ClareQuilty

25000 with wonkey steering is it better than this

https://www.kaidee.com/product-112527979/

21900

CQ pull yourself together

Of course its better than that one - its here and in hand. I can't even tell what province that one is in, and you know how Kaidee is, a lot of shysters.

I took the car in today, its the tie rods and tie rod ends (bent), total about 2,000 baht for the repair, going ahead with it. Well worth it I'd say.

Anyway, how is this the fault of the car (banger)? The guy ran directly into a curb - that would bend the tie rods on any car, new or old.

The off centre steering wheel is more than likely due to the kerbing incident and probably would be corrected by a wheel alignment that will cost next to nothing.

The play is probably due to the wear and tear of the car being old. There may be some adjustment facility on the steering box(?) or rack, if not it will need replacing if it's as bad as you say. Your tame mechanic is the one to advise you on that.

Well, I was afraid of that - the steering box or rack, which is very expensive to replace, but I do believe there are other parts which are much cheaper which can cause play in the steering, such as "tie rod ends" and other bushings and things.

I was wondering if the blow of hitting the curb mightn't have damaged those sort of parts. The thing that makes me doubt its the steering box or rack is that there was no progressive wear at all - it was tight as a drum less than a year ago when I sold it, and now its loose as a goose.

My old Ke-70 which I sold a while back has returned to me as a long-term loaner, because the buyer has moved away to a different part of Thailand. He asked me to take care of the car for a while, and consider buying it back in future.

The car is still going strong, and slipping back behind the wheel was like a homecoming for yours truly.. what a joy to drive with the windows open on a cool Isaan night - and no bloody tinting!

The only bad part is the car, which used to have quite tight steering, now has a huge amount of play in the steering and the wheel is off-center. Its been less than a year since I sold it, and the new owner did crash it into a curb once at moderate speed, destroying the left front tire, so I'm thinking its more likely accident-related than wear.

What sort of problems could be the cause, and what sort of costs might be expected for this kind of "front-end" repair? (also, should I consider this a major mark against repurchasing the car - I'm thinking it wold only be 25,000 to buy)

I want to try to translate this handwritten note I found in my car, made by my mechanic about the repairs he was doing:

Thanks all for your replies. I have had the car back a couple of days now, and it is running fine again. He didn't specify any new parts, just checking, cleaning etc.

My total bill was just 500 baht for installing a new radiator overflow tank (oddly enough the car didn't have one before, he used one from a Mitsubishi).

Here's the hand written note I found in the front passenger seat - can anyone read Thai?

My mechanic insists that there is no possible way to get a replacement mass airflow meter/sensor for my Peugeot 405. So, I'm wondering if there is anyway to make the car run without one, or with one from a Toyota or something like that.

Besides this, I have a suspicion that the problem with the extreme low idling and dying on deceleration may be caused by something else anyway, but he's blaming the mass airflow meter.

Wow the prices quoted in this thread are so cheap! I was quoted about 20,000 for my old Ke70 here in Maha Sarakham so I did nothing.

Thanks.. I'll do that as a last resort, but maybe my mechanic can telephone to some of those Bangkok dealers & have it sent.. for me going to Bangkok is like climbing Mount Everest...

Just like climbing Everest you need to set up camps along the way with spare parts and the occasional spare vehicle.

Well no I would never drive a car to Bangkok, that would be crazy. I take the overnight bus. But it's still arduous.

The 405 still experiences the low idle problem, but only around 25-30% of the time, and only when the engine has been run at least 20-30 minutes & is thoroughly warmed up.

My mechanic continues to insist there's no way to get proper replacement parts for the sensors, etc.

CQ,

Lots of 405's in Thailand so spares will be OK, even if used. Come to Bangkok there is a garage not far from me on Rama4 that has a Peugeot sign hanging outside.

Thanks.. I'll do that as a last resort, but maybe my mechanic can telephone to some of those Bangkok dealers & have it sent.. for me going to Bangkok is like climbing Mount Everest...

I've seen the biker pushing another thing.

Very cool.

Do that.

I did, but the pusher was the mechanic from the nearest shop, one I didn't know well. I was the pushee.

It all went well, but when we got back to the shop he told me it was the battery, and wanted to install a 600 baht replacement - to my mind this was patently ridiculous, as the bike was turning over strongly even after 20 minutes of various people trying to start it on three previous occasions, the horn blew strongly, etc.

So, I said 'no thanks', gave him the 50 baht he asked for the push-push, and rolled the bike away to a secure location, and will get a trusted mechanic to come get it by pickup truck sometime soon. I'd rather pay him something to pick it up than pay a dishonest one.

Holy cow, now the bike won't run at all. My renter got it back from the repair shop and drove it a few days, but now it won't even start. Renter gave up on it in frustration and I lost a customer. :'(

Turns over, but won't start, so my guess is no fuel getting through the carburetor. Plenty of gas in the tank.

Its been sitting a few days now as its quite far from a repair shop, I'll probably have to either hire someone to go get it on a truck, or get a friend to push me from behind by foot while driving his bike.

Another fairy story CQ .....

What now, Jas? You surmise that it is improbable that an old car might have trouble idling, or that the parts for an old European car might be difficult to find in Thailand?

Thanks to all for your advice. Perhaps it was the mass air flow censor that my mechanic was specifically regarding as hard-to-source, though he mentioned the O2 sensor in the same breath. He basically stated that both were "good enough, though not perfect".

