PICASSOCONVERT

Full story below but does anyone know the minimum front/rear brake disc thicknesses on a 2003 2.2HDi C5 estate, please? Fuelled by my success at replacing my rear tailgate struts, I decided to tackle the squealing rear brake problem. With grateful thanks to the author of the pinned thread I made a start with great fear and trepidation. I was very lucky that all four caliper bolts came loose and could be removed individually without too much difficulty - I didn't have to use WD40, drill out broken bolts or make a sacrifice to the relevant gallic powers. I loosened the pad retaining bolts and removed the protective covers for rust removal and repainting. I even took some photos which I will attempt to load up once the job is complete. I put everything back together as I did not have any copper slip. This morning, armed with copper slip and a piece of plastic I intended to carry on. However, I sheared the pad-retaining bolt (it had been sprayed with WD40 earlier). I have ordered new pads and retaining bolts which should arrive on Tuesday. However, looking at the rear discs this morning I wondered if they should be changed? I can't see the minimum disc thickness in my Revue Control Technique manual but mine are approximately 12mm, excluding the small lip around the edge of the disc. The discs have some concentric marks and the car has done 90,000 miles. Is disc removal and replacement as simple as the manual says - remove the caliper, remove 2 screws, gently remove the disc and replace? If it is I will fit new discs. Thank you in advance for any help. David

Paul - I seem to remeber that what you stated about the replacement of the control unit was the case with my first C5 which was a 2.2HDi estate bought new on 30 November 2001. Certainly a control unit had to be replaced when the DPF was changed. David

Many thanks for these helpful notes. I replaced my struts yesterday with comparative ease (must be easy if I can do it). A couple of points occurred to me which I will add here. Although it's obvious really, I got the best view of the inner end of the struts and circlips by sitting in the boot with the rear seat folded flat facing the rear of the car and my back holding the roof lining down (take care not to bend it too much). I found circlip pliers with 90 degree bends the easiest to use (handles vertical away from roof). As I had no double-sided tape I put a dab of Gorilla glue on the roof lining to hold it in place. The lining goes back quite easily and the expanding Gorilla glue (expanding foam) didn't push it out of shape at all. Now, dare I tackle the rear brake caliper job? David Take a bit of getting used to a tailgate which stays up on its own, though!

Just done the first long journey with Miller's added. Filled up, re-set the trip and drove 170 miles (20 miles city/rural driving, the rest on motorwway). At the end of the journey the screen was showing 49.6mpg, whereas normally it would be around 43-44mpg. So my experience looks as if it will be the similar to Bobster's. I will check the mpg "full to full" at the next refuelling. Interesting that the Khumo tyres don't seem to have affected the fuel consumption despite their "E" energy rating. My son has now pinched my Millers to add some to his Hyundai! David W

Hello Bob I have just read your post, which makes interesting reading. Your long-term MPG is almost exactly the same as mine (once I remove the miles done towing our caravan). I will now try Millers additive myself and see what happens. Unfortunately my MPG will probably be affected by the four Kuhmo tyres I had fitted this morning. Previously I have always gone for Michelins but the £50 per tyre difference in price made me think as I only do about 7,000 miles per year now. Also, I keep thinking my 10 year old car might suddenly develop a terminal fault! David W

Here's an update. First of all, thanks to qman3428 and coastline taxis for your suggestions. (I didn't think Mr Coastline Taxis talked to 2.2HDi drivers by the way........only joking). I did actually use Araldite with glass cloth, followed by a second layer of glass cloth using 30 minute epoxy. With hindsight I should have done it the other way round because during the time it took the Aaldite to go off a tiny amount of oil had seeped into the resin and using 30 minute first would have helped to avoid this to a large extent. I rubbed the area around the crack down with a file to roughen the surface, ran the engine to warm the sump, cleaned the oil off with solvent and applied the glass cloth and Araldite. After 24 hours I rubbed this first layer down with wet and dry and applied the second lay up. I've been out and about this morning (done about 30 miles) and so far so good. I'll report back in a few months on whether this fix works longer term - if it doesn't I'll buy some liquid metal and try that. Now, I need 4 new tyres....................... David

