C4lights MOT

[Beachcomber50]

I took my 2015 C4 for it’s MOT at a local garage in August and they failed it on the offside ‘position’ light not working. Last year, the same garage passed it for the same. They wouldn’t admit that but told me they couldn’t repair it and I would have to take it to the Citroen garage to fix it and charged me £54.95 for the fail. The car was off the road for 4 weeks until I could get it booked in at dealer which was a couple of days ago when it passed on the same issue. They told me it’s a ‘day running light’ and as car is pre-2018 is exempt. I went back to the local garage who told me the dealership is breaking the law! Who is correct? It has cost me a lot of time and money!

[GiveMeABreak]

DRLs came into law for Europe (and therefore the UK at the time) in February 2011. So any new model launched after this date would have to have them fitted.

In practice though, this means that any new model launched after this date, and many launched before, will be fitted with DRL. However, existing models on sale before this date without DRL fitted can continue to be sold and used indefinitely.

My 2009 C5 X7 had DRLs fitted but not active - so I got them activated, but it was never a requirement for the year - I just wanted them working for safety reasons.

So your 2015 C4 would already have them fitted, so they will either be halogen (P21 /5W XL) or will have an LED strip next to the indicators - and the LEDs are generally dealer replacements.

[RichardW]

It's a bit complicated... DRLs are only testable on cars registered after 1st March 2018, but all cars must have position markers (side lights), and DRLS may be used as position markers, in which case they are testable (as position markers) on cars before 01/03/18. So in your case, if there are no separate side lights, then the DRLs need to work; if there are separate side lamps, then they don't! MOT regs here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mot-inspect ... tion-4-2-1 This was a problem on later model Mk1 C4 Picasso, as there were bulbs fitted in the side lamp positions at the top of the headlights, but they were not connected, and instead relied upon the LED DRLs for sidelamp function - plenty were wrongly failed for the bulbs not working - even though there was no wire to it!!