After I left University and got a job, I thought I'd have a car upgrade. I'd had the Cortina for 4 years, and even with various restoration and rebuild efforts, it was showing it's age. I decided on a 309GTI as a good handling fast car that I could still lug all my stuff about in (renting houses etc at the time).
I found the 309 in North London for a very reasonable price. A week after I bought it, it spun a bearing - a lesson for me on using synthetic oil in modern engines if I expect them to run flat out! So the price was a bit less reasonable after a £1400 engine rebuild had been carried out!
The car had a few problems while in my ownership - a faulty air flow meter caused some confusion at the Peugeot garage (eventually fixed by a 'fuel injection specialist' who I'm sure did it by trial and error). It failed it MOT a couple of years later due to being too smokey and I had to replace the valve stem oil seals (a common fault on these engines). It also suffered from a leaky sunroof - water used to accumulate in the interior light unit and drip out on me on left hand corners!
It did handle well and was quite fast, and it even saw some action on at least two road rallies while my Escort was off the road getting fixed. The pictures of it going through an icy ford was on the Resolution Road rally 1997, and this cracked all four brake disks which were probably near red hot at the time.
I changed it for an Alfa 164 three years later when I started regular long distance commuting. A good car all in all but not without its faults.
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Peugeot 309 GTI - G245YFC
