Hi all,

I've been struggling with odd vibration/rattle in my car, mainly felt in the steering wheel, for a few years now in my Peugeot 406 HDI. The vibrations are only really felt when the car is idling - it goes away completely as soon as the engine hits above 1000 rpm. It is worse when cold but doesn't completely go when warm either. Lately, it has become worse - it's quite annoying.

I have replaced several things to try and eliminate this issue:

• Clutch
• DMF
• All engine mounts, including the bottom one
• Cambelt
• Water pump
• Aux belt and tensioner
• Bottom crankshaft pulley

I've done a lot of changing and swapping of tensioners with only marginal improvements. I've prepared a few videos to give you an idea of what's happening.

Here is how it sounds with with the new aux belt, auto-tensioner and the new bottom pulley. Like a bag of spanners but as soon as I rev it, it stabilises: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&...Q (sound out of sync here)

Here's is how the engine sounds without the belt and the pulley - nice and quiet (excepting the diesel clatter): www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&...c

And here is how it sounds with the new pulley, a new belt but with my original tensioner. Much better but still rattling when blipping the throttle. It sounds horrible when cold but better when warmed up: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&...o

I've played with the idler belt tensioner but little has made a difference. All of the auxiliary parts (PAS pump, alternator and A/C compressor) rotate freely by hand, so I don't suspect these. However, someone has mentioned that it could be the alternator clutch pulley. I've done some reading up on it and it does seem like it might be that... but ... is it likely? Or what else could it be? It's driving me crazy because there is nothing else left to replace and the car itself drives perfect.

Cheers

Alex

Edited by Captain Jack on 10/04/2013 at 11:35