Well, it's all my own fault. I was in a bit of a hurry last Sunday morning in rural Lincolnshire and on a very minor road I came across a hump-back bridge which had a bit more hump in its back than I expected. Now we all know what happens when all/most of the car's weight is taken off the suspension (eg when messing up unhitching a caravan - another of my little tricks), it collapses. So, my poor old car came to earth with a right old bump and metallic scrape. Through my rear view mirror I could see bits of the black plastic engine undercover bouncing along the road. However, it dusted itself down and got on with going down the road as normal. Subsequent roadside examination revealed that the oil sump (Carter d'Huile according to my RTA book) took a hammering and now has a crack resulting in a small oil leak at its rear side - and quite a few scrape marks at the front! The metal transverse bar on which the plastic cover sits also took a bashing. I drove the 120 miles to get home and the engine oil level didn't change much so the leak isn't that bad. Obviously the "proper" solution is to fit a new sump but as a temporary measure I am going to do the following aeromodeller's bodge: Clean the leak and stick something (probably a patch from my bike puncture kit) over it. That should stop any more oil coming out so long as I don't start the engine. Next I will clean and roughen the area surrounding the patch and epoxy a piece of thin aluminium sheet over the area. I have some lithoplate which should be good for this job. This should see me through for the next few days, after which I don't need the car for a month. Maybe the only time when having a car with "inferior" suspension might have saved the day. Oh, and if anyone knows of an oil sump for a 2.2HDi diesel engine knocking about, please let me know! David

Just to report back that my C5 has now consumed its tankful of fuel containing the cleaner, mostly towing our caravan. I haven't noticed any difference - it's still running well, so may never know if the cleaner does any good or not! David

I can now update you on how I got on fitting the diaphragm and maybe offer you a quick fix. Now I am not an engineer or mechanic so my skills are limited. Consequently the thought of peering down the back of the engine, losing screws and taking the skin off my fingers did not appeal (and I haven't got a long Torx screwdriver). When I looked at the new diaphragm, rod and ball coupling my accountant's brain said - "Just unclip the new ball coupling from the rod and fit it in place of the broken one whilst leaving the old rod and diaphragm in situ." So that's what I did. The job took 10 minutes including opening and closing the bonnet and getting the wife to start and rev the engine to check the diaphragm was working. My observations are that the new ball coupling unclips from the rod more easily than the old broken one comes off - partly because it's more difficult to get at the old one and also because the older plastic is more rigid/brittle (presumably why the wretched things break in the first place). So, if your diaphragm appears to be working, try just replacing the broken ball coupling. Now wouldn't it be nice if Citroen sold just the ball coupling, or even nicer if they said "Ah, broken ball coupling. If you have 10 minutes we can fit a new one for you......no charge, of course." That would get them lots of brownie points and I, for one, might just buy another one. I am now going to take the bits to a friend of mine who is a retired Va****ll engineer and ask him to make a ball coupling, just for the hell of it............... David

Hello John Thanks for your comment. I added the cleaner when I filled up with diesel this morning so we'll see how things go. As an aside my grandmother lived in Brighouse for most of her life not far from Duggie Miller who, I believe, ran the business at the time. I ought to use their products next time. David

Read on another forum whilst researching a minor problem with my wife's Clio that it is beneficial to add a dose of diesel fuel cleaner from time to time. The writer recommended BG244 from Power Enhancer. So, two cans duly ordered. One added to the Clio. The second waiting to go into my precious C5. But should I use it? It says on the tim (well on the website, actually) that it will not harm any diesel engine and it might help with lots of ailments and I quote: "BG244 can help with: • Hesitation or Flat Spots • Rough Idle • Poor Fuel Consumption • Lack of Power • Poor Acceleration • Dirty or Clogged Fuel Injectors • Any Deposits or Blockages Somewhere Along the Fuel System • A Build up of Carbon on the Engine Intake Components, Valves or Combustion Chambers • A Clogged Catalytic Converter or Diesel Particulate Filter" As my car - 03 reg 2.2HDi, 90,000 miles - is running beautifully (oh dear, shouldn't have said that - tempting fate!), I will never know if this stuff does any good, but on the other hand is it a wise precaution? I particulately like the last claimed benefit. To add or not to add, that is the question. Does anyone have any experience of these additives?

