aspire_helen

Hi, just thought i would share my experience of replacing the rear brake discs and calipers for the first time after 13 years and 150k miles. Firstly, i advise whenever inspecting the rear brake pads and discs ALWAYS check the inner pad and inner disc face. I found that since the last mot (11 months ago) both calipers had been pushed out by corrosion and the discs were cutting into the caliper bodies - not uncommon. More alarmingly one caliper bolt had sheared and neither of the inner pads were bearing on the discs such that the disc inner faces were almost entirely rusted. However, the outer pads and disc faces looked deceptively fine! One might think a difference in braking must have been apparent, but i am a cautious driver and tend not to use the brakes heavily. I had to use an impact driver to free the 2 disc retaining screws; the disc came off with a bit of a hammer. The worn disc and distorted calipers allowed the disc to come off completely. Note- a new disc cannot be fitted with new calipers in place - fit the disc first! I used a 16mm impact socket and a 3ft lever to unscrew the caliper bolts. It takes loads of effort and patience, but they do eventually unscrew. The resistance is due to the loctite in the calipers, not the screw threads. Unscrew each bolt half a turn at a time alternately. The caliper will come way with the bolts still in them. Dont bother trying to remove them, just replace the calipers. New bolts have to be fitted anyway and the old calipers are likely to be too corroded. Indeed, on both calipers the holes locating the pad retaining bolts had corroded away completely. During the bolt unscrewing, one caliper split appart leaking brake fluid, the other stayed fixed together. I sealed the brake feed pipe using a female to female connector with a bleed screw. The sheared bolt left 3mm of thread protruding from the screw plate on the suspension arm, so i welded a nut to it and teased it out no problem. I tidied up the face of the screw plate by chiselling off the 2mm thick alloy corosion, sanded it down and applyied rust converter. For the reassembly, i used loctite as advised by haynes - 510 for the joining face, and 270 + 7649 activator for the bolts. My thinking is that hopefully i will not have to do it again, so do it properly. I believe that citroen had to resort to loctite to correct a poor design fault. All the extra tools, loctite, parts, consumables etc came from ebay, except the caliper bolts from citroen £13 for 4. Ive refitted Brembo discs and pads £74 for the full set. The calipers £66 the pair seemed cheap, but they appear quite good. They came with bolts (to keep the 2 halves together, not to use as caliper bolts!). They also came complete with the pad retaining bolts and cover plates - i note gsf for example sell them as an extra £10 "fitting kit". Nevertheless, i bought some stainless steel retaining bolts and nuts £1.40 for 5. I also fitted stainless disc screws £1.15 for 5. Time will tell with the caliper quality but they came with a 2year guarantee. Total cost, about £200. Now all i need to do is bleed the system and renew the brake fluid - see my other post seeking advice on this ! http://www.citroen-owners-club.co.uk/citroen/topic/22073-c5-mk1-2001-22hdi-advice-on-brake-bleeding/ The lesson i have learnt is to thoroughly inspect your brakes regularly and not leave it to the mot or service (especially for low mileage biennial service). Once the seal between the caliper and suspension arm is broken, the galvanic alloy corrosion will attack mercilessly in a single salty winter.

Hi, the job is now finally complete. I haven't had the mot yet - ive been busy replacing the rear brake discs, calipers and pads. All done now, save the bleeding. I asked the forum yesterday for advice on brake bleeding/renewing all the brake fluid. Calipers had serious corrosion causing discs to eat into caliper body and inner disc pads on both sides had become totally non effective, all since the last mot 11months ago! One caliper bolt had sheared under braking. Welded a nut to the remaing stud and it came out ok. Other 3 bolts extremely stiff but came out with lots of elbow grease, patience and a 3 foot extension bar.

Hi, iam replacing my rear calipers/discs/pads and front pads (at 13years, 150000miles). I intend to bleed each rear caliper after fitting, and then fully bleed/replace the brake fluid when all 4 wheels are complete. I intend to use the 2man brake pedal up/down/up/down method as detailed by Haynes. However, i have read elsewhere that the c5 with abs needs special bleeding to avoid problems such as: getting air into the abs system, pushing dirt back into the master cylinder, inverting the master cylinder seals due to excessive foot pressure on the pedal etc. Has anyone got any advice on the definitive diy method? I have also read (not Haynes) that when winding back the front pistons, the bleed nipple should be opened. In this way, any dirt in the caliper fluid channels is pushed out via the nipple and not back into the master cylinder or abs system. Any thoughts?

Hi, last week i could not remove a lockbolt because the key would not grip sufficiently. The key worked on the other 3 lockbolts, just the one head had worn/deformed, probably due to overzealous use of air wrenches by tyre fitters over its 13 year life. However, i took it to my friendly independent citroen specialist, who had just the right tool, and he removed it with 15mins using a Dynomec tool (i think, not sure). It is a two stage process. First, you hammer onto the bolt head a tool with 2 very hard/sharp chisels. Secondly, a hammer wrench action removes the bolt. Of course the bolt is rendered unusable. I bought a new set of Evo5 off ebay for £29 which are great. The key fits its bolts much better than the 4-pin original. I note that they come with a lifetime warranty PROVIDED THAT an air wrench is never used!!

