currymonster

I'm in the process of selling my STI V. I want something reasonably nippy but cheapish to run. I used to own a 306 gti6 and loved it as a car, although mine had a persistent cooling problem. I was wondering on others thoughts on them. A guy in work has the earlier '96 model with the square headlights and loves it to bits.

Cheers for your comments,

Cal

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

I've had 2 of them now... a Rallye ('99 T) a couple of years ago, then got a Clio Cup and then a CTR, but 6 months ago I sold the Civic as I needed to get a cheaper car, so opted for a cheap GTi-6 as I'd loved the Rallye.

This GTi-6 is also the older one with the squarer front end, known as a Phase 1 car and they only made them for a few months on this shape. This one is a '96 P and had just 55k on the clock when I bought it in October, so very low for the year. Came with FSH, recent cambelt change, 4 new Eagle F1's, no rust, generally very clean for the year and also bog standard, ideal.

Never had any real problems with either of the 306's, the current one was cheap as it needed some jobs doing (clutch, rad, service, etc) which I knew about, hence the price, and I've done them myself. Nothing has really broken or failed that I've not known about, it's not let me down. The Rallye was flawless, not a problem.


Goes well, stops well, handles superbly, isn't expensive to run and maintain, for the money, there's not much to touch it...

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

I've had a phase 2 for a few months and no real issues with it at all A nice reliable French car to go along side my somewhat unreliable Japanese one.

ADP

Ran one for about 10 months, trouble free...........never really rated it that much, more than capable but never set my world alight - bought an ITR, best move I ever made!

mynickers

How much did you pay it for?

Rcomms

I currently have a 99 'T' Reg Rallye with only 37K on the clock in excellanty condition. I've had no problems with her at all in a year and a half of ownership, shes ran flawless and I've loved every minute of it! No cooling problems to be honest... infact i've never really heard of that being a common problem!

If anyones interested, i'm probably upgrading to a Scooby of some sort and would be interested in a p/x

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthrea...ght=306+rallye

nisr227

Big difference between a price of an ITR and GTi-6 though!
I sold my 6 a few months back, mainly due to the mileage on it (110k) and the fact I was giving a company car, but it was still going very strong and drove surperb. Fantastic car to drive, great fun, really decent balanced and predictable handling, and shocked a few modern so called hot-hatches.

Re the reliability, the main issue is to change the cambelt in half the time Peugeot recommend, so do it every 30k miles. Mine never broke, but I've heard of some stories from other owners.

TurboMav

How did the 6 and rallye compare to the clio?

Roger WRX

I can remember you from the PGAC and PSC. You had a really clean 106 GTI also with twin headlights. Im watching you.................

I use to drive a 306 S16 which wasnt to bad. Much cheaper than a 306 GTI, but only available as a phase one. Came with all the toys, but with a 5 speed box and essentially a 2.0l 16v engine MI16 lump. Returned 22-25mpg mind, not much better than my current impreza.

Regards,

roger

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

Not a lot...


(was well below £3k)

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

Neither have I

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

Different cars... the Clio is smaller, lighter, closer gearing, was more manic.

The 306 is a better handling car though, a more refined chassis and once rolling there's not a massive difference in performance between most hot hatches, although the 306 was stonger at speed due to the box.

Oddly the brand new Clio in 9 months and 7k miles had more faults than both the 306's put together.

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

You mean this >>>







This GTi-6 I have now is a Phase 1 so looks basically like an S16 from the outside, but with different alloys.

Shouldn't have been so bad on juice though!?

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

Fuel wise I get low 30s from the pug compared to high teens from my old scoob.

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

In what conditions?

Have had up tp 37mpg on long steady motorway journies in mine, get mid/high 20's going to work & back, not hanging around.

ScoobyJawa

Used to get late 20's ragging the **** of my phase 1 GTi-6......................

gsm1

I had a Series II GTi-6 for 2 years. Great car and in a class of it's own when it came to handling. Fuel economy was about 25mpg. It did have the worst turning circle (due to 6th gear) of any car I've ever owned but you got used to that in the end.

On the whole a reliable car. Mine was a year old.
Only problems were a Bosch sensor on the Injection system causing the engine to kick back (typical on many petrol models) and uneven tyre wear.
I paid 13k for it and 2 years later got £7k!

If you were having cooling problems then I'd suspect the thermostat being faulty or the cooling system getting clogged up - an indicator of that is if the interior heat is very low because the heater matrix gets bunged up pretty quick.
If you're in the market for one check the radiator out (Pug radiators rot quicktime) and the A/C pipes for leaks at the front, if AC is fitted. Many people also claim Pugs have dodgy electrics, but I've never had a problem with them.

