Ben's Citroen in Sweden

[DHallworth]

Good to see you posting again Ben. Glad to hear the C5 is still running and behaving herself.

David.

[Ben82]

Couple of updates...
Weekend before the one just gone I managed to convince SWMBO that we should try replacing the washer pump again. I got the bumper off on my own (after a lot of finger ache with the headlamp washers, with trying to work out how to unclip the damn things).
Got SWMBO to sit in the drivers seat and give the washers a go, could feel the pump whirring but not a lot of pressure in the pipes... So took off the pipes and got her to try again. Hardly any water squirted out, more squirted from the rear but not much. My verdict was pump was probably dead; I knew I needed something to catch the wash fluid, and thought my 3l jug should be enough; that was a mistake, it filled that within seconds, so created a bit of a puddle under the car as water can gushing out still; opps.

I thought the pump would be a pain to remove, but it came out easily, not noticing that there was a rubber gromit on it, when I went to put the new one on, I noticed it was very loose.... checked the old one took off the gromit, put it on the new one, and attached the pump to the car. Connected it all up, got SWMBO to try again, and was all working fine, so was really chuffed. Whilst I was there I did check to see if the headlamp pump had any vibration but it didn't.
In between being chuffed with fixing a MOT fail for £11, and feeling like SWMBO might not stick around much longer, I got her to help me put the bumper back on, rather than investigating the headlamp pump more.
Over this weekend, I tested the wash again, and noticed the driver's side was not spraying very well... got out a pin and poked the hole and all was fine again.
Last night I did not get a great deal of sleep as this morning was when I had scheduled the MOT in, and considering she hasn't had a garage look over her properly in over 2 years, and it's really been me self servicing her, I was a little worried that maybe I would have missed something. Suffice to say she came away without any remarks whatsoever.
I think she did have a bit of a protest after having been shaken. poked and prodded, as when pulling away from the test centre there was a bit of a vibration in the steering.

I don't think I posted this last year, but here's what the test centres look like over here (albeit this morning my car was the only one there):


I'm very impressed with the centres over here (though there aren't as many here as they are in the UK), I think our city has 3, so they have a higher volume of cars going through (normally). They have 3 individual areas where they test the car, first it's the brakes and OBD I believe, then they get the emissions results and check the lights, then they put the car on a lift, and check all the bits under the car. They then drive the car around the building, and give you the results.

[CitroJim]

Excellent stuff Ben

Those MOT test centres look very functional, clean and professional. I guess they're government run rather than how they are in the UK...

If that is the case I believe strongly that is how it should be in the UK...

[Mandrake]

Looks just like a typical testing station in NZ Jim.

Many (but not all) are government run and they don't do repairs either...so no reason to "find" extra problems...

I always preferred to go to them rather than a garage that also does repairs, for obvious reasons...Generally quite quick too - drive in at lunch time without an appointment and be back on the way to work in under 30 minutes.

[Ben82]

Excellent stuff Ben

Those MOT test centres look very functional, clean and professional. I guess they're government run rather than how they are in the UK...

If that is the case I believe strongly that is how it should be in the UK...

They used to be government run. In 2010 they decided to allow private companies to set up their own testing stations etc, but by 2012 no competition was set up, so they basically split the company into 3 parts, with the MOT part now being a publicly listed company.

It is showing signs of being no longer being run by the government, for example, to check your car in now instead of using a computer in the reception area, you now need to SMS one of those 5 digit SMS numbers with your reg number prefixed with what I guess is the station code. Which probably makes them quite a bit of money across all 70+ stations on a daily basis.

Hopefully it won't turn into a business of failing on minor things so they can charge extra for fixing them.

The turnaround is excellent though, they have a coffee machine in the waiting area, with small paper mugs, and I had barely got half way through my coffee before they called me to go to the desk. The place was empty though, and 2 people were testing different bits on the car.

I am a little concerned that it seems like since this morning, when steering at low speeds there feels a bit of a judder. If it's still doing it come the weekend (since I hardly use the car now during the week), I'll have to investigate more.

[myglaren]

Do they still weigh the car. We took one of the firm's cars in and the car in front failed as it was too heavy due to a huge accumulation of mud on the underside.

[CitroJim]

...the car in front failed as it was too heavy due to a huge accumulation of mud on the underside.

Back in the old days that was a great method of hiding rust. I can remember a time when cars would get repeatedly driven through a very, very mucky farmyard just before MOT-time. That particular famyard was home to many cows..

