How are cheap 306 dturbos?

salami1212

salami1212

salami1212

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Hi there. I am gonna get a dturbo 306 and im just wondering if they are any good and if theres anything to look out for. I have around about £500 to spend on one.. Is that much too low to get a decent model? Cheers
 
when i was looking you needed about 900 to get anythjing worth your time (although this was about 1 year 6 months ago)
 
You'll need closer to £1k for a decent one. For a cheap runabout, they're decent cars to drive. China blue is the colour to go for.

£500 will be putting your hand into a basket of snakes.
 
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Get one with 150k on it for about 750 quid. As long as the cambelt's been done twice it should be fine.
 
0-100mph in 56 seconds... when new.

They were overrated cars before, now they tend to be overrated sheds. Interior and electrics are french, handling is flattering but unprogressive, economy isn't that good, especially if you go for the screw mod of doom and increase the torque to 15000lb/ft.

For £500, you can do better, a £500 dturbo is definitely not the good end of the market.
 
I kind of agree with Dolph above but would also add the gear box is like stirring porridge. However I am still greeted by fondness when I think of my old black D-Turbo but thats probably because it was my second car & at the time quite a posh motor amongst my early 20 something mates.

Having looked at a couple recently I can't help but feel that you may be best to aviod the 306 as they have aged as all old typical French cars do (i.e not well)...
 
[TW]Fox;15206517 said:
Seriously?
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Seriously. Remember the top speed of the car was only 109mph, the gearing higher up the box was absurdley long and the engine went off the boil before the genuine ton came up.

The car was fairly quick (around 10-11 secs) to 60, but after that it really did all go to crap...

The Dturbo was a classic torque illusion car, it felt quick, but it really wasn't.
 
I had one as a beater a few years back with about 115k on the clock and it was alright overall but never felt that confident in the corners... i don't know if it was just in need of suspension bits redoing or that was standard?

Turbo lag was pretty loltastic though, its only on power for about 400rpm :) Made overtaking a bit hit or miss as you had to time it right.
The electrics mostly worked in mine, the IR central locking became a bit tempremental while i had it but since you need to have the key near the door for the IR sensor to see it so it was easier just to use the key in the lock than get it fixed, anything i ever did mechanical wise was needlessly annoying and it was also very noisy at motorway speeds.

Parts can be had fairly cheap which was nice for getting it through mots but rust was really beginning to take hold on that car, i'd be surprised if its still running today.

They are deffinately a good bangernomics car, picked it up at auction for £600, £100 for parts, £100 for sketchy tyres, sold it on for £800 a year later
 
Dolph said:
Seriously. Remember the top speed of the car was only 109mph, the gearing higher up the box was absurdley long and the engine went off the boil before the genuine ton came up.

The car was fairly quick (around 10-11 secs) to 60, but after that it really did all go to crap...

The Dturbo was a classic torque illusion car, it felt quick, but it really wasn't.
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That's a bit harsh. When new (along with the ZX) it was the first of the diesel hatches with useful performance in Turbo diesel form.

15 years down the line they're nothing special compared to modern kit. I personally wouldn't touch a £500 banger one. The electrics on mine were bad enough when it was 2 years old...
 
Sad, pathetic and perhaps unusual fact: When I was 16 the one thing I wanted more than anything else in the world, aside from an E39 M5, was a 306 DTurbo.
 
MagicBoy said:
That's a bit harsh. When new (along with the ZX) it was the first of the diesel hatches with useful performance in Turbo diesel form.
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I disagree, the Dturbo wasn't a quick car, it was perhaps among the first diesel hatches that didn't suck completely compared to the petrol alternative (or walking), but it wasn't a great car. It did, however, rapidly become a severely overrated car, normally by people seduced by the cheap insurance and large torque variation that gave an illusion of good acceleration. It felt quicker than the 1.6 petrol, but it wasn't really if you actually used the gears on the 1.6 correctly.

15 years down the line they're nothing special compared to modern kit. I personally wouldn't touch a £500 banger one. The electrics on mine were bad enough when it was 2 years old...
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They are nothing special compared to other £500 cars either, they haven't aged well as the fog of false hope has been pierced by the light of the reality of the car...
 
MagicBoy said:
The electrics on mine were bad enough when it was 2 years old...
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Yep, I had that same problem. Think it was Air Bag light that always kept flicking on. Although of all the French cars I do reckon Peugeot are generally the most reliable. I know of nobody that has owned a Renault & had trouble free motering & I don;t actually know anyone stupid enough to buy a Citroen (no offence) ;) lol
 
[TW]Fox;15206719 said:
It seems to be pretty much accepted fact in the local pub these days that a high torque figure is everything :(
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It's sad and tragic, but an easy way to identify motoring muppets :)

Torque is fine, but without revs torque is just pointless.
 
Dolph said:
I disagree, the Dturbo wasn't a quick car, it was perhaps among the first diesel hatches that didn't suck completely compared to the petrol alternative (or walking), but it wasn't a great car. It did, however, rapidly become a severely overrated car, normally by people seduced by the cheap insurance and large torque variation that gave an illusion of good acceleration. It felt quicker than the 1.6 petrol, but it wasn't really if you actually used the gears on the 1.6 correctly.
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I never stated it was quick. I said useful.

Compared to the other typical stuff at the time such as the Escort TD, or Golf Mk3 TD the PSA cars had 20bhp+ more and had a much more refined engine. It also helped that the handling and ride were streets ahead.
 
nate247 said:
Yep, I had that same problem. Think it was Air Bag light that always kept flicking on. Although of all the French cars I do reckon Peugeot are generally the most reliable. I know of nobody that has owned a Renault & had trouble free motering & I don;t actually know anyone stupid enough to buy a Citroen (no offence) ;) lol
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The irony, of course, being that Peugeot and Citroen are the same company.
 
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