GooglyBear

yeah m8, i'm miles away... West Lothian, near Edinburgh. Too far. Don't worry about it, you've been a great help, but i should find someone a bit more local. Just out of interest, i had a look at Europarts, i don't see the pump for £200 there...their site doesn't appear to be working right now, but when i looked earlier their cheaper pumps seemed to be the sender units located in the tank, whereas the one i need (i think) is the one for the injectors...

Cheers m8, but if they don't know what they're doing, i'd rather they didn't do it... It did seem to me like a fuel starvation problem, there definitely was enough charge in the battery for it to start, although on the way home after the belt snapped i got a battery failure warning in the central display, i presumed it was because of the alternator not being operative due to belt snapping. If only i lived next to you.. :-)

Fan belt snapped on Friday night, i wasn't far from home, so got home in one piece. Called the garage (a local indy) on Monday morning, the said they could supply and fit a new one for around £45. Went to take car in, but it wouldn't start. Seemed to me there was enough charge in the battery, it was turning over, just not firing up. I wondered if it might have just frozen the diesel in the fuel line or filter or somewhere like that, as it was bitterly cold in the central belt of scotland over the weekend. Had to get recovery to take car to garage, and got the dreaded phone call just now with the bad news... 1) The reason why the fan belt had snapped was because of the power steering pump pulley AND the temsioner pulley had both seized. 2) Car wouldn't start because the fuel pump to the engine has failed. Guy says it's a coded part (does this mean only Citroen can do it?) and i'm looking at £2000 for a replacement. It's a 2003 2.0 Hdi LX hatch, i've had it 2½ years now and it's in pretty good nick besides this, but i can't see me spending this kind of money... Is the part available from somewhere else at a more reasonable price? Any help or advice appreciated...

Thanks for that John. So what i thought were 'caps' are actually the washer unit which would pop up when activated? Also, you say HID, i take you to mean Halogen. Should they be Xenon? Or was that just an option? It was the low mileage that first perked my interest, and i usually check through paperwork before even going for a test drive. I didn't realise there was a VOSA database accessible for the public like this, thanks for that. I also note that the car is advertised by a 'Private seller' but when searching for his given phone number, find that he has 11 cars and 1 motorbike for sale! I would obviously discovered this when viewing the paperwork (ie, 1 owner - not the seller), but i'm in 2 minds now... He might think he has an automatic sale when i turn up in the same car, except mine's is an SX, but it's even the same colour! I'll bet my Mrs wouldn't notice the difference until she got into it LOL

I was thinking of going to have a look at a C5 i've seen advertised on Gumtree not too far away from me http://www.gumtree.com/p/cars-vans-motorbikes/citroen-c5-hdi-diesel-exclusive-43000-miles/100622001#gallery-item-full-2 I can see from the pictures that the car has had a replacement windscreen, a standard screen instead of the heat-reflecting unit. The pictures also show some caps on the bumper where i would have thought the headlamp washer unit should be. Should this model have a headlamp washer unit? TIA

UPDATE: My mate tried two different code readers, but was unable to gain a reading, the readers said they were unable to connect. He suggested that it could be the MAF sensor. I had a look around Fleabay, £35, and the seller listed symptoms similar to those i listed in my OP. He even went on to say that a good way to test would be to disconnect the cable harness and go for a short run. If most of the problems go away, then it's probably needing replaced. I followed his instructions, got the dreaded anti-pollution warning, along with engine management light and service light. The car was even more sluggish than it was before, it really did struggle to get up the hill round the corner from me. I got as far as my local petrol station to fill up, where i reconnected the wire harness. The car seemed to go back to the previous state, sluggish, but with no warning lights. Later in the week i couldn't get past 60mph on the motorway, not even on a downhill, this really couldn't go on. I ordered the MAF, even little old disabled me can manage two screws and a jubilee clip. It arrived today, took me 15 minutes to get my big hands in there to change the part over before going out for a test run. Car runs like it did the day i got it now, going up hills and pulling away from junctions no longer a problem. Plenty power and torque throughout the rev range, and the flatspot has gone. A cheap and easy fix in the end, thanks go to all those who had an input:-)

trawling through the forums and doing other searches, i'm finding repeatedly people with similar (but not quite the same) problems where either eolys fluid or swirl valve actuator problems are diagnosed. this'll give my mate something to go on, but i'm not convinced that limp mode is the problem, being able to go over motorway speeds. i'm not in the habit of revving it hard, i've read another post that says the car won't rev beyond 3000 if in limp mode, but i'm fairly sure 85mph takes it beyond 3000 rpm, although i might be mistaken. i'll need to take it out for a run to observe some of these things. thanks for your input and help

it was serviced just before christmas, think i've still got 8 or 8½ 000 miles til next service. i'm disabled and sometimes don't get around very easy, today is one of those days. i'll try to get out later to have a closer look, but from memory, the starting sequence is turn the ignition key til fuel pump goes through it's process, service light comes on, then off again, then i start the engine. the service light goes out before i start the engine, but i don't think there are any management lights come on. so far as i can remember, the lights display has been the same since i got the car almost 2 years ago. would the car do 85 (haven't tried any more) on the motorway if it was in limp mode? the problem only has any effect when going up hills

