Burning Smell, Starter Stuck, Will Not Start

[yasa22]

Hi,

 

Has any one else had this or similar.

Driving home last night, car begins to make whining noise, then can smell electrical burning in car. Pulled over and checked no sign of fire etc. Good job left it running !!! got home and checked could not see anything in the dark, but as I could not start the engine, nothing from the starter at all.

 

Had to push start the car this morning, b****dy hell these diesel picasso's are heavy after a while, we finally got it started and drove it to a garage. During the drive in could smell the burning and hear the whining again, lasted for a short while then after several bumps, like when you bump start a car, it went.

 

The display kept going to 0 miles hour and blinking along with the handbrake light flashing on and off ? Also the internal heating fans don't seem to be working and the wiper water spray is dead, fortunately the wipers are still working.

 

Managed to get it a mates garage, he will look at it hopefully today.

 

Car is a Citroen Picasso 2.0hdi Exclusive. only 3.5 years old.

 

Any help advise appreciated.

 

Yasa

[Igloo_Vindaloo]

My wife had a similar thing soon after getting our C3 last Feb. It was the alternator that had burnt out.

 

Took ages to get a replacement and the car was off the road for a month just after getting it. And Citroen's "customer service" were appallingly unhelpful - to the point I would never recommend anyone buy a Citroen under warranty.

 

Stupid thing is we'd just traded in our old 306 partly because it's alternator had failed!

 

Good luck!

[yasa22]

Ok.

 

Turns out the key got stuck in position 3, leaving the starter motor engaged !!!!

 

The Starter motor obviously got fried to the point of no return.

 

New starter motor - £85 (lucky prices quoted from £68 - £296) £25 fitting.

 

Lots of electrically cleaning fluid sprayed into the ignition system seem to have stopped the key sticking for the time being, but may need to get that looked into.

 

This is the 2nd fault on the picasso in our 1 year of ownership, the indicator got stuck on RH Turn but a sharp tap resolved this FOC, so not too disappointed yet. My ford had a lot more wrong with it during it's first 3 years of life.

 

I would still recommend the piccaso but only get one while it is still in warranty..... parts are too expensive.