Ive been having weird (electrical) problems with my 2011 Citroen C4 B7 Sedan (1.6L 5-speed manual with petrol engine). So the car in question is the 2011 model and has about 190 000km on the odometer, but the engine was replaced by Citroen service center to a new one due to major overheating which eventually blew the piston out of the cylinder (or atleast thats what my girlfriend claims..)
Anycase the engine was replaced by official Citroen dealer, so the rest of the car has seen 190 000 kilometers of life and engine about 70k of that. I have limited info about the history of this vehicle and have only changed the oil, filters and front brake pads to this car. Also this is the first Citroen I have ever driven or looked under the hood, so Citroen newbie is writing this with his limited english skills and car terminology (sorry in advance)..
The car has since been great after the engine change with only minor issues; small coolant leaks, small vacuum leak somewhere around the airfilter area (still present to this day but its very minor) but for about two years (around the time the engine was replaced) it has had this thing when you turn the blinker to turn left, the dashboard blinks also the right blinker light although much dimmer (I noticed that the rear foglight indicator also blinks, but its hardly noticable). So I would assume the blinker light indicators and foglight indicators in the dashboard are connected somehow or running in the same wire harness which may have minor contact due to partially broken wires?
This is not the main problem because the blinkers work just fine outside. eventhough the indicators in the dash flash in sync with each other (reminder; this happens only when using the left turn signal, when using right turnsignal or foglights etc. no other indicator light is flashing together with something else).
The real problem ATM: couple of months ago I started the car as usual and suddenly the dashboard lit up "STOP", "ESP" and "BRAKE SYSTEM FAILURE" -indicators.
Also the small radio/info screen gave following warning messages: "BRAKE SYSTEM FAILURE!", "Anti-Rollback failure" and one other warning message that I cant remember right now but I will add it soon as I drive again.
I noticed that eventhough it gave all these failure messages and it says "STOP" in the middle of the spedometer, ESP deactivated indicator light and brake system failure -lights are on, the car still works like normally. Only the anti-roll back feature is truly not working because the car wont hold itself when continuing to drive after stopping at the light which are at an incline - so the car rolls backwards if brake is not applied. The ESP works because I can press the ESP button at the left hand side in front of my knee and it says "ESP activated or ESP deactivated", but it doesnt affect the ESP off -warning light on the dash. Also the brakes work completely normal, ABS included.
So the fault/warning messages and dashboard warning lights seem to not be true (except for the anti-roll back feature that is only displayed in the middle info screen because it does not have dedicated bulb in the dashboard I assume? Oh and the check engine light is not present and never have been, so naturally my cheap OBD2 scanner doesnt find any fault codes from the car.. Now I am wondering that could it be that these (fake) warnings the car gives about the brake system and ESP are really gone but I need a better diagnostic tool to find and clear the codes to get rid of them? I have done the battery reset procedure that had no affect on this.
Al the fuses are ok because I checked everyone of them (inside on the drivers foorwell and at the engine bay on the drivers side). Only concern I have is that the connectors in the engine side fuse box that have the "pull-tab" mecanism which seal them from water and dirt were covered in WD-40 or some other spray type fluid that certainly was not electric cleaner or the paste type greace that you can put on battery terminals. It was not water and the pins are not corroded. My friend who claims to be a "car guy" admitted that he sprayd some multifunction spray in the terminals when he was trying to fix the problem because he thought the reason could be bad contact at the pins or connectors... I assume that one of the six(?) terminals that are colour coded (so you cant connect them in the wrong spot I assume) has something to do with the brake system, ESP and anti-roll back feature.
SORRY for my bad english and wrong terminology that I used in this post!! BUT TO SUM IT UP:
1. Car has this weird turn signal issue that only shows to the driver in the dash and I have no clue if this is just separate wiring or some random electrical problem that has nothing to do with the more annoying and "serious" warning messages and lights on the dash. I dont care about the turn signal indicators flashing both ways when turning left because I can deal with that later. If someone can tell that these are two completely different problems or that they are related to each other, I would be very gratefull!
2. How would you start diagnosing the brake system failure, ESP and anti-roll back feature faults? I can live without the anti-roll back, but I think that it will be fixed when I get the brake system failure message, ESP and STOP -warning lights gone from the dash and info screen.
I bought the Haynes repair manual in E-format which is annoying to be using next to the car without Ipad or laptop.. Also it doesnt even give a a full schematic for example brake system or ESP, so it is hard to even begin figuring out the wiring etc. when only thing I get from the manual is some hand drawn blocks and ohm values I should be getting to diagnose ABS sensors... So if someone has the full schematic diagram for Citroen C4 2011 B7 Sedan (1.6Liter Petrol engine with 5-speed manual) I would be super gratefull!! I have some experience on reading schematics and have a little bit of knowledge on electrical systems and how to diagnose them but I just need some help to get started with this.
3. Could something like a good OBD2 scanner (IcarSoft FR V2 or V3) or Diagbox solve this problem or what would you smarter car people suggest? I have 0 experience on Diagbox but it seems to be the best when trying to diagnose Citroens? I am currently in the process on trying to find info about Diagbox (download link or where to buy page) but it seems hard to find a clear description on what it actually is, can do, or is it usefull for my problem at all?
Any comment on what to do next or how to proceed are more than welcome!! Thank you in advance!! P.S. I will edit this post and make it easier to read because this was written with mobile in a hurry
I just found this amazing forum and did not have (and will not have time in the coming week to dig deeper because of work schedule, but I will definitely try and search if someone else has already posted about the same problem regarding "ghost" fault/warning messsages and how to tackle this problem without schematics or decent OBD scnner /workshop manual!
