C5 Tourer 2011 Heater Fan Not Working

[taximan61]

I am posting this in case anyone else has problems and would like to share my experience.

I had to park my car up for 6 to 8 weeks as I was having a replacement hip fitted, December and part of January so cold weather.

First thing that I did wrong was to leave the battery connected, handbook says disconnect if not used for more than 4 weeks.

When I went to start the car the battery was flat, 8 hours on a trickle charger and the car started first time. When driving it I noticed that the heater fan was not working, very cold in the car and unable to keep the windows clear.

Visited my usual garage where all of the basics were checked, condition of battery, fuses, put it on diagnostic which showed very little. They suggested going to an auto-electrician as modern electrical systems are very complex and not to be played with, fair enough.

Booked in at auto electricians, in the meantime I rang Citroen and priced the parts, resistor £162 and fan motor £252. Then followed all of the comments from " those in the trade "

Nightmare of a job, dash to be taken out, airbags removed, one even said that the dash fixing bolts might be fitted from the outside and the windscreen would have to come out !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was starting to panic as I love this car and really did not want to change it.

Never mind, the auto electrician deduced that it was the resistor and did a temporary fix, advising me that it would fail again so a new one would be needed, great service, got me back on the road. He showed me a picture of the resistor, got a genuine Hella OEM one from Ebay for £45. Happy days.

Now back to the motor, again I consulted Springfield Citroen in Gateshead ( in case it was the motor ) who quoted £421.74 to supply and fit a new motor, hang on, if the part is £252 that's not a lot of main dealer labour. About 2.5 hours they said, worst bit is getting the glovebox out, then it's pretty straightforward, a bit fiddly but not too bad. So no need to remove airbags or windscreen then ? No we've done a few, it,s not a nightmare.

Lesson learned, listen to those who know and have done the work before, sometimes the dealer is not only the best option but in this case very reasonable.

After all my C5 ( used as a taxi ) has only done 158k, lots of life left yet.

Hope this is useful.

[paul.h]

Thankyou for the post. If I ever need work doing on our cars that I am unable to do I use a dealer, they should know what they are doing and have already done most jobs before, so should be able to do them quicker and use the right tools/procedures.

 

Have you done most of the 158k miles on your car, if so what other things have you had to do on it ?

[taximan61]

Got the car October 2015 when it was 4 years old and had 115k on. One owner and with a full dealer history, paid £4500 for it. Had a recurring problem with front discs warping, 2 sets only lasted a couple of months. Garage eventually sorted it, inside the caliper pin rubber guides there are plastic spacer rings, these go brittle with the heat and jam the caliper, used to be a problem on the old AX models I'm told. These were removed and all is well.

Up to now had regular servicing, pads/discs all round, tyres ( 19inch Arcadia alloys, hate them, give a hard ride )and just this week fitted a new battery, the original one was still on the car. Believe it or not the best battery deal was Halfords ( with trade card ) an 096, 75 amp hour for £73. Love the car but in the future I will have an automatic. Town Centre garage ( Sunderland ) have 2 beautiful C5 tourers in but way too expensive for me. EML on at the moment, it's the EGR valve but car still running perfectly.

[paul.h]

I have copied your comment on the discs warping to the C5 common problems topic since it may not be an obvious cause.