Purchased A £200 C5 : )

[spiff]

Good evening from a wet Mullion Cove Cornwall.

 

We have owned a BX and then a zantia from 2000 till a few weeks ago when the cam belt broke at 75000 : (

 

My fault for not changing it, such a shame as the car had been garaged all those years.

 

I could not get it home to our garage and £900 was more that I was going to pay.

 

Found a C5 2003 1997 petrol automatic estate 10 miles away in Helston for £200, nice leather seats.

 

Bought as a temporary car as it is not so easy in Cornwall to find one.

 

It has a crease in the passenger side front and rear doors, no too bad

 

Plus filler in the strip between the rear door and the rear wheel.

 

Slight rattle in the cartelistic converter not much been there a while looking at the service notes.

 

Auto gear box periodically goes into service mode, apparently it can go to Plymouth and back 150 miles or a couple of miles.

 

Stopping and a restart clears it, I was told of all these faults when I purchased it : )

 

There is a clonk not too bad but there over bumps, from reading I think is the drop links ?

 

I may try an oil change on the auto box, but boy that stuff it pricy any inexspensive substitutes ?

 

Have had a look round for a drivers instruction book to find out what all the knobs do but no luck so far ?

 

Nice car though, has been serviced every year lots of money spent on it.

 

God Bless Spiff : )

Edited July 29, 2017 by spiff

[paul.h]

Welcome to the forum.

 

At £200 you can not go wrong, even if you run it in to the ground and not fix anything.

 

The suspension tends to clonk a bit on the C5 so if the rear tyres are not wearing badly and leaning in at the top, and the MOT has not given any advisories, then you should be able to live with it. You can still check the drop links - you can check by levering the link or disconnect one end and then see if there is a lot of play in the joints at the ends.

 

Have a look at the C5 technical section Common Problems pinned topic, including the warning that you need to raise the suspension to max before jacking it up and also to use axle stands if you intend to go under the car.

 

With leather seats I guess your car is the exclusive model. If you do your own maintenance the Haynes workshop manual is worth getting.

 

Possibly the catalytic converter rattle could be exhaust paste if it has recently been removed. Also the heat shields can come loose due to corrosion but a large penny washer on the bolts will provide a fix.

 

Some info here on the gearbox oil http://www.citroen-owners-club.co.uk/citroen/topic/24819-al4-gearbox-atf-suggestion/

 

Under the front seats are drawers and sometimes the handbooks are put in them , so worth a look.

[spiff]

Thank you Paul for your reply, no hand book in the under seat boxes, pity.

 

Yes it could well be a bit of debris in the box, the noise is mentioned in some of the service reports last year.

 

I would so like to fix all the problems, but it has done 150000 plus the dents, I know the sensible thing to do is run it and look for a low milage one which was the original intention.

 

We purchased our Xantia at 26000 three years old for £7000 and it has been great, if I had not been so mean and changed the cambelt

it would not have died at 75000 : (

 

Bit hairy backing an auto in the garage for the first time, I am 71 and have always driven manual cars.

 

PS There were no advisories on the MOT.

 

Are there any sites where the hand book can be downloaded, it would save pressing all the buttons ?

 

God Bless Spiff

Edited July 30, 2017 by spiff

[MikeLane]

You can download a Driver's Hanbook here - for free (I think!)

 

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/397817/Citroen-C5.html

 

One thing to check is whether the Cam Belt has been changed recently (at 150000 it should be on its second I think).

Best of luck!

[spiff]

Thank you for the link : )

 

The manuals for later models are there, the 2001 2002 manuals only refer to spec, none of the normal images, strange ?

 

I have ordered a Haynes manual : )

 

Looking through all the service receipts the cam belt has not been replaced.

 

We purchsed it as a temporary measure, so that we have transport when something with less dents and miles comes up : )

 

We love the car the leather seats and trim are so nice, but given its known faults and the damage down one side, it is going to be more cost effective to wait for a better one.

 

Sad but true : (

 

God Bless Spiff

Edited July 31, 2017 by spiff

[paul.h]

That link is for the 2008 on model C5. These can also be seen from the Citroen site without going through a third party website but ones for the earlier C5 are not available. http://service.citroen.com/ddb/

 

Maybe the best thing is to try for one through a breakers or ebay or try a Citroen dealer. You could though put questions on here for the various buttons and maybe add a picture so we can go through them.

[spiff]

Thank you for that I have put a saved search on eBay.

 

God Bless Spiff

[MikeLane]

My Haynes Manual goes fronm 2001 - 2008 (Y - 08)

Amazon seem to have several (new and used) this one shows the cheapest:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Citroen-C5-Service-repair-manuals/dp/1844257452/ref=sr_1_3/257-2324810-7401122?ie=UTF8&qid=1501780904&sr=8-3&keywords=haynes+citroen+c5

[C5-Nigel]

Hello Spiff, its a 1997 you say, well when I bought my 1998 diesel Xantia Estate I removed the Cat completely and replaced it

 with a new one piece exhaust pipe, possible on a diesel because it didn't have the lambada sensor.

 

I wonder if your petrol has the sensor in the down pipe, if not you could probably do the same.

 

or remove the sensor and just plug it with a blanking bolt. this would increase your BHP by about 15%.

 

fuel economy improves to. firstly check that it doesn't mention the words catalytic converter on your Reg document.

 

On ebay the one piece estate Bosul exhausts are £50.00 with a 2 year guarantee.

 

you would need to look for a 1995 exhaust.

 

well worth looking into.

 

The cambelt failed in mine only 24k in to its life as the bottom crank pulley disintegrated, it had a hairline crack in it

a ticking time bomb, I bought a second hand engine and the car went into Bourne Citroen for a few months whilst he swapped over the head and the bottom pulley total cost £400.00 she ran fine for another 60k and then the turbo started burning oil hence why I bought a C5 exclusive.

 

Im slowly loosing the feeling in my feet owing to diabetes so now I'm looking for an Automatic C5 estate and the exclusive manual hatch will have to go, such a shame really its a beautiful example at 89k and so very clean to.

Edited August 17, 2017 by C5-Nigel

[paul.h]

On a petrol engine the lambda sensors should not be removed. The inlet one continuously adjusts the fueling and the outlet one checks the catalyst is working. If the inlet one is not working/removed the car would go to limp mode and not run very well. The C5 will have a catalyst, I think it was from about 1993 when petrol cars had to have them.