Every cloud has a silver lining. My independent garage (Finneys near Coningsby in Lincolnshire - highly recommended based on our families cars being serviced/MOT'd there - C5 2.2HDi, diesel Clio, petrol Zafira, diesel C-Max, diesel Hyundai i30) did my MOT. Car got through with no problems but when I picked it up Mr Finney showed me that the plastic clip on the end of the pushrod from the diaphragm was broken. "get one when you next pass a Citroen dealer and fit it yourself" he said. I was quite impressed that he picked that up on an MOT. Like paul.h, quoted above, my MPG had got better (around 50mpg measured full to full with not much motorway driving) and there were no apparent problems. So, as I have quite a bit on at the moment I booked the car into a Citroen dealer, thinking £20ish for the part and 1/2hr labour (as quoted on the forum) would get the job done without hassle and no swearing on my part. Turned up at the dealer as requested to be asked "Er what was the problem?". The service booking-in operation is now a call centre! After explaining what was required they hadn't got the part to do the job, which would take 2 hours. My quick mental calculation was ahead of the young man's calculator in working out this "little job" would cost £216 inc VAT! So, the silver lining was: Firstly the next Citroen garage down the road had the part in stock (and the first garage was very helpful getting this reserved for me to collect) Secondly I avoided almost £200 in labour cost. Now do I have a long Torkx screwdriver........................................................... Or should I ust leave it all alone and onjoy the improved MPG............................................

Well, I can report that my car sailed through its service and MOT last week, including the 13-pin towbar wiring without any jiggery pokery, so to speak. I also had the cambelt/water pump done as 9 years/80,000 miles. So, hopefully good for at least another year of civilised transport.......

Picassoconvert, by coincidence, I have just put an update etc................ paul.h Thanks very much for your help. I installed a Citroen harness based on the old-style UK towing sockets (12N and 12S?) and this simply connected neatly into the existing harness. However, I couldn't get hold of a wiring diagram for the bypass relays and ended up with the problem of having to turn off the car fogs/turn on the caravan fogs by making a manual connection (I can hear the bypass relay click when I do this, so the relay is doing the switching - my connection is simply poering the relay)as part of my 13 pin wiring. I have been thinking that what I need to achieve is a positive supply to my wire which becomes live when the caravan lights are on (as they have to be on before the fogs are operable anyway). I will look at this again when we get a nice day when I have some time. I just wonderd how the relay got its power when the caravan was connected under the 12S/12N wiring. In the meantime, I got an unofficial view from my MOT tester last week that my towbar wiring will be acceptable as it stands, so good news there. David

Paul.h - thanks for your comments. I do tow a small German-built caravan with a Mk1 2.2HDi estate. I picked up a twin socket Citroen wiring harness cheap from the (now-ex) Citroen dealer in Boston. After quite a bit of huffing and puffing (documented elsewhere on the forum) I got everything wired up and working, except the fog lights. So I now have a connection in the side pocket of the boot. When I hitch up I have to remember to make this connection which causes the car fog lights to become inoperative and the fog lights on the caravan to be operative. However, I do have a "thoughful" MOT tester so we will see how we get on. Yes, John, I suppose there will be lots of commercial pressure to resist any change to less frequent MOTs.

Thanks for this interesting thread and particularly to John Douglas and Paul.h for the towbar wiring requirements. I have a 13 pin socket wired into a 7 pin harness - everything works except that I have to make a connection manually in the boot to disbale the car fog lights and enable the caravan foglights when towing, so I imagine that will be a fail for my car. However, as my harness connects to my 13-pin cale using 4mm connectors (pinched from my model aeroplane stock) I will just remove my towball and socket for the MOT and see what happens. Just another minor irritant in life's rich tapestry. At least the cost of the MOT is a modest £54.85.......... (That last sentence was a joke - is there any progress on the proposals to make the MOT test every 2 years?)

I took my daughter-in-laws's car to Sheffield earlier this year. It was booked in for 1pm and the job was supposed to take an hour or so. In the event they were busy and didn't finish till after 5pm just as they were closing, so I had no time to test drive the car afterwards. My impression was that the Sheffield garage was just a Bosch service centre not connected with ECU Flash as at one point they were waiting for the ECU remap files via the internet from ECU FLash. The car went like a rocket up the slip road onto the M1 - and then went back into limp mode. I suspect there was another fault on the car but as it was sold shortly afterwards I can draw no firm conclusions on ECU Flash. However, the Bedford man referred to earlier is near me so if my present 2.2 develops this fault I will probably use him.

