C5 2.2 Td Performance

[clarenceover]

It's been a few weeks since I penned the original article regarding the performance of my C5. I think I now have the answer!

The problem was me having to sink my foot to the floor to get any performance from the car. A great hobnail boot was needed when driving around town and on longer journeys my foot was in danger of going very numb having to keep the accelerator pedal rather a long way down. I did come to the conclusion that the power was there, only it was a long way down or even on the floor!

 

As was suggested a while ago, a stretched throttle cable appears to have been the problem.

The car has 96k on an 02 plate by the way.

I had no assistant so I wedged the throtte to the floor and discovered the throttle pulley under the bonnet still had some turn left. I decided to investigate if I could shorten the cable..............NO!

 

So instead I lengthened the outer cable. A very simple process of removing a spring clip and positioning it further along the ridged outer cable end. (Presumably ridged for that purpose). As they say in France..VOILA! The difficult bit was getting access to all the bits. This required an intercooler pipe to be removed one end(More an that in a minute). Removing the fuse box and battery plastic 'bin' lids as well.

The car is fine now although it still doesn't have the feel of the pedal on the 2.0 HDI C5's where I work. (06 plate). I am happy however and it does 'get-up-and-go' when I want it too. Driven gently it gives 47mpg on a round trip of 50 miles a day on A and B roads. This, according to the trip computer.

 

The day after the fix I hadn't gone a mile when a great pop under the bonnet followed by serious lack of performance and 'ESP/ASR' failure and 'Anti-pollution Valve' failure texts and lights lit up. You guessed it. I put the intercooler pipe back on and this time tightened it. The ESP/ASR lights warning recovered a while late but the Anti-pollution took a while longer(This with the 'SERVICE' light lit and engine management light on also).

They've gone out now and all is well!

 

I'd be interested if many others find this helpful!

[kfk]

Excellent write up......so often owners forget to check the basics, and often even when the vehicle appears to be running correctly an adjustment of the throttle cable can make a significant difference to how the vehicle feels.

 

With regard to the cable, its made up of three parts......the inner cable, a sleeve & the outer cable....with age the inner cable cuts into the sleeve this can cause internal friction and cause it to feel 'firm to press'.....a bit of lubrication will sometimes help but it ussually needs a new cable.