James’s C6 Blog

Tell us your ongoing tales and experiences with your French car here. Post pictures of your car here as well.
jamescarruthers
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James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by jamescarruthers »

I have one of the few C6 petrols and it has been my main car for some time, as was the last one. This one seems to be more of an ungrateful bastard than the last which has at least double the miles of this one and is merrily tootling round Wales with its new owner.

I was driving home from work on low levels of LPG and decided to switch to petrol just before the one big hill as its not mechanically sympathetic for it to do an automatic switch over when you boot it up the hill. Background information: that the car is too clever for its own good and the petrol gauge counts injection pulses after measuring the float sensor at fill up time-- absolutely stupid, but that's PAS for you. As a result of this, the petrol gauge often is much lower than it says but I keep a decent amount in and throw in some more to reset it now and again.

What happened this time is that I must have accidentally ran the tank nearly dry as when I put my foot down to go up the hill it basically cut out on petrol and threw up a gear box fault. Manually switching it back to LPG had the engine working fine but the gearbox was still in some sort of limp mode, only reaching 3rd gear.

I drove home on gas and in 3rd gear (V6 does sound nice).

Usually it needs to start on petrol first and switches itself over to LPG once warmed up-- a usually seamless automatic transition. I suspect I have cooked the petrol pump by running it dry for a while at a minimum. The gearbox may not have liked having the engine cut out at full throttle and may be fine when restarted or it may have utterly s**t itself (I'd say 50/50: although the fluid was reported as very good condition when it was last changed in January at its service, it did feel a bit s**t when I ragged it recently.

It wont start on petrol and I can't get the emergency start on LPG feature to work so it is stuck in the village hall car park where it will fast outstay its welcome. I bought this from Chevronics for £4000, sold-as-seen, with no MOT and cracked windows and have spent thousands on it since over the last year or two. Anything BL Autos ("the" specialists on these cars) have said it needs, it has had. I am sick to the back teeth of spending money on it and wonder if anyone might want to take on the batton and run with this one as I'm out.

MOT is until March 2024. Mileage is about 110,000
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1987 Volvo 480 ES
2006 Citroen C6 3.0 petrol Exclusive
Harlequin
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by Harlequin »

3rd gear is the `im poorly but lets get you home mode` , which is more than my 6 speed auto did when it shat itself , that stuck in 5th and stayed there , when the valve block (the valve broke up, i have an idea on how it failed, but at 30 mph and slowing down, meh) disintegrated swarf in the fluid etc etc

The big question - how much would you want?
Simon
jamescarruthers
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by jamescarruthers »

Hey Simon. I had severely lost my Citroen mojo when I wrote the first message. I installed a new fuel pump today and all is well with the car… and most importantly the gearbox!

I’ve given it a serious clean inside and will do the outside tomorrow. I feel back in love with it again and TBH it was my fault that the petrol pump burnt itself it out as I’d ran it so low while running on LPG. I think there is an emulator you can install that makes the car display the right fuel level… this is my next task.
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https://youtube.com/shorts/Unn7MzDxzGg?feature=share
1987 Volvo 480 ES
2006 Citroen C6 3.0 petrol Exclusive
Harlequin
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by Harlequin »

Good! I have a love of the petrol V6 , Xantia has one, my blue C5 facelift has one. Just something about the engine (and yes i know economy isnt one of them). Would love a 2010 C5 V6 , the last of the big engine citroens , sadly it would be a Japan import. or ofc, a C6 :P
Simon
jamescarruthers
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by jamescarruthers »

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After all the major drama, the C6 is now living its best life again and has nicely propelled me to work today. Quite in love with it again! My wife described the the C6 and I as being in an abusive relationship where I always think it didn't mean to break and it wont happen again!
1987 Volvo 480 ES
2006 Citroen C6 3.0 petrol Exclusive
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myglaren
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by myglaren »

Probably a bit late in the day for you but Mr Upndown has a YouTube series on a C6
jamescarruthers
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by jamescarruthers »

myglaren wrote: 20 May 2023, 14:00 Probably a bit late in the day for you but Mr Upndown has a YouTube series on a C6
Ah yes I’ve seen a bit of those. A lot seems to be diesel woes and things I have never suffered after two petrol C6s used as daily cars. I love his videos on Clement the DS but find the C6 doom and gloom not really for me— my own can generate that sometimes!
1987 Volvo 480 ES
2006 Citroen C6 3.0 petrol Exclusive
Jay-Bruce
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by Jay-Bruce »

Glad you got this sorted :-)
Rhothgar
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by Rhothgar »

Are you a pilot?

