2004 Zsara 1.4 LX 'STOP' light

[thatfatbloke]

Hi,it's been a while. Just taken the above car for a test drive from a dealer for my daughter as she is about to pass her test!. All went well until 200 yards from the dealer,we had to stop at roadworks. A 'STOP' light and a beep came on and also a small red light above the temperature gauge although the temperature remained normal. Didn't get a chance to look through the handbook to investigate this but am assuming the engine got slightly hotter than normal at the roadworks and panicked. Is this anything to be concerned about?.
Also the spanner symbol is showing,does it need servicing?. It's showing 93000 miles,when is cambelt due?. It's a nice little car with a new MOT,four new tyres,alloy wheels etc' but does have the typical Citroen broken plastic bits. It has a service history,but have not as yet looked at it. May go back tomorrow. Thanks.

[old-un77]

Hi Spanner showing can be one of two things,
if the car has not been serviced for a year, or
the mileage added since the last recorded service is enough to warrant a service

cam belt on my 03 1.8 pic was recommended at around 70 k miles

Bob

[kevino]

Ive just bought a xsara 2.0 hdi 110bhp mark 2 and mine does the exact same thing ! I go about two miles from the house and the stop sign flashes and i get the red light at the temperature guage but the needle is showing low temperature. I've been told to replace the thermostat to see if that cures it? I will be doing that in the next few days if it ever stops raining. I will post results here. Let me know if you find out anything different. Cheers Kev.

[CitroJim]

Kevin, this is a common enough problem on the Xantia and is normally an indication of a problem around the Bitron sensor. A clue can be gleaned that this is the cause if the cooling fans run at top speed when the problem happens..

Basically there is a failsafe that causes the fans to run if the Bitron sensor fails by going open-circuit as a protection for the engine and aircon. Often the cause is just simply a bad connection at the sensor itself. It's worth pulling off the connector and giving it a quick spray of WD.

The Bitron sensor is the brown on in the thermostat housing...

[kevino]

Cheers Jim, am I right in saying the bitron is on the end of the top crank near the maf?

[CitroJim]

I'll let you know later. I need to look at my daughter's car to be sure...

[JohnD]

My daughter owned a 2002 Xsara Hdi90 from new and after 10 years she had the same fault. As she drove, there was a beep, temperature gauge went high then low, temperature light came on and also the stop. A change of temperature sender unit fitted in the end of the cylinder head cured it.

[kevino]

Cheers Johnd. Jim I will take a look today and see if I'm right about it being on the end of the crank as suggested by John's. Many thanks.

[kevino]

Hi guys, thankyou for all of the replies to this really annoying ongoing problem. The problem is no more! I hunted for the coolant temperature sensor and found it located under the MAF, after removing the MAF and any other obstacles in the way I found the sensor and unplugged it squirted it with wd40 but the problem still persisted so in went off to eurocar parts and bought a new sensor. 20 minutes later new sensor fitted and the car not only has stopped displaying the red temperature light and telling me the coolant temperature is too high but also I can now say that my xsara runs just shy of 70 degrees centigrade because before the temperature display needle was flat lining.

Many thanks to everybody who has helped in resolving this problem.

[kevino]

Eurocarparts sensor price including vat was £15.90