MikeT's C5r 1.6 hdi Estate

[myglaren]

The lens came off mine easily enough but I spent ages trying to fit the bulb before realising that the reflector bends back to give finger room

[CitroJim]

No prizes for guessing where these fantastically high quality images came from...

From the firm who used to print their publications on recycled bogroll

Good to see their latest publications are now printed on better quality paper but have lost their hard covers

Our friends in Sparkford sure like to give with one hand and take with the other...

[MikeT]

Lens came off without breakage, thankfully. I levered from both sides simultaneously as there's cutouts at each end and the "clips" are two front and two rear. I did wonder if the reflector was meant to pop out too until I found the secret flap provision you mentioned, Steve. Thought I'd snapped something first!

I'm going to order a set of ice-white led's for now and see if they offer better illumination.

[MikeT]

Out of concern my car was eating headlights/sidelights I turned off auto-lighting but soon re-activated as I just kept forgetting to turn them on and off and the audible nag works too well on me! Really liking the look, thanks Marc!

Tried signalling a chelsea tractor tonight who departed the sainsby's car park with zero rear illumination. No sign of acknowledgement up to the exit, tried flashing again, completely lit up her interior but no response.
Followed round mini roundabout tried again, nothing.
After next roundabout, multiple flashes from various distances/angles, still nothing up to the next roundabout.

As I undertook her round the dual lane roundabout I glanced across and tooted but alas our eyes never met and she faded out of sight into the darkness.
What I did notice was there was some front illumination though??

[Hell Razor5543]

Very bright DRLs then. I think that these should have their output reduced.

[bobins]

Tried signalling a chelsea tractor tonight who departed the sainsby's car park with zero rear illumination. No sign of acknowledgement up to the exit, tried flashing again, completely lit up her interior but no response.
Followed round mini roundabout tried again, nothing.
After next roundabout, multiple flashes from various distances/angles, still nothing up to the next roundabout.

The age-old problem that affects too many motorists - 'Car in gear, brain in neutral'

[GiveMeABreak]

Very bright DRLs then. I think that these should have their output reduced.

Mike has sidelights, no DRLs. But the Landrover / Range Rover probably was running on DRLs. They pay £45 k plus for one and then don’t bother using the technology like the auto lights!

I watched someone in a car park reversing into the car next to me a while ago. Exactly the same, full front rear sensors with audio visual display and obviously didn’t have the bloody thing switched on. Luckily I left a note on the guys car with the reg number of the offender who was oblivious and drove off after half lifting the car in the air!

[MikeT]

... they do vary considerably in length. The ones here are 15mm in length, by 5mm wide and 1mm thick.
LED-Bulb.png
Here's the link to the above which I used for mine Mike:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CAR-SIDELIGH ... cZ_sl0x7YA

Damn. The led section is 15mm long (stated as "overall length") but the overal length is in fact twice that making it ~8mm longer than the capless bulb and proving rather difficult to fit into the map sockets. I think the seller needs to make that distinction less ambiguous.

I'm going to try filing the terminal end down as that part is also a good few mm longer than a standard bulb.

[Gibbo2286]

Tried signalling a chelsea tractor tonight who departed the sainsby's car park with zero rear illumination. No sign of acknowledgement up to the exit, tried flashing again, completely lit up her interior but no response.
Followed round mini roundabout tried again, nothing.
After next roundabout, multiple flashes from various distances/angles, still nothing up to the next roundabout.

The age-old problem that affects too many motorists - 'Car in gear, brain in neutral'

I think it's more a case of good street lighting, if it's like daylight out there it's easy to forget to put the car lights on.

[Hell Razor5543]

I have a simple fix for overbright DRLs (well, drivers who don't turn on their normal lights at night because the DRLs are so bright they can see the road). Have a dashboard that is not lit up when the lights are off. That way, as it gets dark, drivers HAVE to turn on their normal lights when it becomes difficult to read the speedo, etc..

[myglaren]

My BX was guilty of that - dash lights came on with engine start. Got caught out a couple of times in brightly lit supermarket car parks.

[MikeT]

Managed to fit led's to the front overhead light set and got lucky with the polarity first time on all three.
Went to put something in the car at dusk and the difference is very noticeable (w/ courtesy light only).
As it dims, there is a bit of flicker but only at the dying moments so not an issue.
Hopefully they will run a lot cooler than the originals.

The rest will go in the rear overhead light set, the glovebox and the two boot lights leaving one spare which I'll try in the license plate light as a comparison.

[GiveMeABreak]

I also put them in the number plate light Mike - gave me a chance to clear all the crud out from the unit too and clean it up with some water dispersant and a health dose of silicone spray.

I now have to possible reconsider my reversing lights I think. I have had somebody remark that one was not working - but later it was fine when checking. These are the H21W offsets that I replaced with an LED. However, I think these particular LEDs are not cutting the mustard - they are SMD with no Cree chips. The choice for this type of fitment is also lacking.

Anyway I was checking with Diagbox some settings the other day and went to run the global test - lo and behold some BSI errors started appearing - when I checked these they are the right and left reversing lights faults - short circuiting or some other fault - and of course it was recoding these over and over. So I think I am going to have to source a MUCH brighter bulb that has a higher power requirement to see if these will stop the errors - I really don't want to go down the road of fitting load resistors to these - besides, there isn't a lot of room in the cluster for what's there as it is! I mean 21W for these reversing lights that show bu**er all when reversing using the stock bulbs! i doubt I'll get anything near that in an H21W - I think 3 x 5W XBD crees is the best I've seen so far - with the claimed equivalent of 80W - yeh, right

[MikeT]

I might have found an easy solution to my battery concern. Car been left for several days with a few unlock/relock visits including the required suspension motor energising so it was no real surprise when I got in today and read a lowly 11.88v. Didn't bother waiting to see what it might recover to and it started as normal.

Oh, btw, interior led's work really well.

Anyway, I have a selection of R.C. LiPo packs that power my multicopters and believe I could use one as an emergency starter power pack? At just 1/2kilo and small enough to slip in my top pocket, the biggest capacity I have is a 4S 16.8v 5000mAh 20C-30C. I've seen people start their vehicles on smaller packs and I have to two of these should one not be enough. Add to that the LiPo charger itself works off a 10-18vDC input so once started, the car can recharge the LiPo while driving.

[Zelandeth]

Sounds plausible, that's essentially what's in those tiny jump start packs that seem to be becoming popular these days.