UKC

I'm after some advice, probably being an over cautious dad having run many an old car myself in the past.

My daughter has a Peugeot 207, 1.4 ltr petrol, it's a 2009 plate and think about 50,000 on the clock. She's owned it for about 3 months, bought with a full MOT and service from a reputable dealer.

The back end of last week she was doing a few shuttle runs with it being loaded for a couple of days moving Uni stuff for herself and friends. Friday she got a warning light for the electrical power steering and then one for engine autodiagnostics system.

She did stop and checked and found the radiator filler tank to be low, so has topped that up and the lights went off and did not reappear. There is however a slight white froth residue inside the filler tank. After that she drove 240 miles on a motorway (at night, so cooler) without any problems. She says the car has not overheated, temp gauge was normal. 

Hopefully photo attached of the radiator filler tank https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p8n1_-Teojawoo5q-JS0TFai49x08LP6/view?usp=...

I have said to get it to a garage on Monday and get it checked out as I was thinking a cylinder head gasket may be blown. She is a long way from home, so to get back would be 240 miles one day and a further 100 miles the next, all on motorways. I know I can trust the garage at home, wouldn't want her to get ripped off where she is, but then again would not want her to trash the car even though she does have roadside rescue and recovery and the car is under warranty.

Any advice?

Look also for mayonnaise type gunk in the oil; take off the oil filler cap and look, also check dipstick.  If gunk is there, that's the head gasket gone.  It's usually easily seen.

Travel with lots of water and check level regularly, when engine cool (so, stop at a services, check just before leaving).  Remove radiator filler cap with something like an old t shirt round the hand just in case.  

From my experience in similar positions, I'd say that driven carefully, not revved hard, regular stops, lots of water (a gallon) and with a eye kept on the temperature gauge, it'll probably be fine for the trip back (but do pay attention to that word probably; there's no way of knowing without trying it, and it there's a chance it might not make it too).  Plan on the garage having it for a fortnight, as the head will need to be skimmed for an effective repair.

Good luck.

T.

Check under the oil cap to see if there any mayonnaise, if there is, coolant is mixing with the oil.

If there isn't, she can probably drive the car safely to a garage to have the coolant checked for  presence of exhaust gases.

That should clear a head gasket leak.

Cheers Tony, I’ve nursed a few that way myself, usually due to no cash at the time but still wanted to climb.

OBD code reader thing costs about a tenner. Get one and read the code. Power steering light doesn't make sense for head gasket issues. Also photo looks just like standard minging old coolant to me but hard to say from that pic.

Daughter has sent some photos now and no gunk in the oil filler cap.

Been suggested it may have something to do with the oil pump for the power steering? Seems lost no more coolant on her 240 mile motorway drive. 

There is no power steering pump if the car has electric power steering as you said in your first post. 

Can't add much except that I was under the impression that Peugeot's were known for electrical problems, so may be a fault in the wiring, or even a faulty sensor.

The condition of the coolant inlet didn't look bad to me. I suspect the lights going off at the same time it was filled was a coincident.

Without knowing the code for why the diagnostics light came on we can only guess what the causes might be.

The fact you have lights on for completely separate systems (power steering and engine diagnostics [i.e. emissions stuff]) to me suggests a wider electrical faulty.

Maybe water in the fusebox or a damaged loom?

You can get cascading issues, where is one ecu get's upset, it send out funny signals on the can bus that can trip another. This makes the source really difficult to track down. Wet ECU's have a habit of doing this.

Sorry, not much I can suggest really.

• Monitor the coolant level. You might have unrelated issue there. It obviously shouldn't have dropped much in 3 months. Hopefully a minor leek somewhere.
• Look for water where it shouldn't be, fuse box, relay box, ecu's etc. Any obvious damage to the wiring loom in the engine bay?
• Get the diagnostics codes.
• If the power steering fault crop up again, I expect it will be a pricey motor/ecu replacement.

From what you've described the low coolant sounds incidental, it could have been like that for ages. Just make sure she doesn't top it up hot, I once saw a mate of mine boil his whole face and head taking a cap off a pressurised system!

jk

I'm not sure that I can see anything to be unduly concerned about and dash off to the garage here.

If she doesn't need to do any long trips I would suggest keeping an eye on the coolant level and carryiing some spare to top it up if necessary.

Thanks for all the replies,

On a plus side she has managed to get a garage where she currently staying to look at the car tomorrow.

I've also spoken to my local garage who like many of you have said the coolant and power steering are unrelated. Also that it's not uncommon for 207's to have small oil leaks into the cooling system, so wouldn't be overly concerned.

My daughter has realised that the engine autodiagnostics system light only stays on for a few seconds after she starts the car so normal, and after managing to speak to her has confirmed that the temperature  never went out of the normal range, so the car did not overheat. She just needed to top up the coolant reservoir a little bit, but it wasn't empty.

Thanks for everyone's help, as usual I'm at work on an oil rig when something like this happens, so not much I can do than ask peoples advice. Fingers crossed the garage tomorrow will advise her correctly and any issues either repaired there of back at home if they say she'd be OK to drive it.