Engine Managment Nightmare

[Guest randalicous]

Hi.

 

We bought a C3 1.4 Desire 02 plate last March. For 3 months the car ran fine, then all of a sudden 3 bleeps and the ABS fault light came on the speedo and tacho stopped working, the power steering went and the car felt sluggish to drive. This happened randomly for a little while but re-set it-self more often than not. This went on for a number of months. We decided enough was enough and the car was in "limp" mode (ive seen it described) more often than not, which seemed to co-inside with the colder weather (of course could be coincidence). So we took it too a local garage who ran a diagnostic. No fault could be determined and he said it was probably a wire fault somewhere with the ABS system as this controlled the speedo as well so are likely linked. Sadly while the car was with him it re-set itself and i was told without a fault he could not determine what was wrong and to bring it back when it went again. So it did this on and off again for a few months but every time I considered ringing the garage back it would solve itself. In the past few months the car has been permanently "off" So i took it back to him.

 

Due to the time passed he did another diagnostic and again found no fault, so this time looked into the wiring. He said he felt there may be a broken wire somewhere. He also replaced the battery as this was not giving full volts. Sadly the new battery did not fix the fault. He had it 3 weeks and said he cleaned out all the wire connections and the car was working. Of course the day after I collected it, it went back into "off" mode. On taking it back the car of course fixed itself and could not be looked at, back to square one.

 

My frustration has hit a new high, how can there be a car that is nigh on impossible to fix.

 

Can anyone shed any light please??? The car drives okish when in this mode but the speedo and tacho not working and the power steering going has caused plenty of issues, not least some under steer in an underground car park and a large scrape on the side of the car as a result.

 

Help, help, help??????

 

Steve

[paul.h]

If your local garage is not a Citroen dealer it may pay you to talk to one.

The power steering stopping working has been reported before as a one off problem but usually resets if the ignition is turned off and back on again a few times. The abs/speedo may be a faulty wheel sensor or wiring or even different tyres or tyres worn differently but I would have thought your garage would have checked this. Could also be a software problem which needs an update by the dealer.