Third opinion here - I had my water pump done at the same time as the cam belt on the first 2.2HDi I had - the pump (Citroen part) was about GBP£40 at the time - 2008ish. The advice was that there was no extra labour involved in changing the pump. The bill for the 100,000 mile service, cam belt and water pump was GBP£599. I'm just debating when to have this job done on my current 2.2HDi which has done 75,000 miles and is 7.5 years old. The received wisdom seems to be to do it sooner than later. David

Could this be for Euro 5 vehicles? Hope it doesn't apply retrospectively to older cars!! (70,000 miles and no DPF problems........yet, touch wood!!) David

Well, we will never know if the DPF removal/re-chip really worked or not as my daughter in law has just traded my old C5 in for a Zafira. So if anyone picks up a silver 2.2HD1 SX estate reg'n. K*51 E*B and gets it going let us know! At least I can start to work out what the French manual says at my leisure. And no, I'm not going to get involved with the Vauxhall before you ask!! David

Hello Bob No update yet - my daughter in law is managing to do local journeys in the still limping car. Hopefully we will have time to take another look at it in April. My suspicion is that the DPF removal and remap was OK and we've got a turbo/vacuum problem - possibly a leaky/bunged up hose. David I've just got the French manual from Amazon, so will be swatting up from that before we do anything.

Hello Al - I had a chat with Andy of ECU-Flash before Christmas and when I can arrange the logisitcs of getting my old C5 (2001 2.2HDI, 125,000 miles), which is now driven by my daughter-in-law, from New York to Sheffield Andy will remove the DPF filter and remap the ECU. If this cures the antipollution fault and associated "limping" it will be money well spent. Having had the car from new, I had the DFP and fluid replaced at 5 years 73,000 miles, so it's probably due again. I will report back after the job has been done and the car has been driven for a few weeks, so it will probably be the end of February by then. If all goes well I will then get my 2003 2.2HDi done before I get any problems. David Update - I took the car to Sheffield on Monday (90 miles in limp mode) and the guys there removed the innards from the DPF and did the re-map with Andy of ECU-Flash providing the files via the internet. I was at the garage all afternoon as they had other jobs on at the same time and so I left Sheffield in the rush hour. The first time I put my foot down reasonably hard was on the slip road to the M1 and the message came up "Particulate filter not connected" (or words to that effect) and the car went into limp mode. However, it limps much better without the DPF! On starting up now "Anti-pollution fault" appears for a few seconds and then goes out, but the warning lights stay lit (service, engine auto-diagnosis and ESP/ASR symbols). On getting back to Lincolnshire I tried a few tests on the quiet straight roads. From a standing start accelerating hard up to about 3,000rpm the car goes quickly in first and second gear, but on changing up to third (which puts the RPM back down to just over 2,000) there was little acceleration. Accelerating through the gears it was possible to get up to 70mph on the M18 and A1, but with no "poke" to accelerate further at all. I am still waiting for Andy to call me back to check if there could be a problem in the re-map. However, I suspect that we still have another problem to solve before full performance is restored. My son will take the car to work (he works in the motor trade) and get the fault codes to see if there are any pointers there. At the moment I am reluctant to take my non-limping car for the DPF removal/re-map until we get this one sorted out. However, they had 27 vehicles booked in for DPF removal in Sheffield this week, so it must be coming increasingly popular as a way to avoid DPF problems. David

I've got the posh version of this - 2 rubber ferrules (walking stick ends to you) off eBay and a length of varnished wood dowel. Works a treat, doesn't slip if it rains and stows away easily. I only use it in the cold weather because when it's warm the tailgate stays open of its own accord.

Yes, it looks like as if it might be the end of the road, so to speak, for me and Citroen, too. At the moment my 03 HDi Exclusive estate with 68,000 mile on the clock is going well (famous last words), but give it another couple of years and DPF filter/timing belt replacement come along, probably followed by unsolveable anti-pollution faults and minor niggles (rear window not opening, sagging tailgate, failed high level brake light etc) it will be time to despair. The question is, are all modern cars just as bad or worse? I had the DPF removed from my old (01) 2.2HDi estate last Monday for my son (didn't solve all the problems, but helped) and the chaps who did it were also doing 08 reg BMW's and Audis - telling me that it was around £2k to replace the DPF on those models. A great shame because when a C5 is going well I thinks it's marvellous - quiet, comfy, economical, roomy and a good tow car.

Any info would be appreciated, as this is a route I want to go down to get the most out of my C5 2.2 hdi auto. Thanks Al Hello Al - I had a chat with Andy of ECU-Flash before Christmas and when I can arrange the logisitcs of getting my old C5 (2001 2.2HDI, 125,000 miles), which is now driven by my daughter-in-law, from New York to Sheffield Andy will remove the DPF filter and remap the ECU. If this cures the antipollution fault and associated "limping" it will be money well spent. Having had the car from new, I had the DFP and fluid replaced at 5 years 73,000 miles, so it's probably due again. I will report back after the job has been done and the car has been driven for a few weeks, so it will probably be the end of February by then. If all goes well I will then get my 2003 2.2HDi done before I get any problems. David