Yes, I know there were some problems with some of the wiring and especially the connectors; but don't be too quick to exonerate the suppliers. We also sold Citroen and Renault and had some of the same problems. I also know that this problem with the suppliers was well acknowledged at the time, and that led to Peugeot's adoption of the Japanese system.
As far as the electrical quality goes, don't leave the Germans out of this. BMW has still been having problems with their tail lamp boards up until recent models. I don't know about the last three years as I've been retired, but I know nothing else compares to all the software reprogramming they've been doing. And for years, they've been using Siemens electronics instead of Bosch; and their control unit failures have increased dramatically. Speaking of Bosch, whose equipment I like the best, Alfa has used Bosch electrics for years; so don't be too quick to criticize all the Italians. And with fuel injection(Spica mechanical), Alfa began to use Marelli distributors instead of Bosch; and they were trouble free and met their advance curve specs better than Bosch. The Germans some how have been able to get a better reputation than the other European car makers even though it wasn't always deserved. Even though early Porsche's and BMW's had alot of rust problems, all you
hear about are the other countries' cars.
About the Japanese, when I was the body shop manager for a Volvo-Nissan dealer, it was amazing seeing the Japanese getting more sophisticated with their electrical equipment, yet having no problems. As I was a mechanic, sometimes I would do small repairs on the cars instead of paying the service deptartment. At that time, even though as a kid we owned some Datsun's, I had only worked on European cars. After taking an instrument cluster out of a Nissan, I immediately knew why they had so few problems. The metal contacts on the connectors were much thicker and wider than their more expensive European counterparts, they were greased to prevent corrosion, and they were all locking connectors. Later, the Europeans went to locking connectors; but they didn't increase the contact size much if at all, and they still didn't bother to grease them.
As far as the trouble free '84 GL, that's probably not so unusual as th GL didn't have alot of the electrical accessories that caused so many problems on the other models.
As far as the alternator not being able to charge the Peugeot at night, this is a problem I've encountered on many new cars starting in the '90's. When you run around town at night with lights, radio, and A/C in stop and go traffic with alot of idling, the alternator doesn't seem to charge enough to compensate even when the alternator maximun output is more than enough to handle all the consumers.
I thought that maybe the regulator wasn't sensing the load accurately, but replacing them didn't fix the problem. This problem existed in American and Japanese cars , so it wasn't just a Peugeot problem. Since my shop was in that Bosch program, I contacted them about the problem(about 5 or 6 years ago); and they were aware of it, but said at the time, they didn't yet know the cause. I think maybe we all draw too many wrong conclusions about these problems; and certainly some of these stereotypes are incorrect, or at least should be widened to other manufactures as well.
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Received on Sat Jan 21 22:03:48 2006
