Avoid this C5!!!

[Dommo]

Hello all

I recently bought the following C5 on eBay, and went to collect it today - wish I'd never bothered!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262573551647

To start with the battery was flat, so he had to jump start it which did fix the power steering fault, the other fault mentioned I assumed was EGR related.

Sure enough, I noticed straight away that there were loads of parts missing under the bonnet:
The plastic engine cover
The air pipe from the air box to the turbo - so the air going into the engine was completely unfiltered
And the complete EGR system:
Meaning that the heater matrix hoses were disconnected (as they cool the EGR system down), which meant there was ZERO coolant in the engine - god knows how long there has been no coolant in the car - he says he's driven it in the advert!! This meant that hot exhaust gasses were literally pouring out into the engine bay. The hot EGR pipe that goes into the inlet manifold was missing, leaving a gaping hole. There was also a breather hose going to nowhere (see the breather in the picture below situated just underneath the number 9:



Absolutely rediculous - and there is no way anyone even slightly interested in cars would miss all that! And the scary thing was there was no check engine light on the dash, how I don't know??

Sure enough I told him this car was not as advertised and that I wouldn't be paying for it - shame I had spent £85 hiring a trailer to get it home.

Hopefully if the other person who was bidding against me see's this.

[GiveMeABreak]

Really sorry reading this - looked a very nice car from the pics - but as we know can be deceptive. I had the same 55 plate model in black - full leather, Xenons and all the kit and loved it. I have only ever bought a car without seeing it from Paul Johnson (used to be the XM Centre in Oxford) where I bought 2 of my XMs and the aforementioned C5 - and my current C5 from a Citroen Dealer in Yorkshire. I just wouldnt trust buying a car on ebay unless I was buying a car for parts - without seeing it. When you hear of people having their DPFs removed, EGRs blanked and gawd knows what else - it's just too risky. I'm really glad you didn't actually end up paying for it - you just don't know what else has been crippled on it.

I'd put the £85 down to experience - but could of been worse - and think it's great that you've posted this to forewarn other members in case it ends up back on ebay!

[Paul-R]

The clue was surely in the heading to the advert. A Citroen! Don't trust anyone who can't spell the car properly.

(I hope the deliberate misspelling shows up. There was a forum bit of trickery a few years back which automatically corrected Citroen and Citron and, IIRC, even put the diaeresis over the e. Et voila! Citroën.)

[myglaren]

We had to remove the autocorrect as it messed up weblinks where the diaeresis isn't allowed.

[Peter.N.]

I have bought a number of cars on ebay but only one without seeing it and fortunately it was a good un. You can get some very good deals if you are prepared to travel, my last two 406 Hdi estates are a case in point (or two cases).

The first one I bought last year from a garage south of Bristol, it was a trade in that they obviously didn't want to bother with as they had a showroom full of 4x4s. It was tidy all round except for the driver seat which wasn't untidy but didn't match. It had 11 months MOT, a new clutch and DMF and it had just had an oil change, and the aircon works! Oh, and half a tank of diesel.

I paid £400 for it and got a set of matching electric seats also from ebay for £50.00, it a smart reliable car now.

My most recent one was an almost identical car in the same colour that I bought in Cornwall only for £350 this time, the only thing I have found wrong with it is the rear wiper which is proving a pain to fix, otherwise it drives fine, It feels as though it also has a new clutch and it has the later gearbox, changes a smooth as silk.

I must admit I did quite a few miles trying to find decent ones but all within the west country so not to far.

Peter

[Gibbo2286]

Personally I think the advert was as good as you should expect and at the end price even with all its faults the car was value for money.

I'd bet a dismantler would pay at least that buying blind from the insurance disposals.

Too far away from me though.

[GiveMeABreak]

It would be good value for parts - as it looks quite tidy and possibly for a project to rectify - if you had the time and inclination.

[chinkostu]

Begs the question of who's messed with it beforehand for it to have that much missing. Unfortunately it is all written in the listing!

[ekjdm14]

Worth the money IMO to just buy it on the assumption that the engine's knackered in it's entirety and sort out a decent S/H unit from a breakers... That said, i'd have been wary in the first place of buying a car sight unseen with unconfirmed faults and the disclaimer of "i'm no mechanic" from a seller called "buyyouroldvehicle"

Also, he makes no mention of having driven the car. In fact he recommends NOT attempting to drive it, and offers transport... Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'd suggest it was perhaps a bit of a hasty bid on your part and a case of if something looks too good to be true (fully loaded, diesel, auto, 55 plate C5, for just £750) it most likely is.

Just a pity for you that you lost out on the trailer hire, in my opinion the car was a bargain if the rest of it is clean as it looks and it's only the engine at fault.

[Richard_C]

The clue was surely in the heading to the advert. A Citroen! Don't trust anyone who can't spell the car properly.

Or, for that matter, someone who can't spell beige .....

Added irony at the end, when the seller says how accurate their descriptions are ....

[Gibbo2286]

Looking at the seller's feedback he seems like a genuine enough guy.

[RichardW]

Now relisted with a slightly amended description - turns out the missing bits from under the bonnet are in the boot!

[Gibbo2286]

I wonder if some DIYer tried to blank off the EGR and couldn't put it back together.

[Dommo]

I ought to clarify here chaps, my problem wasn't the price, I know it was a good price - however it's only a good price for a car with all its engine and cooling system actually intact. My problem was the fact it wasn't as described.

In the advert he did say that it drives well, but is slow:
"but when you drive it there is a lack of power so I'm told it could be a turbo gasket of some description"
So that tells me he has driven it, and I get the feeling based on what his new advert says that he had never properly looked at the car, in the boot or under the bonnet.

As soon as I noticed no coolant in the car that set off proper alarm bells for me - how long has it not had coolant for, how far has it driven with no coolant - he told me he'd driven it a few miles to test the gearbox and it was all good apart from being slow. So I never really bothered inspecting the rest of the car - hence never seening all the parts in the boot. Had I noticed them there I would have made him another lower offer - not sure if he would have taken it though.

Gibbo I think that is exactly what happened, I was fully expecting it to have a stuck EGR valve and perhaps a leak on the pipe up to the inlet manifold, I was NOT expecting all these parts to be missing though!

[Dommo]

Also based on the picture on his new advert, there is still the EGR heat exchanger missing, so presumably this was one of it's faults which started the strip down process. To reiterate to everyone, this is like selling a car with a coolant hose completely missing.

ekjdm - In the original advert he does say he has driven it, and that he didn't recommend driving it. But he said (to me) that it was because of the PAS fault, not the engine issue. In the new advert he definitely says NOT to drive it, so there's just a subtle change but he didn't make it clear that engine parts were missing in the original ad.