C5 Turbo Failure?

[clarenceover]

My 2002 C5 HDi SX is coming to the end! (142,000 miles!)

 

I've had a love-hate relationship with it for the five or so years I've had it.

 

The nice dark green with a cream interior which I've adored! Ant that still looks good (the interior)

 

It started within months of my ebay purchase. I ran into the back of a chap at a roundabout and cracked my bumper, and his claim cost was £7200 for his car and injury to three occupants........................ I repaired mine for £25 with paint and fibreglass.

That was an inauspicious start to out relationship.

Then the faults would appear. ESP/ASR/Anti Pollution Fault. Would come and go over the years and is currently showing.

Crankshaft pulleys replaced twice. The second time it was infact the alternator 'clutch' pulley.

Starter motor failure one very snowy morning last January. £75 for an exchange one which I fitted myself. The motor factor warned that as it was the not entirely correct lower torque one it may not even turn the engine. It's been excellent!

Handbrake cable seizure on the nearside! Thank you forum members for defining the problem of replacement!

Passed the MOT with a fair few advisories in May. Not amongst these was the fact that the rear axle was starting to clank over bumps. "They all do that!" said the garage owner for the MOT, "But your radius arms are going to need replacing and that's mega-bucks!" The car was Sorn'd for a few months while I drove No1 son's 'cast-off' (written-off in Janurary but bought off the insurance company and repaired by me and re-registered). He's now in a 'Scooby' (Bank of Mum & DAD!) By the way, that's a Seat Leon Cupra R Mk1, currently Sorn'd itself now and in the garden but was great for the nicer summer months.

So I'm back in the Citroen and just recently mentioned to No1 son that it was a bit sluggish from a standing start. (I drive cars gently, the Cupra gave me 43mpg to-from-work!). The ESP etc. lights have just returned and I have a horrible idea I've missed an oil change and it may, just may have done 12000 since the last semi synthetic change.

 

Has that killed the Turbo?

 

I don't think it's there any more. The car drives ok but has no turbo 'kick' and overtaking is not quite the same. Is it now just a big normally aspirated 2.2HDi?

 

So the car has a handbrake problem, 'lights' on the dash, headlights that stay on, yes, that's another thing!, a 'terminal' rear axle and turbo failure.

 

On ebay if it was fine (but it's not), perhaps £500, a scrapper 20 miles up the road if you deliver it £220........................

 

Is it time to part company?

Remember I have the Cupra in the garden SORN'd, MOT'd, discs rusting and mouldy inside (they let water in the doors!)

[paul.h]

Have you checked if the diaphragm actuator at the gearbox end of the cylinder head is connected - the plastic cup breaks, about £20 for a new one and it may be possible to just remove the cup from the new and fit to the old one if the rest of the part is ok.

[coastline taxis]

Forget about the turbo Take pauls advice and that will put the aceleration problem right

rear axel bushes £70 each bit of a chew on to do but theres a " how to" posting on here

hanbrake at the worst caliper and cable £100 that if it needs both mostly only one needed. If its the caliper try unsiezing it.

Lights staying on well some do that deliberatley for when you park in a garage to allow you to see while you leave and lock garage up and can be altered with lexia. If your dosnt have that spec then its the comms unit £20 from scrappy and very easy and clean job to do.

basicly youve just got common faults and certinley not worth scrapping a car over and at only a 142k its just starting to get run in man

[clarenceover]

My thanks for the replies.

My brother is a professional mechanic and he is all for repairing the faults. He also has a diagnostic plug-in system which may pinpoint the problem. My problem is that if I repair these faults, what's next? The headlights are random and probably leave a lot of motorists wondering why I'm flashing them. The handbrake cable is seized in the tube and not a caliper problem. I have a handbrake on one side only at the moment. I was told the rear radius arm problem was expensive, probably because the parts are not just bushes but the whole component as I was led to believe that Citroen the bushes are not available by themselves and that the entire component has to be replaced.

The ESP/ASR-Antipollution warnings have not gone away this time as they usually did.

I was a little surprised that the two responses I had told me to repair the car. I've had the car nearly five years and paid 2K for it. In the words of a colleague, "It doesn't owe you anything!" I just feel that recycling it is the better option.

 

Another factor is a Sorn'd car parked on my lawn, MOT still but rusting discs and going mouldy. But at 43mpg if driven carefully and 225bhp if I don't...................

[paul.h]

Sounds as if you really intend to get rid of the car in which case I would not spend £200-300 on it to then only hope to get at best the same amount back (on top of scrap value), plus the hassle and cost of selling. I had thought you may be keeping it if the cost of repair was not much.

 

Fixing the diaphragm actuator (if the cup is broken) could also fix the current esp etc warnings although when mine broke these did not appear - just loss of performance but increased fuel economy to about 60 mpg.

If you have auto on/off headlights then there will be a sensor behind the interior mirror stuck to the windscreen which also does the auto wipers. I can not remember how to switch off the auto light function but it is something like have the ignition on but not the engine running, put the light switch to possibly auto, push down and hold the button on the end of the light switch until a message is given - the details are in the car handbook.

[clarenceover]

I do think that maybe I'm being a little mean to what has been a good car! I had a Xantia before and was fond of that so this was a natural step on and at only two grand nearly five years ago, was a lot of car for the money. I have had a few problems with it but the problems that are occuring now are becoming serious and I just feel that if I spent time out in the cold trying to fix things (if it had been summer perhaps things may have been a little different) some other problem would then occur. As I said earlier, rear radius arm bearings, tubro failure, ESP,ASR., Anti pollution, random headlights (switched on they are fine), one wheeled handbrake. The day before yesterday a momentary complete power failure driving to work, yesterday all the dash lights came on on the way to work and as I walked away from the car in the car park the speedo still read 45mph, the rev. counter 1500rpm! Yes, they had stuck when the 'lights on' episode occured.

Plus, there is another car in my garden (kind of in the way) which is mine, SORN'd still with MOT and desperate to be driven. It wasn't mine a year ago but was written off when my eldest was side-swiped at a junction. We kept it, repaired it and re-registered it. He switched to a BMW 330Ci Sport Coupe and hated it and now has an Impreza WRX STI so he doesn't want this one back!

 

So all things considered I'm afraid the C5 is not ideally placed for a long future.

 

On the subject of auto-lights, I disabled them long ago as they seemed to illuminate when not needed and not bother to turn off. I'm also not a fan of auto-wipers, they wipe when they don't need to in my opinion.