A Couple Of Problems - Help Needed!

[Guest AGregory]

I recently purchased a 2002 C5 2.2 hdi with approximately 78,000 miles on the clock. The car has a decent amount of service history and appears to be in really good condition. I had the car fully serviced myself, shortly after purchasing it in October 2010.

 

I have a few problems with the car at the moment – detailed below. Any help or ideas would be very much appreciated!

 

1) When starting from cold, the car feels a bit ropey. The engine doesn’t idle properly – it appears that there is a slight problem with fuel getting through.

 

Until the engine is at it’s normal temperature (and usually after a good run on the motorway), the car seems to lack full power and doesn’t pull 100% smoothly.

 

I also have a problem with the brakes. In order for them to work properly, it seems that it is necessary to pump the brake pedal quite hard – a good 4 or 5 times.

 

The ‘Unblock Diesel Filter’ warning has flashed up a few times – normally when doing short trips around town. I have found that a good blast down the motorway and getting the turbo boost pressure to the max on acceleration tends to get rid of the warning light for a few days.

 

2) Today, I went out to the car to find that there wasn’t enough power from the battery to turn the engine over and start it. I’ve also noticed that the Voltmeter is showing a lack of power from the battery when I have the headlights, fan heater on full and the rear window heater on. In order for the fan heater to blow on full, I have to turn the headlights off. The car had a new alternator in the last year – along with a new battery. I’m puzzled as to why I’m having these problems.

 

3) The digital oil indicator which is displayed when switching the ignition on is showing 5 lines, rather than 5 squares – suggesting the oil level is low. Again, this is confusing as the oil was changed in October and I haven’t covered more than 2-3 thousand miles since!

 

If you’ve taken the time to read all of the above, thank you! Any help would be appreciated.

[sifaan]

for the oil level - safest is to check the level from the dipstick (car on level, engine off at least 10 mins). if it's low then you need to top up the oil (and find out why you lost so much so quickly). if it's high then you probably have a problem with the sensor. AFAIK it is the same sensor that gives the oil temperature reading (if you have one on your cluster, not sure if it's standard on all cars) so if it is the sensor then probably the temperature reading doesn't work either (it should warm up after a longish run, takes much longer to warm up than the coolant)

 

if it is the sensor, it may or may not be worth the trouble to get it fixed (you can anyway use the dipstick once a week or once a fortnight to monitor the levels)

[Guest C5buff]

Hi

The fuel filter warning could be genuine and so needs replaceing since the engine seems to be suffering fuel starvation. Changeing it would at least eliminate it.

The brake problem sounds like they need bleeding to remove air from the system.

The voltage problem could be simply that the auxiliary belt is in need of retentioning since it may be slipping when on full electrical load. Also may affect the diesel high pressure pump IF it is one that is also driven from the belt.

[paul.h]

It may pay you to service the brakes, remove all the pads and clean them up and the calipers since they are prone to seizing on the C5. The rears also need cleaning/greasing at the contact point between the caliper and suspension arms to remove corrosion which causes the calipers to be pushed out a bit giving squealing and bad wear and if bad, the caliper can touch the wheel - there is a pinned post on this.

 

Also have a look under the bonnet at the passenger side of the cylinder head to see if a plastic cup has broken off a pivot - a common fault on the 2.2 hdi which affects performance and can bring up fault codes.

 

I would check the battery voltage without and with the engine running - should be 12.7 and about 14 volts. Check the battery connections are on and tight and check the wiring at the alternator is in good condition.

 

Has the exhaust particulate filter and eolys fluid both been recently replaced/topped up - this is an expensive job at about the mileage of your car ?

 

Diesel filter is supposed to be replaced every 40k miles.