TurboMav

It did have the worst turning circle (due to 6th gear) of any car I've ever owned but you got used to that in the end.

What's the turning circle got to do with having a 6th gear?

ScoobyJawa

Because its a bigger gearbox it reduces the amount you can move the wheels/steering rack......... IIRC

gsm1

Yeah, as ScoobyJawa said, the 6 speed gear box is longer leaving less clearance for the wheels to turn.

TurboMav

The turning circle is crap on the xsi, with only a 5 speed box

Rcomms

yup. The end result being that turning right can be a bit of a pain in the **** in Tesco's car park lol. Tends to make you look like a bit of a twirp trying to park it. The left hand lock is better though .

currymonster

Thanks to all, music to my ears. Yes the cooling problem I had seemed to be peculiar to my car! The symptoms were the red stop light coming on and , scarily enough, when giving it welly, you could watch thetemperature needle rising almost in time with the rev counter! But true to form, the peugeout dealer took many hundreds of pounds off me, including a new radiator when the old one wasnt leaking! And thr problem still wasn't cured

The GTI6 also had the best brakes of any car I've ever driven, far better than the 330 mm AP four pots on MY STIV!

So when I swapped to a MY00 uk spek scoob, it was to my great annoyance when the handling wasnt as good and the performance was only just a teeny bit stronger, mainly above 80MPH! Mind you the handling was sharpened by some proper four wheel alignment, but still!

Cool, once I get the new AP disks fitted to my four pots I'll get the STIV on sale, APS, DECAT, 18s and Link ECU by Bob rawle, had 60k service and cambelt all for under 9k!

Cheers Chaps, GTI6 here I come in a few weeks time

dtriggs

Blimey - dont want to sound like a killjoy but I had one from new in 1997 (well the wife did), and we also had the first of our Imprezas new as well - Both delivered on 1st August. We got rid of the GTI-6 within a year as it just didnt compare with the scooby. I was so disappointed with it. Now this may be because at the time we bought them the price new was about the same and as a direct comparison it didnt come close. But to hear you singing their praises over handling really amazes me - I thought it sloppy and loose compared to the Scoob. Also it went back to the dealers countless times to have bits of trim replaced, and other niggles sorted.

I wouldnt go near one now, especially a 8 year old one.

ScoobyJawa

My 306 would easily corner as fast as my stock uk impreza would, the 306 had lowered springs thats all, it handled like a dream.

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

Because the design of the gearbox was such that it was larger, so it sticks into the nearside wheelarch and reduces lock on that side.

You wanna try doing a clutch on one, did mine over Easter and the box is massive, real heavy too, was a tw@t to get on & off.


CTR's aren't much better for steering lock either, and my Clio Cup wasn't that good either.

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

Nowt wrong with mine...

It's a better handling car than my 2 year old CTR was, and costs 1/4 of the price!

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

Average over all journeys during my ownership. Generally 34-35mpg no matter how the 6 is driven on longer runs, just the occasional tank wasted on shorter trips around town brought the average down.

No matter how you look on it it's significantly better than the 10mpg I've got out of the RX this tank

ScoobyDraven

I had an R reg 306 GTi-6 bought for £16,500 when it was a year old (just before all the fuss about new car prices which subsequently dropped!)

When it had done 36,000 miles the cambelt went resulting in bent valves etc. When the dealer looked at the damage the only thing he could recommend was a completely new engine at a cost of £2,500. I obviously went mental as the car had been regularly serviced by Peugeot dealers and wasn't due to have the cam belt changed for some time. After a huge argument/discussion with Peugeot over several days they agreed to foot half the bill which I guess was fair enough.

I also had problems with the air conditioning leaking which they had great trouble with fixing for some reason, in fact when I traded it in it still wasn't working (kept that one to myself!).

Would I have another one? In a flash. I traded it in for a brand new 2003 STi (losing £11,500 over 4.5 years in the process) and for the first few days I was dissapointed. The brakes didn't feel as good and the handling didn't feel massively better so the leap wasn't as big as I thought it would be which is a great compliment for the Peugeot rather than detrimental to the Scoob (which after some fettling is now awesome). I had a lot of fun in that car and as mentioned the handling was amazing. Does anyone remember the Top Gear episode when they were trying to find the best handling car of the time? The 306 GTi-6 was one of the candidates which I think says it all.

Rich D

iTrader: (12)

Was that not the Clarkson video, and it was the 106 GTi IIRC