Hi, i have had this problem for many years on my 2001 c5 mk1 2.2hdi and just live with it. Sometimes the drivers door fails to lock on the remote. Sometimes it fails to unlock on the remote. All other locks operate regardless. Eitherway, the drivers lock works with the key. IMPORTANT - for ages i thought i was securing the car when in fact the drivers door was always unlocked! Of coures, when i used the remote to unlock the car the drivers door was already unlocked, so nothing appeared to be amiss. Now, i always check that the drivers door is in fact locked after ive used the remote. Furthermore, whenever i leave the car (eg with a garage or airport carpark) i leave a written note to tell them to check the drivers door and use the key if necessary. Over time ive removed the lock, lubricated it, but it seems to have a mind of its own. The good news is that you still have the option to use the key (though it alone does not operate the deadlocks). If one of the rear doors fail to unlock, you are in trouble (and now an mot fail). I had a rear door lock fail. I opened it by accessing the back of the latch screws, by cutting through the rear wheel arch bodywork, and drilling them out. The door opened with the latch still secured into the lock. It was then reasonably straight forward to access the lock through the door card and replace it with one from a scrappy £10. The job took me 3hours. The mot examiner/garage was amazed, they could not work out how i had been able to open the door the same day as the mot fail. They had said i would need to destroy the door and were willing to charge for the privilege.

Hi, 5 years ago i had an lds leak from behind the front left wheel area.(c5 mk1 2.2hdi 2001, 103,000m at the time). The leak was difficlt to locate at first as the fluid was spread all over. It turned out to be a split where the flexible hose entered an aluminium crimp. Fortunately, it was on the low pressure return piping, which passes around the wheel well, under the radiator and up towards the resevoir on the right side. I sourced an appropriate piece of hose from a scrapped citroen. I had to saw off the original aluminium crimp to get the old pipe off. As it was the low pressure return i refitted the hose using hose clamps not crimping. I think the original use of crimping of the lp return is overkill and probably installed for ease of production (essential for high pressure hoses). Had no problems, now 150,000m.

Dear all Just an update. Finally, Citroen have supplied the bodyshop a front bumper with the headlamp washer apertures cut in the correct place (according to the bodyshop - I have yet to see it). The car is booked in next week for the front bumper to be replaced again. In total, Citroen sent 4 faulty bumpers (including the original) starting in July. It has taken them until November to provide a serviceable one. I wonder how many faulty ones they had in stock?! Fingers crossed this one does indeed turn out to be OK next week. Helen

C5 mk1 2001 2.2hdi The other day during some heavy braking from 60mph, the front brakes began making an alarming knocking and banging - the harder the braking, the louder the banging. On investigation, it only happened on moderate to hard braking, apparently from the drivers side. From the violence of the knocking i antipated a broken bolt or similar. On inspection, all brake and suspension components appeared as normal, nothing loose or broken. I removed the pads and caliper and found 2 problems. 1. The friction material on both brake pads has partially de-bonded from their metal backing plates. The inner pad is worse with about 30-40mm of its length seperated. Both pads have plenty of friction material remaing, 8-10mm. The pads APEC 1283 were fitted about 60,000miles/6 years ago along with new discs by a garage. The disc is now 1.05ins thick (yes, most of my mileage is motorway). Has anyone experienced similar with APEC or other makes? Any possible cause other than poor quality? Of course, i now need to replace all front pads. 2. The bracket supporting the braking cooling air deflector was slightly loose. The deflector is attached to the hub by the same bolts securing the caliper bracket to the hub, and effectively act as washers under the bolt heads. Both bolts were securely held by the hub and very tight. However, the bracket under the lower bolt head had rusted and thinned such that the bolt no longer held the caliper bracket against the hub, resulting in about 5-10thou play. After much struggling i removed both bolts. The upper bolt was pristine, no sign of rust. However, the lower bolt was well rusted into the hub and all mating surfaces were well rusted. These bolts were last removed by the garage to replace the disks. After removing all loose rust from all the brake components, i refitted the bolts with some copper grease and torqued them down satis. I temporarily replaced the original pads and took it for a test drive - no more knocking. If it was the cause, the next time you're looking at the front brakes, just check that the cooling air deflecor is not a little loose, even when the hub bolts are tight.

