The RCZ debuted in 2007 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. It featured a double bubble roof inspired by Zagato. The concept has been a Zagato “trademark” for more than 70 years. The idea is that you can reduce frontal area and improve aerodynamics, but then give back the lost headroom with a double bubble. It was certainly not something you’d expect on a reasonably priced mass produced car.
The RCZ featured the Prince Petrol engine (this is an engine that is both good and bad at the same time!) originally based on the bombproof TU series from Peugeot/Citroen, it was evolved with BMW into an impressive, but arguably over complicated, difficult to work on and potentially very problematic engine.
Like many modern engines with direct injection it gets coked up with Carbon so we were tasked with removing the build up with a Walnut Blast.
Due to the position of the engine and the scuttle panel access is restricted, our regular endoscope camera was on the blink, so we borrowed one, which judging by the screen resolution, is from the 80’s!
We have had a number of people contact us for Walnut Blasting thinking it will fix a misfire. In our experience, carbon build up reduces power and uses more fuel, but doesn’t cause misfires. The customer alerted us to the fact the car was entering limp home mode under boost. We suggested it may be coilpacks – he said they, and the spark plugs had been replaced by a Peugeot dealer. It was the Peugeot dealer that said a walnut blast was needed and quoted a very high price to do this.
We suggested you can never assume something is right and that you must find the fault. Low and behold we identified 2 faulty coilpacks which we replaced. The Spark plugs though were something else. The car had 3 correct plugs, but one plug was a totally different part number. It had a different preset gap and was not used in any Peugeot engines. As you can imagine the customer wasn’t happy with the Peugeot dealer.
It just goes to show when your car has a few miles under its belt and develops running issues, you’re much better off at Balance Motor Works than at a main dealer!
In the words of the customer “The car is running perfectly so I’m delighted, thank you!”, he went on to say on a Google review “Julian and Craig were fantastic in diagnosing the misfiring issue on my car and fixing it. I would highly recommend them!”
Endorses my belief that main dealers are highway men without horses. Wanted to fit a new turbo on my RCZ when the fault turned out to be a loose connection on the coolant pump. Don’t rely on their diagnosis alone