Hello

[Blaze Addict]

New to the site but not to 306's.

I've been in and out of 306's for the last 12 years and bought my 4th one a couple of months ago as a light restoration project and as my username suggests I have a bit of a thing for blaze yellow 306's. Through strange coincidence I always seem to end up with R plates also.

My brief 306 history is as follows;

2003-2006 R reg GLX DT in prov blue- great car became a legend the day I sold it
2008-2009 R reg D turbo in blaze- written off in the snow after being rear ended
2010-2010 X reg 1.8 XS in china blue- pile of crap, thirsty and no guts with random warning lights
2015-        R reg D turbo in blaze- low miles from new but in need of light restoration to make mint

[Mattcheese31]

Welcome to the club mate, any pics of your cars, you're in the right place for diesels, lots of info on the site if you fancy tuning her up

[Ben_w]

Welcome dude

[Blaze Addict]

Cheers guys

I've dug out some photo's of my previous cars



1. My first 306 purchased in Aug 2003 and my first diesel car. As it was already a top spec GLX TD I didn't need to do a great deal to it aside from adding a half leather Meridian interior that cost me an eye watering £500 at the time as they were rare to find- the only chance you had were crash damaged cars from breakers. Over 3 years the car was a loyal servant and travelled to Europe more times than I can remember even right through to the eastern most parts of Germany a couple of times and of course the Nurburgring. I sold up wanting something a bit bigger and flasher and bought a 406 HDi.


2. I first got interested in 306's at the sight of a blaze yellow 3dr sometime in summer '97 when I was only 15. Sometime in late 2001 I seriously looked into buying one but at £6.5k for an R/S plate versus £6k for a W plate Xsara I went the Citroen route. Fast forward two years and again the 3dr D tub's in general were pricier than their 5dr siblings which was why I ended up with a 5dr GLX TD.

In early 2008 I was helping a workfriend, her 206 washer motor bust so I said i'd go to the scrapyard and get one for her- hoping for payment in kind but that's another story... 
Whilst in there I came across a blaze DT. Probably an MOT failure but it made my heart sink. That day I realised my time to have one was probably running out. I went scouring ebay and Autotrader and after a few weeks the car above popped up. It'd been owned by a car paint repair man and it was spotless. I put a better stereo in it and found a half leather interior from the old .net site. It was the best car I have ever owned but our future together was ill fated. I was on my way home from work one night in snow and reached a particularly bad spot and slowed for the curve, in the mirror I then saw a rapidly approaching pair of headlights then there was a bang. A Fiat 500 had come belting up behind me and lost control over the black ice i'd just crossed. A few weeks later the insurance assessor said the rear part of the chassis was bent so it would be a jig job to repair. I could retain the car but realistically it was going to be an expensive repair, Head ruled over the heart and I took the cheque which was a couple of hundred less than I'd paid for the car. I'd already sourced a crap set of seats and some steelies so I fitted these and stripped the other items of value from the car and a few days later they took it away to it's fate*



3. Much like a bloke on the rebound I went out looking for the my next 306 the week after my blaze was took away- unfortunately I ran into this china 1.8 XS ^^.
I fancied straying from diesel but didn't want to go the whole hog and get a '6. I only had the car a few weeks and couldn't believe how poor the fuel economy was 27-30mpg seemed to be it's default no matter how carefully driven. The power was not there either, in a straight line it couldn't even hold a candle to my day to day Laguna dCi. The car was a myriad of electrical gremlins too, with engine management lights coming on seemingly for no reason. I quickly decided this wasn't the car for me and within 5 months and only about 3500 miles use it was gone. good riddance too.



4. * I was amazed/astonished sometime in 2012 to find that my old blaze which had been written off was taxed and still on the road somewhere (and still is as of 2015) so clearly someone else thought it was worth saving after i'd given up. I felt a sense of nostalgia about it and kept an eye out in case something similar became available for sale.

By the middle of 2014 I'd looked at 3 separate blazes all described as "immaculate" but all fell below the standard i'd define as immaculate.

This car popped up on ebay a few months ago with only 58k from new and described as VGC so i thought it worth a look. I remembered a thread about a really low miles blaze DT on the old .net site and after searching sure enough this was the same car.

I wasn't at this point looking or wanting to get another car (I'm supposed to be buying a house in the next few months...) but this one was too good to turn down and the chances are I'd never find another close to it's condition. At £800 it was strong money for a 17 year old 306 and very strong money for one needing work which this was despite it's low miles. Body wise it is straight and dent free. Some small rust patches round the sunroof which are a well known problem will need to be sorted professionally when funds allow. I'm not looking to radically mod the car and destroy it's originality but there are going to be a few OEM upgrades. I've made a few changes to the car so far but everything is reversible (later style dash, half leathers, modern stereo etc). Sadly whilst the car has full service and MOT history some maintenance items had been missed out- It was still on it's original cam belt and water pump so those were the first things to be changed. Under initial acceleration 1st gear makes quite a grind noise so perfect excuse for an HDi box in the future when funds allow. The car was used so little the brake pads had melded themselves to the callipers which I stripped and cleaned but they still don't feel right, a new master cyclinder and an excuse to upgrade to a '6 set up coming I feel.

[7057sam]

Hello and welcome along

[Herby7]

Welcome

Quite a collections of 306's there.

[Matt-Rallye]

Now thats an intro!

Hello and welcome to 306OC