrong and the car looked like brand new again... except for one thing though. As tyres worn out, there was a very slight drifting to the side just like my old W124. It was also time to rotate the tyres.

Regarding 'mild' or 'bearable' drifting to the left advices. It is a bullshit and waste of money to go to the tyre shops to adjust toe angle alone in order to rectify it. No way.

Toe-in is actually to correct understeer while toe-out is for oversteer compansation. I bet if all tyre shop mechanics know this.

Its camber and caster angles need adjustment if the car drifts sideways apart from rear axle 'not 90-degree' [perpendicular] to the car axis. If a car cannot be adjusted for camber and caster angles there is a simple way but proven successful. Everybody can DIY simply by juggling tyre rotation [swapping].

The following what I did by taking advantage of the different rate of wear between front and rear tyres.... [after clocking 12,000km]

First I did for LHS tyres. I swapped between FR and RR. Took a spin for a quick test. Pulling to the left was felt even more.

Then I swapped FL and RL tyres. Took another spin. The there is a mild pulling to the left.

Next I changed back LHS tyres to the earlier position. Tadaaaa.!!!.. no more drifting. It seemed that swapping between FL and RL tyres was good enough. The car went perfectly straight at any speed. If drifting persist, I would have to swap between FR and FL or/and RR and RL tyres. "The car looks and feels almost like it was 6 months ago... simply loved it, again." - uncle.D

THE END for today...

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13 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

haha..my rim was scratch before reach 2.5k due to my reckless driving and now my wife mumbling over me, need to find tyre shop that providing rim polishing.Uncle, you're very rajin in this puasa time to inspect ur Lion...Bravo

Wan A. Hadi (one.D) said...

Kalau buat kerja DIY dibulan2 BIASA pun den lupo makan...dibulan PUASA lak kalu buat kerja camni masa berlalau dgn pantas tanpa disedari.

Sebenarnya buat kerja semasa berpuasa lebih efficient.

zubairauto said...

pergh... seriusly uncle.d

this not spring cleaning.. this is like MOT inspection dah.

resPECT to u sir!
i think if they have contest i am peugeot cra2y, for sure you will win one!

thanks for all the infos again. now for the battery readers like yours eh, where to get it and how much eh? :P

zubairauto said...

one more uncle.d :)

how & what u you used to:
-clean engine bay
-clean underneath car

and seriously did u rotate the tyres yourselfs? no need to do balancing at least?

err where is your place eh uncle.d? if you in negri, my parents in law are in snawang. maybe we go tt hehe

Wan A. Hadi (one.D) said...

exGTiGSr,
I've my own workshop at my house to maintain 5 cars on my own [DIY], except under warranty I must send the cars to SC lah.

BTW anybody can rotate the tyres. With only one jack Peugeot [and citroen] can lift up 2 tyres at a time in 4 different ways. Japanese cars cannot one.

Ya, I'm familiar with MOT inspection when I was living 'there'. I know what u mean. In fact I bought lots of tools at car-boot-sales to open a mini w/shop helping friends during DIY sessions there. Every tool I brought back to Malaya. Better quality than China/Taiwan made.

My Dad is staying in N9. I'm somewhere between Seremban and KL.

Email me. We can talk more.

rgds

William Beh said...

Must need two jack to rotate the wheel. Maybe during Peq TT, can get the owner to borrow their jack and jack all four wheels at the same time :) Reaching 10K km soon. It's time to rotate the wheels

Wan A. Hadi (one.D) said...

Hi Bill,
No need two jacks. For Peugeot [and Citroen] one will do.

William Beh said...

Will check it out. Thanks for the tips

hakimi79 said...

memang mantoppppp!!!uncle D,
your works and details really make me impressed!

tapi tulah,banyaknya ur energy di bulan puasa ni....kawe nak basuh kereta pun tak larat...hehe..

one more thing, u bukak tire tuh pakai air compressor ke? nampak selamba je bukak empat2 tayar sekaligus..

lastly, bravo!

Wan A. Hadi (one.D) said...

Hakimi,
Ore tua ni buat kirjo sambil2 relak. Takleh ngache sangat nanti cepat letih cepat abih...hehe

Eh, jom kita gi gode mamat hok tunjok gambar besar honda CT kat "Autawords" Forum tu...

Unknown said...

very knowledgeable uncle.d
I didn't know that u can jack 2 wheels at once.

We make FRESH cheesetarts! said...

Hi there Uncle.D - Can you guide us how to jack up 2 wheels using only 1 jack? Are you using the supplied jack?

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