simonC5

Hello all, My 2002 C5 2.0 HDI has just done the same thing, on a French Motorway while towing a Caravan. It was blowing out water from under the header tank cap. I had recently spotted a water residue under the cap and replaced the cap and thought no more as I have heard that the Citroen and Peugeot caps do fail after a while. Before my trip to France the car had a 100K mile service including cam belt, water pump and all the other bits. On the first night in France I moved the car and check water level was shown on the display, I filled the header tank and ran the car for 30 mins with no further loss or bubbles in the tank. No white snot under the oil filler cap either. The next day we drove 40 Kms and stopped to get diesel, while stopped I checked the water level again to find the header tank empty again and required 2L to fill up. All the time the temp gauge never moved, even on long hill climbs. We then got Green Flag to recover the car to to a garage and us and the caravan to a site while they diagnosed the fault. HEAD GASKET The car had gone to a Citroen main dealer and the quote for the repair can back as 1900 Euros (£1500), this included the head having a full pressure test and skim. We had the repair done and we returned to the UK yesterday doing over 1000 miles in 3 days with no water loss or other issues. The repair was very expensive but very well done and everything immaculate under the bonnet. The fuel economy increased and the engine had more power for the return journey when compared to the outward journey. A sniffer test is more widely used for petrol engines rather than diesel ones and the most common head gasket fault is water to oil as I found out on my Xantia TD, twice over 200K miles. You may also see that you have white smoke coming from the exhaust rather than dark black smoke if you have water going in the combustion chamber. However if you are driving for long periods with high turbo pressure as I was with the caravan the pressure will leak into the water system. It would suggest that your car has the same type of head gasket fault but it could also be that the head itself has cracked. Only stripping the head down and testing it will confirm this. I am based in Cambridge and my father runs a small independant garage and has always worked on all of my cars, he estimated around £800 - £900 for the repair for the head gasket. There are 2 Citroen dealers for Cambridge, I have used Marshalls to have some warranty work done on the car when I first bought it and got good service there. I hope that you get sorted.

Hi Scott The quote I got for around £90 included the adaptor for the steering wheel remote controls, fascia surround and the labour. This was still dependant on my choice of head unit as not all have the remote control option or hardware built in. Even then there are potential issues of the stereo not turning off when removing the key, disabled remote central locking and engine imobilising which is why the company I spoke to in Cambridge said that some C5's that they have worked on have had to go to the local dealer for recoding. They said that the post face lift models are the worst. The least painful option looks to be to find another C5 headunit and find someone on the internet who will be able to code it to your car. There have been some listed on ebay and some include the coding to your vehicle free when you supply your VIN Number, these have generally gone for around £80 to £90. This still looks cheaper that the other options. Also the head unit that is in my C5 can be a bit temperamental when playing some copied CD's, it will play originals no problem at all. I have made some compilation CDs for the kids that will play fine in my company car but not all the time in the C5. I hope that you find a good solution. Simon

Hi Scott, We have a 2002 C5 2.0LX HDI estate and the head unit has started to do the same. For the first 5 to 10 minutes it will be fine, then a high pitch whistle starts and within 2 minutes it will lose all radio reception. CD player still works. I have tried all of the connections but they are fine. It would appear that the tuner drifts when it warms up as the amount of time before the reception is lost is shorter on warmer days and longer on cooler days. The radio is coded to the car's VIN number so it is not easy to change the head unit for another original version without the new one being coded to the car again, typically this is done by a main dealer. I have been quoted over £80 to code a 2nd hand unit to the car by the local dealer but have found some people will do it for around £30-£40 but you have to travel to them. The alternative would be to fit an after market head unit, again the quote came to around £90 for fitting and accessories for connection the C5's computer systems and could still have to go to a dealer for further coding. Then add the cost of the new head unit as well. Fortunately for me my wife drives the C5 while I have a company car and she can live with CDs.