He also mentioned that if one were needed in future, his supplier had mentioned that one from certain models of BMW 318 might fit/be usable in the Peugeot.

Anyway he's got the car running OK for now, so I will soldier on and not look for problems before they come.

I recently got my 405 back from the mechanic, and he had largely cured the very low idling (and occasionally dying) problems it had been experiencing. He managed this without replacement parts, but had mentioned he checked the mass air flow & oxygen sensors, which had considered replacing, but he found that originals weren't available in Thailand, only Taiwanese made replacements, which he said were "worse new than the old original ones in your car".

So, even though the car's doing OK at the moment, it makes me nervous to know these items may not be available. Does anyone know if such items are findable in Thailand?

Just set the idle higher.

Pics?

Yeah, the idle was very high when I got the bike.. I'll try that if this latest shop doesn't fix it. I don't have any pics, alas, the bikes 45 minutes away with a renter.

Did you even take it to Yamaha? main dealers are very cheap here and at least they won't try and rip you off. (In my experience anyway)

I had minor carb problems similar to yours on my Honda, and my bill was about 800B with a belt change and new plug.

I didn't try Yamaha, but that might've been a reasonable idea. I usually have bikes so old (two-strokes), that the non-dealer mechanics seem more familiar with them, so I've totally gotten out of the habit of even thinking of the dealer as an option.

New carb for an old Mio is about 915baht off the shelf and is pre-set.

Jeez, I really cannot believe the OP thinks he is being ripped off.

Well, they quoted 2,000, which is terribly high if the part is only 915 wholesale.

This is sad.

How much money were you cheated out of exactly?

I paid 500 baht. The shop only took the bike apart, looked at (and supposedly cleaned) the carburetor, and then quoted the ridiculous 2,000 baht price for a new carb. After I declined to agree to this, they put the bike back together, and it runs no better than it did when I dropped it off. So, I figure the reasonable charge for that might've been 100-200 baht - the 500 was clearly a rip-off.

I've taken it to the mechanic down the street, he says he'll finish Monday afternoon. You know, this is the first time in a decade of living in Thailand that I've been blatantly cheated.

New Carbs are Preset and not expensive..Problem fixed

I just got the news from the shop - they said it needed a new carburetor and quoted (vaguely) 2,000 baht. This doesn't seem cheap at all to me - the vehicle's only worth 5,000 baht all in, and I've had four stroke engines rebuilt for 2,000 before. I find it hard to believe there isn't some way of rebuilding or jury-rigging the carb for a few hundred baht - I think this mechanic may be a cheat.

The Almera took me down memory lane. It was like driving a car from the 70s. Tinny, gutless and drove like a tea trolly.

You must not be from the States. 1970s memory lane for us is all about torque, comfort, and massive size. Ah the good old days, all down hill since then.

To the original poster, since your budget is fairly small, why not go with a used car? They're very cheap in Thailand right now.

Just did a little research online, which suggested that this problem is a common one with this generation of Honda Civics, and that it is typically the "TCU" or Transmission Control Unit. Anyway, the car's headed back to the shop tomorrow, we'll see if they can fix it.

Oh I have a theory - maybe the problem isn't the transmission, but rather the automatic choke, (which doesn't work). So, with no high idle during warm-up, the transmission controller is all confused. The renter says the problem 90% goes away once the car's just a bit warmed up.

Thanks guys. When we say "not expensive" we may mean different things. I would say rebuilding the carb would sound cheap at under 1,000. Is that ballpark or am I barking up the wrong tree?

A reasonably nice older Mio I picked up recently for 5,000 baht has a problem - it stalls out when the throttle is backed off. When I bought it, I noticed the idle was set quite high, and since then I had it set lower to a more normal idle. Alas, after that, this problem manifested.

I'm wondering of the best solution is just to set the idle very high as before (which is to me slightly annoying), or if this could be just a case of the carburetor needing cleaning, or perhaps something more involved such as "floats" (maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm always expecting gasohol damage).

Oh, thanks so much for the information. I was sort of afraid of that - that's going to entail a time-consuming and costly trip to Bangkok.

Also possibly needs a new screen filter, if it gets too clogged it may not allow enough fluid to travel through and that prevents up shifting due to low pressure sensing. I'd begin with that, if it is any of those things unlikely the previous shop had anything to do with the new problem, but also the axles do attach to the transaxle so anything is possible while they were working, though I'm not privy to what they could have damaged while doing that job on a Honda autobox of that age.

Actually it just came to me that I recently had an older Prelude and it had an external shifting solenoid on the front of the transaxle that was throwing a CEL and 1st to 2nd shift was iffy at best. It turned out that one side of it wasn't working properly and that was the lower gears, the other side was the upper gears obviously the lower gears are used more in most shifting, but anyway that is a very good possibility and easy to diagnose and cheap to repair if able to locate a new one, but I doubt if they damaged it doing the CV's as they are no where near each other, though I guess at some point it's possible they may have unknowingly knocked or damaged a plug loose or something since the plugs get really brittle on cars that age.

Well I do believe he replaced the filter as well, along with the fluid today. The total cost was 900 baht. The car has been shifting properly since, but since it was an intermittent problem, we'll have to wait and see.

I still fear some recurrence, as it was just too suspicious that the problem would crop up immediately after the other shop was messing about with the CV joints, etc. We'll see. In any case I have a good deal of confidence its not 'worn out', as the transmission had always shifted crisply and precisely before this popped up.