If so, did you used to live in Notts as a mate of mine had one in his garage some time ago now and the owner was a pilot?

Perhaps the ride is similar to flying an aircraft and that's the draw...
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GiveMeABreak
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by GiveMeABreak »

James - I've moved this thread into the Blogs and Galleries Forum and renamed it as your C6 seems to have been reincarnated. It may have been archived if left where it was as those threads get removed after a certain amount of time and it is getting more comments. Please let me know if you want a different title - but thought this is the best place if there are going to be ongoing tales or adventures!. :wink:
Please Don't PM Me For Technical Help

Marc
jamescarruthers
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by jamescarruthers »

Rhothgar wrote: 14 Jul 2023, 11:32 Are you a pilot?

If so, did you used to live in Notts as a mate of mine had one in his garage some time ago now and the owner was a pilot?

Perhaps the ride is similar to flying an aircraft and that's the draw...
Hello, no, that was not me. I am an aircraft engineer and I live in Cambridgeshire. I did used to be a flight engineer, so did cruise around in the C6 occasionally in my flight uniform, which was basically the same with slightly different stripes on the arms-- in fact I sold my last C6 dressed like, from the private terminal this after getting off a flight from Saudi Arabia. The picture above is at Farnborough as I had to pop in to fix an aircraft and took my own car as it was a simple job and I didn't want to waste time in the works van.

The ride on the C6 is okay, not as good as earlier Citroens I'd say.
1987 Volvo 480 ES
2006 Citroen C6 3.0 petrol Exclusive
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myglaren
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by myglaren »

jamescarruthers wrote: 27 Jul 2023, 07:28 The ride on the C6 is okay, not as good as earlier Citroens I'd say.
Citroen 'fixed' them with a software update. Trainman had one that was incredible and he refused to allow them to do the update to it. Several of my grandkids had a ride in it at Cosworth and badgered their dad to get one for months after.
Rhothgar
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by Rhothgar »

jamescarruthers wrote: 27 Jul 2023, 07:28 The ride on the C6 is okay, not as good as earlier Citroens I'd say.
Interesting. Birds of a feather and all that.

Shame about the ride quality.

They've got worse over the years. I really like the BX suspension. I think that was probably considered hard compared to a DS...
jamescarruthers
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by jamescarruthers »

myglaren wrote: 27 Jul 2023, 09:22
jamescarruthers wrote: 27 Jul 2023, 07:28 The ride on the C6 is okay, not as good as earlier Citroens I'd say.
Citroen 'fixed' them with a software update. Trainman had one that was incredible and he refused to allow them to do the update to it. Several of my grandkids had a ride in it at Cosworth and badgered their dad to get one for months after.
I thought it was generally considered that the "fix" just stopped some unpleasent pitching for rear seat passengers but made the car in general a bit harder? I think the update removed some of the AMVAR settings on the rear but made it generally worse. You can relieve the pitching by selecting "Sports" mode and not permanantly loose those AMVAR positions for day-to-day driving.
1987 Volvo 480 ES
2006 Citroen C6 3.0 petrol Exclusive
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myglaren
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Re: James’s C6 Blog

Unread post by myglaren »

Rhothgar wrote: 27 Jul 2023, 09:28
jamescarruthers wrote: 27 Jul 2023, 07:28 The ride on the C6 is okay, not as good as earlier Citroens I'd say.
Interesting. Birds of a feather and all that.

Shame about the ride quality.

They've got worse over the years. I really like the BX suspension. I think that was probably considered hard compared to a DS...
Agreed, the BX was not as good as the GS, the Xantia not as good as the BX and the C5s not as good as the Xantia.
I won't say 'worse than' but still.
And Trainman's C6 was the best of them all.
Citrenmad's dad's XM was rather wonderful too.