C3 Desire Nov 05 Cutting Out/stalling

[greenhills]

Hi Folks,

 

we purchased a Nov 05 C3 Desire secondhand in Dec 06 (still under warranty).

 

Car is fine on long runs...etc, but it regularly cuts out in 2 situations:

 

- coming to a stop, e.g. at a roundabout/lights or in traffic queues

 

- when going slowly downhill, using brake only

 

I suspect both situations are the same thing, the engine is supposed to be idling.

 

Has anyone else encountered this problem and if so, could you provide some details on how it was solved or what the underlying problem was.

 

As the car is under a 3 year warranty (assuming the warranty is with the car and not the owner(s)), I will take it to a main dealer for investigation, but I'd like to hear of your experiences first to know what to expect

 

Many thanks in anticipation

[kfk]

Petrol or diesel?........engine size?

[greenhills]

It's a petrol engine, 1.1L - thanks

[stimulator]

Suspect brake or clutch microswitches. these signal the ECU that you are changing the running regime of the car and the ECU schedules the fueling for the situation.

[greenhills]

Suspect brake or clutch microswitches. these signal the ECU that you are changing the running regime of the car and the ECU schedules the fueling for the situation.

 

Thanks Stimulator, would we be looking at getting the microswitches replaced then ?

 

Also, just before the car cuts out, we've noticed the engine revving up and down - would this also be a symptom of the microswitches problem.

 

A work colleague had suggested that the revving could be related to idle air valve needing adjusted/cleaned - could this also be a possible candidate ?

 

Thanks

[davidjones002]

Just wondering if this has been sorted out?

 

We've recently purchased a C3 Airplay+ 1.1petrol, and are experiencing the same cutting out problems when approaching junctions etc.

 

Thanks

[greenhills]

Update on this. Took the C3 to main dealer today, it had to have 2 recalls done:

 

XXQ - accelerator pedal replacement

XXM - some sort of firmware download update ?

 

I also asked them to check out the cutting out/stalling problem.

 

They have said that a new thermostat is required - would anyone have had anything similar done ?

 

I'd be interested in thoughts as to why the current thermostat could be causing the problem.

 

Any thoughts appreciated

 

I'll be picking car up later today, but thermostat would need to be replaced next week when part has been ordered up.

 

Thanks

[techbod]

sounds strange what thermostat are they on about? the only one thing I can think of is the coolant temp sensor if that was giving odd readings then it would cut the engine out, its just a pity they keep vital information so we could check it out like the fault codes for instance

[greenhills]

Thanks Techbod - I don't have any confidence in the guys I was talking to, they struggled to explain why this would be the problem - they seemed more interested in trying to sell me a service, new tyres, brake pads, wipers, oil change kit...etc

 

Another thing was one of them told me they had done the XXQ recall work, but when I went to collect the car, another guy said they needed to wait for the accelerator to be ordered up and it would be replaced when the car was in for the thermostat replacement. It was obvious that the pedal had not been replaced. When I challenged the first guy about the recall work he said Citroen had cancelled the recall between the time I phoned in to book the car in and the time I handed it over - this sounds very strange, I'll be calling Citroen tomorrow to check on this. My chassis number is one of those listed on both AA recall and vosa.gov.uk pages. Does this seem a bit out of the ordinary ?

[greenhills]

Quick update...

 

The thermostat was replaced so I took the car for a run after leaving the dealers. Inside 10 mins after driving around the nearby retail park the car cut out again when I approached a junction and stopped. I drove around a car park in the retail park and came back to the junction, and again cut out.

 

I then brought the car back to the dealers, and it cut out twice again in traffic when I had to stop behind other traffic.

 

The dealers then ran some diagnostics and ended up doing a firmware download. This appears to have done the trick, although I'll keep an eye on it over the next week or tow. I think davidjones002, see earlier reply, had the same issue and also had a firmware update.

 

Thanks for all the help