Re c5 2001 2.2hdi se with reversing sensors and colour screen. I am thinking of fitting a reversing camera to my bike carrier. The cars reversing sensors clearly are ineffecive when the trailer is fitted. A neat solution would be for the image to come up on the colour screen when reverse is selected. I could tap into the av video input sockets in the glovebox, but the video screen is disabled when the engine is running for obvious reasons. Also, the video screen needs to be selected from the screen menu. Any ideas anyone? Helen

No. We will continue to press citroen to provide a serviceable new bumper especially as I have paid for it. Citroen has muted the possibility of the repairer enlarging the aperture as necessary, but my repairer does not want to unless citroen indemnifies him in case it does not work. The tolerances are quite close....enlarging the aperture may result in the cover plate not fully covering the aperture when closed. In the meantime iam driving the car without the washer covers and fuse removed. I mean to check whether unsericeable headlamp washers would fail on mot due in october (i know how slow citroen uk can be). HELEN

After 13 years and 150,000 miles the colour sat nav screen on my 2.2hdi Exc SE is turning yellow intermittently ie one second it is ok, the next it has a yellow tint. I dont think it is the screen - Ive tried fitting another used screen but it made no difference. Ive exercised the connectors and wiring as much as the limited access allows to no effect. Ive disconnected the satnav unit - no change. It occurs with engine running or not. I assume a connection or electronic component somewhere is breaking down. Any ideas anyone? Helen

If you (or your repairer) need to replace the front bumper (part number 7401 R6) on your C5 Mk1 with headlamp washers, be aware that the spare you receive from Citroen is likely to be faulty, BUT this will not become evident until the bumper is painted and refitted!! Specifically, the aperture for the passenger side headlamp washer is cut 3-5mm out of place. This error is not obvious to look at but as a consequence the passenger side washer is blocked from extending. My repairer completed the whole job on my car before this became evident in July2014. He will do the job again and claim back from Citroen for the wasted work. However, working through Citroen he received a second bumper - it had the same fault. So, he was sent a third - again with the same fault!!. It appears the current UK stock or a batch were wrongly cut, and Citroen do not appear capable of quality checking their spare parts before distributing them, even when advised of a specific fault! So now, one month on, we await action from Citroen UK.

Hi, not surprisingly in the freezing weather my windscreen washers packed in. But, unusually this time there was no noise of the pump either. Both headlamp and screen washers are dead. The windscreen pump fuse is OK, but the headlamp washer fuse had blown. I replaced it; but again neither washer pump worked and the headlamp washer fuse blew again. It seems strange as the 2 pumps are separate and have separate fuzes that they are both u/s. I suppose both pumps had frozen in the really bad freeze rather then just the pipes as usual. When the weather warms up a little I suppose I shall have to remove the bumper and investigate. I note the windscreen washer pumps is a reasonbale £12 inc VAT to replace; whereas the headlamp washer pump is £103 - ouch!! Any experience or advice.

Hi My rear door has failed to open/unlock for over a year now, either from inside or out. The lock solenoid (motor) certainly operates with the usual clunk when locking and unlocking on the remote (or key)- but does not enable the handles which travel their full movement with no particluar resistance to no avail. Although some have talked about destroying the door card and lock to open the door, I wonder if anyone has tried removing the door latch by drilling its retaining screws away from within the rear wheel arch? The body is double skinned there, so it would require removal of the inner skin to access the back of the screws. The great advantage would be that the repair would be out of sight and not involve damaging the door, or lock. Actually seems ridiculous I should be in this position - the locks should have a manual override. Helen

Hi all, just dropped in from my usual c5 forum at Yahoo Has anyone found a cheaper source for DPX42 other than a Citroen or Peugeot main dealer? Citroen price today is £92.72+VAT (£108.95) for the 4.5ltr kit (=£24.21/ltr). I saw it on ebay this week for £117 + £12.50 postage - doh!. Last time I bought it,in 2006, I paid £68 from a Citroen dealer. I would ask if anyone had a cheaper option for a FAP, but the prices Citroen now charge drives me to clean my own by reverse pressure wash. The frech DIY video on Youtube is very interesting and shows the removal, cleaning and refitting of the FAP - shame the narrative is in French. I believe his narrative said he had to rinse it through for an hour before the water ran clean. I tried to determine whether it had to dry before refitting but he did not show this. Has anyone done this? Yesterday, the Citroen price for an exchange FAP was £301.57+VAT = £354 !!! (plus £160 deposit againts return of my removed FAP). What a rip off, and thats for an exchange , not even a new one. In 2006 it cost me £186 (plus £60 deposit) - I wish now i had kept my old FAP for £60! On the plus side, I ran my 2001 2.2HDi C5 until 75000 miles before I got my first anti-pollution warning. Having an early model, I can just top up the tank without resetting the computer, provided I dont let it get to the 0.3ltr low level sitch. Last time, I added a ttal of 5ltrs at 65000 miles - so much for Citroen's 50000 mile service periods. While Iam having a rant, Citoen quoted me £688 for a 100,000mile service, proudly announcing that inclluded the timing belt, but not FAP or eolys - what a rip off again - did the belt myslef for £40 in half a day. Helen

Why did your cambelts fail? Mine failed at 73000miles because it had been wearing on the inside (engine) edge until it failed in tension when only 15mm wide (original 25mm). I rebuilt the cylinder head myself for about £400 of parts (rockers, valve seals, tappets, various gaskets etc). Helen