Diagnostic Test

[markmay]

Can anyone tell me how much a dealer would charge to carry out a diagnostic test on my Xsara 1.4, and just how reliable are the results.

see previous posting on sat 03 may re Xsara west coast for problem

[CitroJim]

Depends really. I guess between about £15 and £20 and how reliable are the results depends entirely on the operator and the tester they use. Such tests are necessarily expensive as it's quite a long job to do it properly and the diagnostic kit costs an arm and several legs.

Ideally you want to get hold of someone who has the pukka Citroen Lexia or ELIT diagnostics kit. These machines will tell you everything you could possibly want to know but even then what it tells you needs to be interpreted by a skilled person who understands both the diagnostic machine and the vehicle it is reading.

I would try to get a personal recommendation.

I say this as recently on eBay there was a Lexia on offer with the suggestion that there was all the kit you needed to set yourself up as a Citroen Diagnostics station. The kit even came with a big advertising banner and Citroen overalls The one vital thing missing from this package was the training needed to effectively use it

[MikeT]

I had a mobile mechanic come out to look at my ABS early last year, charged £40 call out, read the ECU's, cleared the stored codes and then re-read them after a short drive and I also got him to replace all four glowplugs while he was there.