C5 weirdness

[Stempy]

All sorts of little niggles are showing up now. Nothing major and all electronic.

Nearside wing mirror wont index in reverse, just sits there wobbling back and forth when reverse is selected and wont be budged by door button.

Rear widows have a mind of their own and pick and choose which buttons will operate them.

Front windows don't close from the fob button.

Temperature always reads 40 or above on the info screen.

Any clues most appreciated.

Also, are the grey spheres longer lasting than the green ones as I suspect the ones fitted are original and 11 years old.

[addo]

Grey is the new green. I don't believe they will be anything special after that long.

[dnsey]

If they've all appeared within a short time, it suggests a failing battery.
Check the voltage,and if it's OK, try a BSI reset.

[Mandrake]

All grey C5 spheres are long life multilayer types - similar to the multilayer spheres sometimes found on the front suspension of Xantia's - the ones with the three dimples around the filler cap.

Multilayer spheres seem to last at least 10 years with negligible pressure loss, so at 11 years old chances are good that yours are still fine. Unless there are problems with the ride I would assume that they're still ok. (I sold my previous Xantia at 12 years old and it still had the original multilayer front suspension spheres - still in good condition!)

When multilayer spheres do eventually fail they tend to do so quickly and can go from near normal pressure to dead in a matter of months, so failure will be fairly obvious when it happens.

[Stempy]

It seems to ride ok though maybe not as smooth a my old Xantia, and it goes through the four suspension settings ok. What about LDS or whatever they call it? Is there a Hydraflush type thing that I ought to use. I haven't got much of a clue with the newer HA3 system, gonna have to do some reading up to see how it works compared to HA2. I know the brakes are normal vacuum servo types (boo), not sure about steering though yet, or how many spheres there are.

[Stempy]

If they've all appeared within a short time, it suggests a failing battery.
Check the voltage,and if it's OK, try a BSI reset.

I've fitted a brand new battery, should I have done the reset at the same time?

[Hell Razor5543]

Always, when you change a battery. It is not unlike Windows, in that if you don't shut it down properly it MIGHT cause a problem (only might, mind you). A full BSI reset should clear down any electronic glitches.

Here is the link to the procedure;

http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/v ... 11&t=40407" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[myglaren]

It seems to ride ok though maybe not as smooth a my old Xantia, and it goes through the four suspension settings ok. What about LDS or whatever they call it? Is there a Hydraflush type thing that I ought to use. I haven't got much of a clue with the newer HA3 system, gonna have to do some reading up to see how it works compared to HA2. I know the brakes are normal vacuum servo types (boo), not sure about steering though yet, or how many spheres there are.

The suspension and steering share the LDS fluid and reservoir but have separate pumps, the power steering pump is a conventional engine driven one and the suspension pump is electric and is directly below the fluid reservoir.

When you unlock the car in a morning you will most likely hear a brief whirr from the suspension pump as it corrects the height, also if you sit on the rear bumper it will whirr and lift the rear end to normal ride height.

It only pumps up, to lower the car electrovalves open and let the fluid back into the reservoir.
AFAIK there is no flushing medium like Hydrorinçage.

[Mandrake]

Don't you mean suspension and steering share the same fluid, not brakes ?

[myglaren]

Don't you mean suspension and steering share the same fluid, not brakes ?

Yes Damit - thanks for picking up on that.
Yet another senior moment.
I knew what I meant - just didn’t write what I was thinking

[Stempy]

Thanks for all that, things are becoming clearer, hopefully I'll have time in the near future to remove all those engine bay covers and have a good old prod around.

Do any C5's have a rear wash wipe? Also mine doesn't have front fog lamps. Are these options on a C5?

[myglaren]

The facelift ones have rear wash/wipe. Something I miss on mine.
If you haven't got Xenon headlights then the foglights are built in to the dipped headlights - twin filament bulb.
Rotate the inner barrel on the light stalk, once for rear foglights then again for front fogs. Could be reversed. Can be set with a Lexia but on my estate they worked one way for a while then reversed by themselves.

Speaking of weirdness, I was driving home from work last week. It was 31°C and the climate control set to 16° both sides.
It suddenly went very quiet and I thought for a second that the engine had stopped (stationary, waiting for lights).
The aircon had reset itself to 28° and shut the fans down to 'quiet' from Arctic gale.

[Ben82]

The facelift ones have rear wash/wipe. Something I miss on mine.

My mk1 has rear wash/wipe along with automatic wipe when reversing in the rain.
However I seem to recall for some reason the uk didnt get rear wash/wipe.

[rabenson]

my mk1 VTR has rear wash wipe - and very useful it is!

[Gibbo2286]

It looks to me as though they just juggled the spec around for marketing purposes, my 2001 2.0L HDI SX has dual air-con and no rear wiper, my 2004 2.0L HDI VTR has a rear wiper but only single air-con.

Different gearboxes too, early one reverse to the right and back later one reverse to the left, lift the knob and forward.