ESMERALDA
Euromotive's owner, Mark and his wife Jacinta, took delivery of a new Babylon Red Peugeot 308 XSE Touring in December 2008. It has been named 'Esmeralda' by Jacinta.
Esmeralda features in this diary page to report on her performance and behavior in general.
March 2009
First Service
Mark took Esmeralda to Allpikes for the 2500km first service. This service is mainly a check over and to adjust any fluid levels that may require it. The Peugeot diagnostic tool called Planet was connected to to check for any fault codes and also to tell the "brains" of the car that it was now fitted with a tow bar. This will then automatically prevent the reversing sensors from operating when the tow bar is used. Other wise they inform the driver that there is something very close to the rear of the vehicle when reversing, whilst correct, not very useful! They even detect just the mounted tow ball such is their sensitivity.
February 2009
Speedy Esmeralda
Recently Mark had the dubious honour of being the first person to be zapped by a speed camera when driving the 308! Fortunately he was in the act of slowing down when caught as he realized he was exceeding the limit. Mark reckons that the 308HDi is the "worst" car he has ever driven for not realizing how fast you are actually going. Marks theory is that as the diesel revs more slowly that a petrol engine at a particular speed his brain is programmed for subliminal petrol engine frequency! The cruise control is an essential feature of the the car and has reduced the number of expletives in concert with braking after a casual glance a the speedometer! The 308 is also equipped with a speed limiter for use when the driver opts to control the throttle pedal themselves.
As an aside Mark was impressed with the, new to him, infringement notices now issued. You get three pictures, the whole car, number plate and driver's face. Marks likeness was particularly good. When speed cameras were first introduced in France there were many complaints from wives over the unfamiliar women passengers pictured accompanying their husbands! Only in France.......................!
Tow Bar
 Mark is fitting the genuine Peugeot tow bar kit. This is is normally about a $1250 option as there is much more to fitting a tow bar these days. The bar itself is a well designed bar relatively easily fitted to the vehicle. However connecting to the electrical system is no longer a matter of connecting the plug socket cable to one of the tail light clusters with scotchloc connectors! The 308, like most new cars, is fitted with multiplex wiring and requires additional cabling with compatible plugs, fused relays and an electronic "black box" as depicted right. Once this is all fitted the car needs to be returned to the dealer to have the car's "brains" told it is now fitted with a tow bar. This will then ensure that the "light bulb out" feature works with the trailer lights and that the reversing sensors are disabled when the tow bar is used. Life was simple once!
January 2009
First Country Trip
Mark used Esmeralda to go to Busselton and Dunsborough over the January long weekend to scuba dive with his dive club on the Busselton Jetty and former HMAS Swan sunk off Dunsborough as a dive wreck. As expected the fuel consumption fell to ridiculous levels of less than 6l/100km at 110kph on the level. It was amazing how much additional fuel is required to maintain speed ascending even a small rise. To some extent this is offset when descending as the fuel is often cut completely.
What was surprising was the performance of the HDi engine at high speeds when over taking for example. Mark was stunned at the shear thrust of the car at that speed. Admittedly he is used to the old 1987 Range Rover but even so modern diesel technology is very impressive. No wonder Peugeot and some other European manufactures have used them successfully in their Le Mans racing cars.
Marks lasting impression of the journey is that the 'Touring' name is very apt. Everything just happens with a minimum of fuss and the benefits of modern safety features and environmental benefits are an additional bonus. Peugeot, in this political correctness to the point of sterility age are still able to produce a car that is a little quirky to make a journey enjoyable motoring and not just travel. Mark and Jacinta look forward to many country trips in Esmeralda.
It was on this trip that Mark found the only fault with the car. It has a slight drift/pull to the left even on uncambered roads when traveling at high speeds. Normal suburban driving wont reveal it. No doubt the wheel alignment is fractionally off and easily rectified, maybe its set for left hand drive cars in the factory!
Seat Covers
Some tailor made sheepskin seat covers have been fitted by Prestige Seat Covers of Malaga. The 308 has side air bags as part of the SRS(Supplemental Restraint System) and must not have conventional seat covers fitted over them. Prestige custom make the covers from top quality Australian skins and design them to avoid the no go areas accordingly. They have patterns to suit the 308 so you can order your covers, pick out a colour and a few other options and have them fitted over a few days. Prestige also offer an economical range of generic fit covers such as fitted to the Euromotive 306 loan car.
Prestige also supplied a dash mat to suit the 308 and its surprising how much it has reduced the heat reflected off the dashboard after entering through the huge steeply raked windscreen. On the Dunsbourogh trip Mark noticed that the air conditioning wasn't working as well as usual. He realized that a perforated cutout in the dashmat hadn't been removed and was covering the climate control sunlight sensor mounted atop the dashboard, an easy fix!
Dec 2009
Tamper Proof Wheel Bolts
A minor modification done has been to remove the standard alloy wheel anti theft bolts and replace them with normal ones. Mark has had several customers have problems with these and a recent case of a 407 that required to have nuts welded to the special bolt remains! It was fortunate that this occurred in the workshop rather than the customer finding out the hard way that the special bolts could not be removed as they had been damaged. Tyre shops are notorious for over tightening normal wheel bolts with "rattle" guns and when the Peugeot anti tamper bolts and adapter are so treated they are easily damaged. What makes this into a disaster is that the owner will not be aware of a problem until they try and remove a wheel and if it's in a remote area................................!
At Euromotive we always tighten ALL wheel bolts to specification with a tension wrench. This ensures the owner can remove the wheel and that anti tamper bolts, and the special tool, are not damaged. More importantly if there is a problem it will be found then and not the hard way later on! Most manufacturers specify wheel bolts be torqued to reduce brake rotors warping, as well as preventing damage to wheels, bolts or nuts and their mounting surfaces.
Delivery from Allpike Peugeot
 Mark and his wife Jacinta take delivery of a new Babylon Red Peugeot 308 XSE Touring(wagon) fitted with the 2.0litre HDi diesel and automatic transmission from Allpike Peugeot, Osborne Park.
Howard Heery was the sales representative who Mark worked with in his Eurocars days. Window tinting was also applied by Allpikes prior to delivery and Howard kindly added some floor mats, Peugeot key rings and a tank of fuel. We decided on the Touring after Mark had started to service some of the superseded 307 model and was amazed at the amount of space and versatility of these vehicles. A secondhand 307 HDi is very hard to find so a new one was decided on. We drove a manual and automatic versions and decided on the auto as it was Jacinta's preference. The new AM6 transmission is very good in operation and a vast improvement over earlier electronically controlled transmissions such as ZF and AL4 as fitted previously. However the later versions of AL4 are also very good. The car has all the features you would expect of a state of the art vehicle and some surprising ones in an athermic windscreen and glass roof. This special glass has a reflective layer to reject some of the heat which it does and is most welcome given the very large and raked windscreen. The only thing not really liked by Mark and Jacinta is the the glass roof, however there is no choice in Australia anyway, it comes with all Touring models. | 