It was a brave MOT tester who'd look too inquisitively under such a car

[Ben82]

Do they still weigh the car. We took one of the firm's cars in and the car in front failed as it was too heavy due to a huge accumulation of mud on the underside.

I don't believe they do on a regular MOT (haven't noticed them weigh the car at least). But I think it's a requirement for a "registration inspection" for imported cars etc.

[myglaren]

It was a bog standard Volvo estate. Mid 1970s mind

[Ben82]

Only a few things to report recently.

I checked out the tread on my winter tyres a few weeks ago, and they were a wee bit worse than I feared... all of them barely had 1.6mm on them let alone the 3mm requirement for winters. So ordered 4 Goodride SW601 215/55 R16 97H XL asymmetric tyres, and had them fitted on Wednesday. I kinda took a chance with them, since they're one of the cheaper tyres, but rated one of the best in their price range. I figured that if they weren't very good, then at least the next time I need new ones I should only need fronts, so could probably spend a bit more. So far I've noticed very little difference, and I've only been able to drive them in the wet. There is possibly a little bit more tyre noise at low speeds, but nothing to get annoyed with.

One thing I thought was a bit off when getting them changed is I took a peek in the garage whilst waiting, and it looked like they had opened the cap to the LDS tank. Is this normal for when having a Citroen car up on a lift? I know the citroen indy didn't do it when I had the brake pads changed a couple of years ago.

On a semi related note about 2 weeks ago, the digital oil gauge had started flashing at me, indicating that the oil was over filled. I checked the dipstick and everything was fine (about as close to max as I got it when I did the oil change). I thought I might have needed to either replace the ~£50 probe, or give it a clean up or so. However after driving away from the tyre fitting garage it had resolved itself, they certainly didn't mention they did anything to fix it. So could just be a coincidence.

Went to see Bandit12 last month when I was in the UK, and he showed me how the headlamp washers are supposed to work (since mine don't), and I'm pretty sure they get pushed out to spray with the water pressure, rather than anything electrical under the headlamps. (as sedre doesn't really show anything going to the headlamp area). Annoyingly the pump is about £45 from the dealer, and for my model there doesn't seem to be any alternatives. So I'll probably have to rule out an electrical fault before attempting to replace the pump. That will be a job for some time next year when the weather picks up again.

[CitroJim]

Went to see Bandit12 last month when I was in the UK, and he showed me how the headlamp washers are supposed to work (since mine don't), and I'm pretty sure they get pushed out to spray with the water pressure, rather than anything electrical under the headlamps.

That's exactly how they work on the earlier models Ben such as the XM and Xantia. The pump is very powerful and exerts enough pressure to lift the whole spray head up in the same way as a pop-up garden sprinkler.

The usual Xantia/XM problem is failure of the timer relay. Because the headlamp washer system uses such high pressure and volume of water if the headlamp washers ran for long the tank would empty very sharply so there is a timer relay to cut them off after 5 seconds.

This relay is girly-pink and has a circuit board inside. Typically you'll find dry joints where the actual relay contacts are soldered to the board. Re-make them and the relay then works fine.

Worth a go... I have no idea where the relay might be in the C5 but if you find a bright pink one then chances are that's the one.

[Hell Razor5543]

When I had a company Skoda, it only triggered the headlight washers when the headlights were on, and then a counter was implemented (during that driving session), whereby they would be used on the first screen wash, and then every fifth wash (so on 6, 11, etc.), as they would empty the reservoir in a hurry.

[Ben82]

Thanks Jim,

Looking at the diagrams (have put them here), it looks like there might be a relay that controls it within the fusebox, but it doesn't look like the diagram give it any identifier or so. So might not be able to do anything with it, but it looks like I have another fuse to check out in the fusebox as I only checked fuse 7, which is for the headlamp washer, but there's fuse 8 which is for the timer relay which I should also check out too

[CitroJim]

It looks like that relay is part and parcel of the fusebox Ben...

Still, half the game is won by having the circuits and at least you can temporarily bypass the relay to see if the washers come to life... The look to be controlled from the BSI so Lexia may be of some help in testing perhaps...

[Ben82]

It looks like that relay is part and parcel of the fusebox Ben...

Still, half the game is won by having the circuits and at least you can temporarily bypass the relay to see if the washers come to life... The look to be controlled from the BSI so Lexia may be of some help in testing perhaps...

Wow, I never actually considered the lexia for it might be good if there's an actuator test or so for the pump, something to try tomorrow if I get the chance

Would be nice if it's something that doesn't need the bumper off.