Symptoms:- slight lag when pulling away at junctions, roundabouts etc. struggles to pull up hills, usually have to go down a gear, sometimes two. struggles up even a mild incline at 50 in top. apparent flatspot between 2200-2500RPM, but only when going up hills. i get up to 2200 RPM then feel the retardation. instant mpg display shows that the car is using less fuel than expected, since my right foot is planted on the floor. doesn't seem to be any difference between throttle being half open of fully open. After trawling through the forum, i've checked and cleaned the EGR valve, makes no difference. Anyone have any ideas? My mate has offered to come round with his laptop, see if he can diagnose the fault. i presume he has the necessary hardware and software, but where does it plug in? TIA

AGREED!!!

My 2003 HDi 2.0 has suffered a similar problem in recent weeks, although the lag isn't quite so long. I have also noticed a flat spot between 2200-2500RPM, that only seems to arise when going uphill. My mechanic mate checked my EGR valve and found it to be clean. Last night while climbing quite a steep hill with 4 passengers, it struggled badly. I have noticed that (with instant MPG on display) it doesn't seem to use as much fuel as it probably should, considering my right foot was to the floor, giving rise to the notion it may be fuel starvation. My mate has offered to bring his laptop around to check for faults. Where does it plug in?

Mine's is a 2003 HDi (110) SX hatch, in that funny light green colour (paint code LQHC). Bought specifically to give me some protection from the state of our roads, having a long standing back injury. Car had only one previous (business) owner with full service history, and a non-smoking car. I sought out this particular model for its cheap road tax (£125-a-year when i got it almost a year and a half ago), moving up from a pre-2001 (road tax cut-off) Fiat Marea, which cost me £240-a-year. I didn't realise quite how harsh that felt until i drove the C5. Can't see me driving anything else in my lifetime, unless i win the lottery, in which case i'd probably treat myself to a C6

On thursday i shredded my auxiliary equipment drive belt. My mate fitted a new one on friday, but while he was on the job, called me to say that he thought that it was the wrong alternator that was fitted, as it was out of alignment. He suggested that i would get roughly about the same life out of the new one as the last one (15 months, 12000 miles i've run the car for with no other problems). Suffice to say, the new belt was already on its way out when he got the car back to me. I took a couple of pics with the intention of posting here to ask for help. I started the engine to raise the suspension to full height, so that i could get some from underneath, but the remains of the belt slipped off the power steering unit at the top, and stopped turning. Has my alternator pulley seized? I've seen an ad on ebay for a Citroen/Peugeot parts dealer based in Heathrow who sells the pulley for around £40, but i note that the pin is not included with the part. I'm no mechanic, but surely if the pulley has seized, the pin would be at least part of the problem, would it not? I note the post in topic Auxillary Drive Belt Diagram Needed Please, but does anyone else have experience of this?

many thanks for this link, it's a great find. i found myself in the same predicament as the OP today when my 'fan' belt went.

Many thanks guys. I'm sure my indie will find the information, especially on the pinned page, extremely invaluable. Much appreciated

Hi all, I have a 2003 C5 110HDi, LX model, with 106,000 on the clock, had it for 15 months now. It had a years MOT when i got it, and it needed only a track rod end for its MOT this year. I asked the tester if he could tell me the life left on the brake pads while he was under there. According to him, there were a few thousand miles left on the front, and plenty meat left on the back. Last week i had to hit the brakes hard when some numpty pulled out in front me, and heard a scraping sound from the N/S/R wheel, i thought it sounded like metal to metal contact on the brakes. I gave my local indie the job of fixing it. He replaced the rear pads, but suggested the wheels were too small for the car as the brake calipers had scored a groove into each of the rear alloys. I've checked the owners handbook, wheels and tyres are the correct sizes, and indeed, it seems like the original alloys that are on the car. I wondered if perhaps the caliper had been replaced with one of the wrong size at some point in its life. My mechanic has shaved the corners of the caliper with an angle grinder to stop it from scoring any more, but has anyone else experienced this before?