Floodwater 1 XsaraPicasso (2.0HDi) 1

[qwertyuiopeter]

Disconnect the battery for 10 mins. This will reset the Eco-mode. I know this from experience.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Disconnect the battery for 10 mins. This will reset the Eco-mode. I know this from experience.

Thats worth a try, I'll have a ferret about under the passenger seat and see if I can find the battery!

Regards Neil

[Xantidote]

Well done in getting the car back to base - always with a sigh of relief.

The electrics issue wouldn't be just a low battery, with you running various electrical items since the engine was last running?

[Fake Concern]

My C4 will raise the windows if the remote is held down to lock, maybe the Picasso does this too?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Disconnect the battery for 10 mins. This will reset the Eco-mode. I know this from experience.

Absolutely spot on, windows are up now thanks very much. Virtual Pint at the Pickled Egg waiting for that . No undoing any bolts on the terminal clamps either with the Picasso, just clip on and clip off.

The electrics issue wouldn't be just a low battery, with you running various electrical items since the engine was last running?

Yes I think thats why it went into eco-mode, but the battery disconnect for 10 mins did the trick.

My C4 will raise the windows if the remote is held down to lock, maybe the Picasso does this too?

I have 2 keys but no remote for the Picasso, but that may well have worked if I had one. Thankfully the battery disconnect worked.

Thanks for your contributions

Regards Neil

[Zelandeth]

Think eco mode is triggered by the battery voltage dropping to a set level (it's designed so you don't flatten the battery), so sticking a charger on may well sort it.

edit: didn't spot page three! Glad that's sorted now at least! Fingers crossed the rest is as easy!

Have to admit that one of the things I love about the Saab is where the air intake is - you've got to try pretty hard to drown a C900! Had a bow wave over the bonnet of my first one (flash flooded section of 70mph dual carriageway unlit in the dark...I was doing about 30), and it didn't care in the slightest. Not so several 4WDs on the far side of the "puddle" though! It was about a foot and a half deep apparently.

[wheeler]

On a Picasso eco mode is triggered by certain consumers being switched on for a certain amount of time. Battery voltage has no effect on it so connecting a battery charger or jump leads wont prevent it from or bring it out of eco mode. Its the engine running signal from the crank sensor that As already discovered a BSI reset will temporarily allow it to come out of eco mode.

Don't want to sound negative here but I cant remember ever dealing with a diesel that has survived sucking floodwater up the intake, they have always bent conrods. I've had the occasional petrol turn out ok but I have also known a few of them to appear ok then put a conrod through the block a few hundred miles later. I do hope it turns out ok though, if it does I would also put on a lottery ticket that night.

[NewcastleFalcon]

From a seemingly hopless situation, Xsara Picasso sprang back to life today, not without a little sting in the tail though.

There was a thread recently on those jobs on a car which are a pain in the part of the anatomy of your choice

GLOW PLUGS!!!! useless things. If they can find a way of breaking they will.

So back to the Picasso, and its little flood predicament. Carefully removed the glow plugs, as carefully as anyone could have removed the glow plugs and ended up with matching pairs.......2 with the tips intact, and 2 with the femer tips missing.

So..... jacked up the car and put it in gear, wrong one as it turned out ie first so the turning the engine bit felt as if it was seized solid.

Hit fourth and managed to turn the engine through a couple of cycles, with water/wd40 spurting out of the two "free" glow plug orifices.

Time to spin it on the starter (two good glow plugs replaced) turned but not too freely...back to the wheel turning.

Two of the cylinders couldn't clear becuse of the blocked glow plug hole, and maybe sucked a bit more water in lying in the manifold. Whether this was sensible or not I turned the wheel anti-clockwise through a couple of cycles, then back clockwise but couldn't get past one of the compression points.

Decided to take the glow plugs out again, and got some good clockwise engine turning with the wheel. Time to try the starter again but this time I disconnected all of the injectors. The starter span the engine quite freely.

Put in the two good glowplugs again, connected the injectors, and fired up the starter. After a bit of turninhg over the engine fired up, clouds of white vapour from the exhaust, and an accompanying black sludge trail from the tail pipe. Kept it going for some time and the white vapour eventually dissipated. Far as I can tell, engine no noisier than it was before, idles and revs as it should.

Sting in the Tail? ....I have two glow plug tips stuck in their respective holes....replaced the threaded portion of the broken plugs to prevent the tips being fired out of the glowplug hole, like a pellet out of an airgun.

An honourable draw at the moment, haven't quite won yet

Regards Neil

[DHallworth]

I would make sure the car is away from everything and leave the threaded parts of those glow plugs out. Put something like a sheet of ply across the top to stop them hitting the bonnet and let it get hot, and then hold the revs at 2 - 3k, you might be lucky and find it'll get them out itself rather then you having to worry that they're stuck.

Got to be worth a try.

David.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I would make sure the car is away from everything and leave the threaded parts of those glow plugs out. Put something like a sheet of ply across the top to stop them hitting the bonnet and let it get hot, and then hold the revs at 2 - 3k, you might be lucky and find it'll get them out itself rather then you having to worry that they're stuck.

Got to be worth a try.

David.

Thanks David, they are both broken off "full tip". Not sure of the anatomy at the far end of the glow plug hole, and whether they only come out upwards, or whether they have a chance to "fall" down. Read a bit on a peugeot forum of a method as you suggest, but also involving trying to drift the broken tips about 1/8th of an inch downwards prior to the blast at 3-4000 revs. I am happy so far with today's efforts, and didn't fancy having tips of glow plugs descend into the cylinder head by futher prodding. Happy for now that they are staying where they are...nicely and securely stuck!

regards Neil

[elma]

When you do finally start it point the exhaust away from anything important. Sooty waters going to come out like its a jet washer.

[NewcastleFalcon]

When you do finally start it point the exhaust away from anything important. Sooty waters going to come out like its a jet washer.

Yes thats exactly what it did do, nice black stream flowing down the street Back to being a normal car again, apart from the fact I know that I have two broken glow plug tips stuck. I reckon it will start iin all but the coldest mornings on two active glow plugs, but there is the niggling fear that the stuck tips will unstick themselves and finish the job which the floodwater didn't quite manage

Regards Neil

[elma]

Brilliant news, other than the glowplugs, well done.

[c.morewood]

Congratulations Neil, Well done.

[Huskyxantia]

I do this every time ... What happened next ? !

This was such a post proper edge of seat stuff....... What happened to the glow plug tips.... Was the flat road ever sorted out so not to flood again ? Is the Picasso still Alive ? ( not the one I've brought is it ? ) ... Brilliant post