[solved] C3 sensodrive "stuck" - battery - thank you

[Michal]

My C3, after staying on the driveway for a couple of weeks (and cold weather), refused to turn the engine on one morning. I suspected the battery, so charged it (I thought) and tried again. It displayed the dash and snowflake to me, instead of the gear number. I could not change the gear to N. The car was in the 1st gear, so I could not move it neither. My thinking was, it's the sensodrive, packing up...

I found this forum and contacted CitroJim. Jim was enormously helpful, scanning the car with the software on his laptop and after a moment, suggested that the battery may be not really charged. The computer was detecting 8.8V on the battery. It was quite embarrassing I sorted the battery (this time properly), looked through the car manual and found out the gear reinitialisation procedure. After following the procedure and about half a minute of weird noises from the gear (gears changing?), the car displayed 1 and was ready to go!!

Jim thank you for helping and for the time you spent on it, not mentioning that you had to travel to my place, as my car was stationary.

Lessons learned: a) check the battery first, use some meter; b) look through the car's manual to refresh memory;

The re-initialisation procedure of sensodrive on my C3 (e.g. after the battery was disconnected):
- switch on the ignition
- press on the brake pedal and keep pressing
- wait until you see "N" or a gear displayed (approx. 30s)
- release the brake pedal

[oneday]

thats what i like a nice simple repair and good help from jim

[CitroJim]

Michal, I'm absolutely delighted to hear this Excellent news!

I was good to meet you on Sunday. Both the XM and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip over to see you and the poorly C3

It was good to look at something other than a Xantia or an XM for a change

And thanks for adding some very valuable knowledge to the forum