C5 MOT advice please

[Bandit12]

Hi Guys

My 2.2 estate passed the MOT yesterday am was pleased to hear she was the cleanest C5 the tester had seen for a long time. I was advised however to replace rear brake discs and pads as both are very close to minimum tolerances. Had a quick look online and there is a big choice of products and prices. Any recommendations of good ones or warnings of which ones to avoid would be gratefully appreciated. I did spot a new set of all 4 discs front and back plus all the pads for £102 which I thought was a good deal.

Going to do the job myself as replaced the rear trailing arm bearings without too much fuss but never replaced rear discs on a car before. Any tips or cheats on how to unbolt the disc without it spinning freely on the hub bearings?

One annoying fault that keeps cropping up is the message "please clean diesel filter as soon as possible" coupled with "engine anti polution fault" and ESR faulty" Service light also pops up. It does this if I'm going up hill on motorway or going from 40 to 70 limit etc. Really any occasion where I need to put foot down. However stopping engine and switching off car for a couple of minutes and it all goes away. DPF tank is topped up and new battery fitted last year.

Any tips or guidance are always appreciated.

Bandit

[elma]

I like Mintex pads and discs and usually the easiest way to stop the disc spinning is someone else's foot on the brake pedal. I've tried ecps own brand recently, pagid I think, and you'd be better off opening the door and sliding your foot along the ground than using them.

[Stickyfinger]

Mintex. Brembo all good and last under little use and work well....£105 ? if they are those (maybe not) then its a good deal but I bet they are cheapo ones.

Are the pads showing "even" use on the rear ?, not worn at an angle ?.... if they are angled you need to do the "clean the caliper joint" thing (which you should do anyway)

Sounds like you need a new fuel filter, quite common and an easy switch. I always do it with the battery disconnected and then it re-sets the BSI and clears the fault codes to old to be deleted later.

[Peter.N.]

If you have done trailing arm bearings brakes should be a doddle. I always use cheap pads and discs from ebay and never had a problem, but I don't use my brakes much, get about 30k miles from the fronts. If you drive hard then a better make would probably be advisable.

Peter

[Bandit12]

thanks for the advice guys. Fuel air and oil filter all changed 5000 miles ago. I will do a BSI reset just in case. The pads were angled when I did the trailing bearings last year and removed corrosion from calipers so they sat properly and removed the ridge from the rear pads at the same time. They werent brembo discs at £105 for the lot. Ill post the link and keep an eye out for Brembo or mintex.

[RichardW]

Not the fuel filter in this case - it will be the DPF. Sounds like it's partially blocked with ash, and when you give it some beans the pressure drop goes too high and triggers the regen warning. It may be that it is going so high that it's triggering the EML as well (which probably trips the ESP as well, it often does). If you can get it Lexia'd then you can review the pressure drop across the DPF.

ECP own brand is Eicher I think - Pagid is a half decent make which I've been OK with - but others on here have bad experience with fade / feel (but then I don't tend to hammer the brakes). I fitted OE spec Bosch pads to my 307 as I was able to get them at not much more than other brands.

I would expect a full set of discs and pads at £105 to be rubbish.... I'd be thinking more along the lines of £100 at each end.

[SaabC5]

One annoying fault that keeps cropping up is the message "please clean diesel filter as soon as possible" coupled with "engine anti polution fault" and ESR faulty" Service light also pops up. It does this if I'm going up hill on motorway or going from 40 to 70 limit etc. Really any occasion where I need to put foot down. However stopping engine and switching off car for a couple of minutes and it all goes away. DPF tank is topped up and new battery fitted last year.

Any tips or guidance are always appreciated.

Bandit

Well used to this message on my 2.2 before i got rid of it, the DPF is blocked. You need to get under the car on a ramp and take the DPF off and chuck a bottle of acidic wheel cleaner into it. Allow it to sit for 10 minutes and then jetwash out the honeycomb of all the the soot/carbon deposits. Allow to drain and then put back on, you'll notice the message will go away after a few restarts when the pressure sensor realises the DPF can breath again.

[dnsey]

The discs themselves are not much trouble, but to replace them you need to remove the rear calipers, which can be a bit of a hassle, I'm afraid. Search the forum for details, and take the opportunity to deal with the corrosion!
EDIT: sorry, just noticed that you've done that, so not a bad job after all.

[Bandit12]

Hi Guys thanks for all the tips and advice, really appreciated.

