All Things V6...

[CitroJim]

I wonder how much the EGR valve is, and how hard it is to replace? Step 1: Remove engine

Many a true word spoken in jest Richard

[DHallworth]

There's two EGR valves, one is about £250, one is £650... Go figure!

From looking at the instructions they're not to bad to do. The rear one is done totally by feel apparently as you can't see a thing! A rear turbo change would of been 6.5 hours though!

I love the car to bits, it's a cracking car to drive but even with a warranty on it I'm loosing patience!

David.

[RichardW]

The rear one is the 'cheap' one for whatever reason. 4.1 hours book time - you have to remove the rear piloted torque reaction rod. Whatever that is!!

[DHallworth]

That's a shame then! There was me hoping to get my moneys worth out of the warranty

David.

[DHallworth]

Well, the C5 came back from Citroen yesterday after 3 weeks and 4 days in the dealer for an EGR valve and investigation of a hydraulic leak, they suspected it was the new hydraulic pump that was fitted last month that was leaking again but instead of changing it out again they've decided to replace a load of low pressure pipes around the unit to see if that cures the leak before fitting another pump at their cost. Personally I don't think they've got a clue where it's leaking from and are just trying swapping things!

Anyway, the 407 has needed fettling today...

The day before we got married Cheryl said that the boot would no longer open on the 407. Today I got time to climb into the boot and wiggle the loom, nothing happened. I used a screwdriver and opened the latch then removed the loom from the car:



Upon stripping it down I found this:



I stripped back some of the insulation and found another broken wire:



The rest of the cables were just as bad, they were in a pretty disappointing state for a 2010 car to be honest:





Anyway, I cut out the bad bits on all of the cables and replaced them with new pieces of cable, soldered them all up and heat shrinked the joints.



I refitted the wiring loom, tested the button and the solenoid fired perfectly so that's that one put to bed.

Since we've had the car the air con hasn't worked. It was diagnosed as a leaking condenser at the NFC Autocare open day last month. I ordered a condenser on eBay from Luffield Citroen who were selling a genuine one they had in stock. I got the part number from service box using the chassis number. The part for my car is 6455GY. I removed the front bumper from the car today and then noticed that the condenser that Peugeot say fits this car is completely the wrong size.

The condenser on the car is 735mm wide, the one that's supposed to be right going by the chassis number is 550mm wide. I'm going to have to give them a call tomorrow and find out exactly what's what. I just wonder if it's the wrong part in the box they've sent me.

Anyway, until I get one, that's it parked up on the driveway now.

The battery on the 407 is like nothing I've seen in a car before too...

Batteries I know always had one connection to the positive and one connection to the negative. (Well, heavy connections anyway...)

This is the positive terminal on the 407:



The negative terminal has a little multiplug connected to it too!



David.

[Zelandeth]

That is quite possibly the strangest battery connection I have ever seen...Well...on a standard automotive battery anyway!

Question does spring to mind as to whether there is maybe one connection there that actually goes onto the battery post and then that box (which appears to be a fuse box) is bolted onto that? I'd be really surprised if it was all part of the battery itself!

[DHallworth]

It's not part of the battery. The battery fitted is a Varta battery, that box has a Peugeot and Citroen logo on the red lid that I opened to take that picture. Not quite sure how you'd remove it though!

David.

[myglaren]

Is that one of those smart-charging modules?

[DHallworth]

I swear to god I'm loosing the will to live at the moment...

We had a guided tour of the Michelin factory in Dundee today as a joint outing with 2CV Ecosse. I decided to avoid the motorways at rush hour and use the A roads going from home, across the Erskine Bridge, down the A82 to Balloch, then through Drymen and down the back roads to Stirling.

I use this route for work regularly and never have any hold ups but today we got stuck behind an artic doing 35mph, once we managed to get past this we were running 15 minutes late so I gave the C5 some proper exercise on the way to Dundee. The car was running great, pulling like a train and averaging 40mpg despite pushing on.

It's done less then 300 miles since we got it back on Friday. However, when leaving Dundee today I felt it cough as we accelerated gently up to 70mph in traffic. I got home tonight, plugged Lexia into it and found a fault code on the injection ECU...

Low and behold, it was the same sodding fault on the same sodding EGR valve that Citroen have been repairing over the last MONTH that they've had the car!!

Thankfully the air con condenser has arrived so that was fitted today, the car has been reassembled apart from the front bumper. I've got parking sensors to fit to that and then it can go back on tomorrow too. Just as well by the sounds of it as it looks like the C5 will be going back to Citroen... again.

David.

[DHallworth]

On a slightly happier note then the C5 tales of woe, I've been putting the 407 back together with it's new air con condenser fitted to it.

This car doesn't have the front parking sensors fitted to it so whilst the bumper is off I'm going to retrofit them.

I bought the 6 parking sensors and the wiring loom on eBay. The fixing brackets for the parking sensors are also missing from my bumper so I had to order these from Peugeot.





These are ridiculously expensive for what they are... The two fixings in the top picture that go on the side of the bumper are almost £40, the 4 in the bottom picture that go onto the back of the front facing sensors are almost £50!!

The brackets need to be glued to the front bumper:



Once the brackets have been glued you can then attach the parking sensor to the back of the bracket:



The markings for the front facing sensors are already on the bumper so they just need drilling out. They need to be 18.25mm holes in the front bumper so allow the sensor to fit properly. I'm going to drill these in the morning tomorrow before I stick the brackets to the bumper.



You can see the markings on the bumper for these. The side ones need to be drilled out and fitted using the two fixings in the first picture above.

Will get more pictures tomorrow as I progress.

David.

[CitroJim]

Once again, PSA's bizarre pricing structure strikes I see David

I have never ever driven a car with parking sensors so don't miss them but no doubt it's one of those things that once you've had them you miss them terribly when faced with a car without them...

[DHallworth]

The problem I find with the 407 Coupe is the the dashboard is incredibly deep and there's a huge front overhang that you cannot really place. You know there's a huge amount of car there but you're not really sure where it is. Parking it can be a tad nerve racking sometimes. Cheryl is using the 407 daily for work at the moment so I'd rather have it been if she gets near something then get the "I've just bumped the car" phone call

David.

[Mandrake]

Ah, a cunning ploy to sell you parking sensors - give the car a long overhang that you can't see or judge - Genius!

[CitroJim]

<Makes a lot of sense David...

Ah, a cunning ploy to sell you parking sensors - give the car a long overhang that you can't see or judge - Genius!

It's just as bad in the C1 Simon, no overhangs there but I still find a Xantia 10 times easier to park...

[DHallworth]

Well, the 407 is back together.

Parking sensors fitted, new air con condenser fitted, and it's had a wash now. Just need to get the air con gassed up.





They've actually gone in quite well!

If you're curious and want to read more I've put 2 guides together in the How-To section of the forum. They might not be much use to anyone at the moment but there might be a day when 407 Coupé's start to gather some attention

David.