MikeT's C5r 1.6 hdi Estate

[MikeT]

Mike, check your earths, especially your battery to bodyshell earth.

My 207 used to have an unhealthy appetite for bulbs but since I found the bad bodyshell earth connection I've lost no bulbs since...

Thanks Jim, I'll try that first then. I know cheap bulbs are often blamed but LED's are renowned for their longevity - except when paired with a C5 apparently.

[GiveMeABreak]

In the meantime, I re-ran lexia tests and the following faults are still showing;

Radio - Permanent fault auxiliary input no1 (F905)

Is it possible you have inadvertently changed any settings (from when you were changing the audio laws, etc.

Passenger Door Module - Door mirror heating output (FC0E)

Obviously the passenger heated wing mirror - question is have you tested it and does it demist? If not, has the mirror glass been replaced with a non-heated one - or have the wires corroded?

Injection - Permanent fault pre-heating relay circuit. Relay supplied and plugs never supplied (P1351)

This is a common fault - and even shows still on the X7 and can be generally ignored as long as there are no other service warnings.

Engine Relay unit - ECU not recognised, check your choice.

What are you using Lexia or Diagbox and what versions?

Suspension - Permanent fault, no communciation with steering wheel angle sensor. Incorrect value recieved.

This would indicate that the calibration needs to be undertaken - instructions should be available by going into the Suspension ECU from the Global Test and finding the relevant section - but you need a bit of space to do it as I understand it

It might be because people won't see this unless they choose to visit members' blogs Mike - some may only be subscribed to the Main technical forums - so if you have issues, probably best to post there too.

[MikeT]

That's quite an old post of mine Marc and some no longer relevant.
The aux audo input fault was "fixed" by setting it as disabled or whatever the 'not used' option was... because nothing is connected to it. Am thinking of uninstalling the Hands-Free Kit for the same reason.
The heated mirror fault I can live with. I need to replace the exterior temp sensor some day and will check to see if the mirror's got a heating element wiring problem or been replaced without a heating element.
Ditto for the Pre-heating relay - the car starts in all weathers so happy to ignore it.
Engine Relay Unit - I don't get the option to use Diagbox on my car, so Lexia it is.
Suspension - steering wheel angle sensor. I've done the re-calibration a few times but have since learnt this fault (which rarely shows) will clear itself over time, presumably it's self-calibrating every time the car is started and driven?
To muddy the waters, I read one Service Document that states the sensor is only fitted to Hydractive 3+ vehicles, not Hydractive 3 like mine. confused dot com.

[GiveMeABreak]

Ok, I was just catching up on new posts and saw your previous post.

Regards the Steering Wheel Angle Sensor - that's not actually the case - my MK II Exclusive had one and that was Hydractive 3, not 3+.
I had to have it calibrated after I had replaced the steering wheel as I had mucked up the alignment and then had ABS / ESP / ASR issues until I had it recalibrated. It is usually fitted on cars with the ESP systems on Mark IIs for sure as it gets input from the steering wheel angle sensor to operate.

[MikeT]

Mike, check your earths, especially your battery to bodyshell earth.

My 207 used to have an unhealthy appetite for bulbs but since I found the bad bodyshell earth connection I've lost no bulbs since...

Having struggled and almost failed to replace the headlight bulb I wasn't too keen on doing much more but I did make the following checks as they were relatively easy.

ENGINE OFF: BATTERY 12.5V
Resistance between OS inner wing earth point and battery -ve = 0.5 ohms
HL plug -ve to batt -ve also reads 0.5 ohms
With headlight on (loaded) voltage drop across H/L plug -ve to battery -ve = 112mV

I'm not sure what's acceptable but those readings don't seem excessive to me?

[CitroJim]

Half an ohm, given the current likely to flow, is a lot Mike...

I'd try to reduce it if you can...

Also, is your meter correctly zeroing? It's easy for a meter to read a few tenths of an ohm if not and therefore mislead you a little.

[MikeT]

Ok, I was just catching up on new posts and saw your previous post.

Regards the Steering Wheel Angle Sensor - that's not actually the case - my MK II Exclusive had one and that was Hydractive 3, not 3+.
I had to have it calibrated after I had replaced the steering wheel as I had mucked up the alignment and then had ABS / ESP / ASR issues until I had it recalibrated. It is usually fitted on cars with the ESP systems on Mark IIs for sure as it gets input from the steering wheel angle sensor to operate.