Here is the link for those brake discs and pads

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/27043624 ... 0&ff14=108" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thought the offer was too good to be true.

I've had the rear callipers off when I did the trailing arm bearings and yes they were twisted causing the pads to have ridges etc. I removed about 10mm of corrosion and "build up" from them and they now sit properly. Thanks for the photos re the dpf filter. The previous owner did put a brand new one on before selling it to me but that was over 2 years and 20,000 miles ago so it makes sense it is blocked up with ash. I'll put the car on ramps and follow your advice Does it come off easily by itself or do I need to unbolt the whole exhaust from the car first?

[dnsey]

The DPF shouldn't be clogged after 20k miles.
You are using a low SAPS oil?
How much fluid is left in the Eolys tank?
If it's reasonably full, I'd suggest a Lexia session to check fuel cap triggering, dosing pump etc.

[SaabC5]

A lot of short trips/town driving will block the DPF in 6 months and less than 6k miles, only sure way to keep it clear is regular motorway jaunts. The DPF can be taken off with exhaust still in situ, you just need to undo one clamp each side and a couple of pipe unions you can see coming out of the left hand side. Its worth getting a couple of new clamps cos they have a habit of the bolt shearing off because of the contant heating/cooling cycles it goes through. The DPF splits in half after you undo the bolts to get access to the honeycomb section.

[Bandit12]

Hi Guys

I'm using the proper Mobil oil recommended for the 2.2 and changing it every 6000 miles along with the oil filter. I have topped up the EOLYS tank with PAT1 fluid but struggled to reset the counter. The process is quite involved requiring adding 6 litres of diesel into the tank, switching engine on and off etc all in an exact order. I'm not confident I have done it properly. Car is used mainly for long trips to lincolnshire to see my son each month but also short trips to asda for weekly/monthly shop. Car standing outside house 3 weeks out of 4.

I'll get some clamps and remove the filter and see how it looks

Bandit

[Stickyfinger]

The Tank switch is a common fault..

..how are the fault codes on the dpf system ....any ?
can you fire the Eolys injector (via lexia)

[GB]

One annoying fault that keeps cropping up is the message "please clean diesel filter as soon as possible" coupled with "engine anti polution fault" and ESR faulty" Service light also pops up. It does this if I'm going up hill on motorway or going from 40 to 70 limit etc. Really any occasion where I need to put foot down. However stopping engine and switching off car for a couple of minutes and it all goes away. DPF tank is topped up and new battery fitted last year.

Probably the easiest way to try and clean the DPF is to use the Normfest DPF cleaner (Euro Car Parts sell them for £25 at the moment). Get under the car, remove the DPF pressure sensor, spray the cleaner inside the DPF, replace the sensor, start the car, take it for a long drive and watch the huge cloud of smoke behind the car. This supposedly removes the Eolys and ash buildup from the filter.

Apparently the product is new here, but there are some good reviews on various German websites (including amazon.de), and it sells for over €50 over there.

I haven't used the product myself, but a friend took his Passat TDi to a mechanic and that's what he used, DPF problem disappeared instantly (well, at least for the time being).

[daviemck2006]

One annoying fault that keeps cropping up is the message "please clean diesel filter as soon as possible" coupled with "engine anti polution fault" and ESR faulty" Service light also pops up. It does this if I'm going up hill on motorway or going from 40 to 70 limit etc. Really any occasion where I need to put foot down. However stopping engine and switching off car for a couple of minutes and it all goes away. DPF tank is topped up and new battery fitted last year.

Probably the easiest way to try and clean the DPF is to use the Normfest DPF cleaner (Euro Car Parts sell them for £25 at the moment). Get under the car, remove the DPF pressure sensor, spray the cleaner inside the DPF, replace the sensor, start the car, take it for a long drive and watch the huge cloud of smoke behind the car. This supposedly removes the Eolys and ash buildup from the filter.

Apparently the product is new here, but there are some good reviews on various German websites (including amazon.de), and it sells for over €50 over there.

I haven't used the product myself, but a friend took his Passat TDi to a mechanic and that's what he used, DPF problem disappeared instantly (well, at least for the time being).

That kind of negates the idea of having a dpf. You just chuck all the crap at once instead of a trickle. I remember my trusted mechanic cleaning the one on my first c5. Took it off, blasted it with an airline. I think it took about an hour for his workshop to clear lol. 80000 miles of emissions in 5 minutes[emoji23]

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