Hilarious french german coincidence

[mrpedersen38]

So, i just bought my Second Citroen C5 x7.
My first was a 2011 2.0 140hp seduction model, manual gearbox sedan.

The second and current is a 2012 2.2 204hp Exclusive automatic with all the bells and whistles, massage, electric hatch, cornering bi-xenon headlamps and on and on.
My Boss commented laughing that all that French electronics is going to burn and die.
a couble of weeks later i realised he was sort of right, the massage function in the drivers seat was acting weird, turning off after 2 seconds of usage.
i took the seat out of the car and took it apart. ONLY to find out that on the vertical motor for lumbar support wassent running stable...
i diagnosed and came to conclusion that the Plug is defective. (after checking motor and wires)
i inspected the plug and saw a, hold on... Audi/WW logo. i giggled like a little girl, i found a spare connector that my brother has in his shop and cut 5cm off from the original plug and soldered on a new plug.
and like "Magic" everything works perfectly again.
Cleaned and lubed everything fresh.

i took a funny video to show my Boss that he was "Almost" right
i went to him and said: "Hey, you were right about the electronics in my car" He laughed and said: "I told you to get German like the Skoda i drive"
I showed him the video and his face expression went weird, and he just left and didn't talk or email me for 3 weeks.
My Brother who owns the shop i loaned some space in, was laughing his bottoms of when i showed him the plug.

A French car, and first issue i have with it, is a German plug.
(Photos attached, pic with seat inside the car was for testing with power.)

(
extras:
I saw a Audi A6 Quattro allroad 2012 model on the lift with 150k KM. and rust had gotten to it... Already.. Nice car besides that.
My Citroën from 2012 with 250k KM has almost no rust. and have been driving in the western part of jutland here in Denmark with "seawater"
No undercoating on both cars. but Audi's are supposed to have legendary zinc/galvanised body... right...
)

[GiveMeABreak]

Nice one!

The electronics aren't so bad - and it's ridiculous to blame the French as most of the components are made by the same manufacturers that supply all the big car makers! Siemens / Continental, Valeo, Delphi, Bosch, Magneti Marelli, and so on.

But the wiring is another matter. I've seen some pretty bad thin and cheap wiring (C4 Picasso as one example) that suffer with breakages under any sort of strain within the main looms.

[mrpedersen38]

Nice one!

The electronics aren't so bad - and it's ridiculous to blame the French as most of the components are made by the same manufacturers that supply all the big car makers! Siemens / Continental, Valeo, Delphi, Bosch, Magneti Marelli, and so on.

But the wiring is another matter. I've seen some pretty bad thin and cheap wiring (C4 Picasso as one example) that suffer with breakages under any sort of strain within the main looms.

Exactly, couldn't have said it any better myself
My business partner has sworn to his mercedes S class. and his wife just got a A class.
He praised the a class alot actually, and the engine running really great. my Brother was servicing the car when my brother told him it's a renault dci engine, he did not believe it.
a renault logo on the block did convince him tho.
These moments are just worth Gold

iv'e seen some wiring on a C4 wich is just a fat joke, a vehicle that "Vibrates" over the roads needs solid wiring, it can't be right that the wires in my PC is more durable, it's just a joke.

[GiveMeABreak]

Yes, very brittle wiring - seen it happen after multiple warning lights on the dash - which you might expect the BSI to be at fault - but turned out on investigation, that under the battery there is a massive wiring loom. After undoing the wiring straps on the loom and starting to look inside, there were multiple clean breaks of the wiring. The wires looked as thin as the wires on a cheap Chinese solar garden light - and they are about as thick as hair!

It's one reason why I'd never have a C4 Picasso. Space is so tight in the engine bay, they've just bundled everything up with no consideration that the strain and weight of such a huge bundle of wires is a recipe for disaster just waiting to happen.

[mrpedersen38]

Yes, very brittle wiring - seen it happen after multiple warning lights on the dash - which you might expect the BSI to be at fault - but turned out on investigation, that under the battery there is a massive wiring loom. After undoing the wiring straps on the loom and starting to look inside, there were multiple clean breaks of the wiring. The wires looked as thin as the wires on a cheap Chinese solar garden light - and they are about as thick as hair!

It's one reason why I'd never have a C4 Picasso. Space is so tight in the engine bay, they've just bundled everything up with no consideration that the strain and weight of such a huge bundle of wires is a recipe for disaster just waiting to happen.

It's just ridiculous.
I haven't found a wire that bad on my C5 so far, are you aware of any typical spots on the X7 C5's ?

[GiveMeABreak]

None to date - the wiring looks really solid (so far)! If only I could say the same about the steering racks, of which I'm currently on number 3!

[mrpedersen38]

None to date - the wiring looks really solid (so far)! If only I could say the same about the steering racks, of which I'm currently on number 3!

That's good to hear the wiring is solid so far

steering rack no 3 O_O
that's alot, how many miles?
New or refurbished?
my father has a C5 x7 2011 at 180k KM and mine with 250k KM both with original racks.
(His old C5 mk1 had 500k+ km with original rack as well, "Clutch @470k km and alternator @300 something. nothing other than that.)
Have we really been dodging a big bullet multiple times

How does it fail?

[GiveMeABreak]

79k miles (127k KM).

Original rack failed at about 40k miles, was replaced with a new Genuine one by Citroen under warranty and at 20k miles later that failed:

viewtopic.php?t=60155&hilit=steering+rtack

So that's 2 brand new OEM Citroen ones and I'm now on a refurbished and treated replacement, as I was not going to cough up another £2k plus fitting for another OEM failure of a rack!

There's plenty of X7 owners here who are on their second or third racks - completely unheard of - ever. So it's either a major design floor on this model or we have had a batch of inferior quality steel (remember the relatively recent Japanese Steel scandal).

No issues with my other C5s - MK I or MK II - faultless, in fact no other car I have ever owned has had a rack fail.