Yes, I've learnt some official documents can be erroneous. I've noted when I do get the rare steering angle fault, it's when I perform a diagnostic without driving the car first and like I said, I've since found it will clear itself after a drive as I refuse to keep recalibrating it now.

[GiveMeABreak]

Goodo Mike, glad you're on top of it!

[MikeT]

Half an ohm, given the current likely to flow, is a lot Mike...

I'd try to reduce it if you can...

Also, is your meter correctly zeroing? It's easy for a meter to read a few tenths of an ohm if not and therefore mislead you a little.

Ah ok! Didn't expect that given the voltage drop reading. I noticed the bolt and it's two connectors were painted externally. Will be interesting to see the contact surfaces and give them a good clean.
It's a cheap DMM (old faithful) without auto-ranging and always shows zero first. I have another I could consult for a second opinion.

[MikeT]

Arrrgh, in my haste I forgot to check - the replacement bulbs I bought from ECP were basic Lucas H7's and don't have UV filter.

Trawling the webs on 'flickering led sidelights', many lay the blame on the canbus though I have my doubts that's the case with my car. LED's are renowned for their longevity and I fitted them in the hope I'd never have to change them again. I may try a more expensive LED pair (as the problem obviously lies with the led circuitry and not the led's themselves) otherwise it'll be back to OE filaments.

As for my testing the earth point and Jim bringing up the question of zeroing, I hadn't realised that my meter leads themselves (touching probes together) are reading 0.3ohm so the resistance of the earth point I tested is actually 0.2ohm? Is that more acceptable?

[Zelandeth]

I wouldn't bother trying to measure resistance here - your basic multimeter isn't going to have sufficient resolution to really give a useful reading here unless something is well wrong.

What's likely to give a more useful reading would be to measure voltage between the ground point on the accessory in question and the battery negative terminal. This ideally should be as near as zero as possible. Your meter is much more likely to be able to measure this than tiny impedance values. Better quality meters will usually have a button to compensate for the test leads (usually labelled "rel" or with the Greek letter delta), but that's not something you expect on a cheap meter.

It's also worth noting that wires will increase their impedance when they get hot - so it's possible that a dodgy ground may test fine when cold - and only show up when the full circuit load is flowing - which would show up testing voltage as mentioned above.

[GiveMeABreak]

You just need to get a couple of sidelights with built in load resistors. Ignore the CANBUS thing - they are just using that term to mean the 'Bulb Out' warning triggered by insufficient load - but the C5 doesn't use this system anyway. There are plenty to choose from that work fine - I take it you're looking for the H6W bulbs for the sidelights:
Something like these £6 for 2:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/H6W-Lamps-DRL ... SwGwlZ51vL
I've used similar on my MK II and they look really nice.

[MikeT]

There are plenty to choose from that work fine - I take it you're looking for the H6W bulbs for the sidelights:
Something like these £6 for 2:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/H6W-Lamps-DRL ... SwGwlZ51vL
I've used similar on my MK II and they look really nice.

I'll give those a go, thanks Marc. Just wasn't sure if the extra resistor pack was needed, as you say I don't have canbus bulb-out monitoring so didn't think it was revelant. As long they're offset pins, they should fit? Haynes says they are "5 capless or bayonet".

[MikeT]

What's likely to give a more useful reading would be to measure voltage between the ground point on the accessory in question and the battery negative terminal. This ideally should be as near as zero as possible.

I did this test and got a reading of 112mV. which I believe is maybe marginal if not ok?

[GiveMeABreak]

There are plenty to choose from that work fine - I take it you're looking for the H6W bulbs for the sidelights:
Something like these £6 for 2:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/H6W-Lamps-DRL ... SwGwlZ51vL
I've used similar on my MK II and they look really nice.

I'll give those a go, thanks Marc. Just wasn't sure if the extra resistor pack was needed, as you say I don't have canbus bulb-out monitoring so didn't think it was revelant. As long they're offset pins, they should fit? Haynes says they are "5 capless or bayonet".

The H6W have offset pins Mike and should be fine. Haynes in common with Halfrauds often are completely wrong on bulbs. I recently got Halfords to update their database for the C5, so a result at last as it was really pi**ing me off!