C5 HDi Auto - Transmission oddity

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degreed
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C5 HDi Auto - Transmission oddity

Post by degreed »

C5 2.0 Hdi Auto (4 speed).

If the engine is revved out hard (4000+ RPM) in third, either by holding the gear or by kickdown, (e.g. when passing a long vehicle up a hill with little passing room to work with) it will give a brief surge at high revs and then refuse to change back to 4th. It also will not allow gear changes using tiptronic mode. It will still start off in 1st, go to 2nd then 3rd, but not 4th. The only way to reset is to stop the engine and restart. The problem does not occur in normal to brisk driving.

Any mechanical/electronic reason why this is occurring?
David Greed

97 Xantia 1.9TD SX
98 Xantia 3.0 V6 Exclusive
03 C5 HDi SX Wagon
jmd
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Post by jmd »

I'm not familar with triptonic mode, but have some experience of the AL4 automatic gearbox, having had one. Although the manufacturers say that this Gearbox is sealed for life. Benefits are to be had from carrying out an oil change on the Gearbox. Using the special oil recommended by Citroen. Check out this site which has a lot of good information on Automatic Gearboxes.
cachaciero
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Post by cachaciero »

Having had a quick look at the manual for the 4HP20 my mind boggles, however as far as I can see the most likely failure is that the ECU is seeing a throttle input error, this as far as I can understand it will prevent engagment of 4th will not give you any other warnings and will require that the box is re-initialised by removing power AND it may tie in with what you are doing. However as usual with these things five minutes on a Lexia should tell you for sure what it is complaining about and is the only real way of making progress on this kind of problem.

cachaciero
Sid_the_Squid
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Post by Sid_the_Squid »

Hi degreed,
As a first port of call, a Lexia session* should be in order, there are quite a few members here with these funky devices who I'm sure would be happy to assist depending on your geographic location.

Changing the gearbox oil would certainly be a good idea, what year is your C5? The older C5's would have either PSA's own AL4 or a ZF 4HP20, where as the latest ones I believe have a Jatco or an Aisin AW box.
There is a fair bit of knowledge on here regarding the AL4 & 4HP20, don't think anyone here has a new enough C5 auto to have any of the later jap boxes.

*Lexia is one of the specialist code reading machine for PSA cars & vans, it can communicate with all ECU's.


<edit>
Just noticed your sig, is it the 03 C5 your speaking about? in which case I'm fairly certain it will have an AL4 box.
A Lexia session, and an oil change would be a good starting point. the oil you need is called Esso LT71141. you can buy it from Citroen dealers, here is the part number 9736.22, its a fairly plain bottle it will say on the label "Esso ATF 4HP20 AL4".
Do not under any circumstances use Dexron of any kind.

There is more information about checking and chaining AL4 box oil in these links.

http://www.eastment.net/forum/al4%20oil%20change.pdf

http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/v ... l&start=15
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lexi
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Post by lexi »

Very interesting that Citroen are now using Nissan (Jatco) and Toyota (Aisin)
auto boxes. Pity they didn`t use more Jap electics and components instead of crap Valeo Marelli and Sagem......but then it wouldn`t be a Citroen I suppose :lol:
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