But devastated

[boristhespie]

My 06 exclusive c5 started cracking a few months back l. Now full on metal on metal clunking. I know its the trailing arm bearing. Took to my usual garage and they basically say that because of the likes of the anti roll bar being corroded and other corrosion. That it will cost s guge amount to replace. They think once they start pulling this apart it will disintegrate and actually undoing the anti roll bar bolt will be a nightmare. So they kinda said the car is buggered.

I have had this before with another car and I found a specialist in Fife who did it. That was 15 years ago or so.

Just wondering if anyone knows if there is a specialist near Dundee-ish.

I really love the car. The rest of it seems okay. The engine is strong etc. i hate the idea of scrapping a car.because of a crappy bearing. Especially as they are rare on the ground to get hold of.

[myglaren]

Would be a shame to scrap it for something so relatively trivial. Hope you can get someone who knows what they are doing to attend to it.

[boristhespie]

The garage did mention a whole new(for the car) rear end. And someone else suggested it to me. Had a look and yhe rear end itself isn't expensive but I am assuming that is a BIg job to swap out? Or would it be easier and this quicker.

[Jay-Bruce]

Dropping a subframe on a two post lift is relatively speaking, a piece of cake, after you remove the brake lines, and suspensions lines in the case of a hydropneumatic citroen, it's simple, do the grunt work with an ugga dugga (impact) gun, and the modern battery powered rak-rak ones are phenomenal. Then between the lift and a floor mounted telescopic transmission jack, depending on who's doing the task, it's pretty easy to lift the car off it's subframe. So, it'd probably be easier to swap out a subframe replete with arms than to faff about with putting new bearings into arms that might be chewed up depending on the failure mode of the bearing inside. However, I do think your garage could be being a bit melodramatic, for example, "anti roll bar bolt being a nightmare", crack out an angry spanner (angle grinder) and cut the c@nting bolts off... "oh but they're studs welded into the subframe" - cut off the nuts, grind off the welded "head" at the underside, chap the studs out, rebuild with nuts and bolts, rather than nuts on welded on studs, etc...

While I'm in Peterhead, so not a jazillion miles from you, I can't do anything for you just now, as I'm up to my pectorals in other projects, but rather than scrap it, I could do something, either bearings or subframe, for you in a couple of months time, but I hope you find a mechanic with a similar can do attitude before I'm clear to do it, as I'd hate for you to have to lay the car up, or worse... I might be able to find one or two guys local to me who could kill that project for you?

[boristhespie]

Thanks for the info and offer. I would do more on my cars if I could find a lift hire and tool for the day near me but the one that used to be in my town closed down. Haven't found anything in Dundee. I am not mechanically minded but on a older car I'd have less fear. But that offer for the future is appreciated.

The garage is a mates and they tend to deal with topline cars so I guess they really ain't into old rusty things. They've always been fantastic over the years. Thing is while I get the "you need to know when to cut your loses" aspect to car ownership, which I think is what is in their thinking, I don't think that way. I love my C5. I love the ride and suspension. And I hated getting rid of my previous C5s for what I thought were repairable things. I hate getting rid something which would otherwise work fine. My first C5 needed the tailing arm bearing done and eventually I found French Vehicle Services in fife, who after I had been told my a number of garages that the car was buggered, including by a specialist Citroen independent, replaced it in a morning for £287. That was 2009. So I am thinking garages just don't want tricky jobs. Issue is, I don't think they exists still and frankly they are in the middle of nowhere in Fife and as anyone knows, you don't want to be stuck in the middle of Fife, what with the banjos, the wobbly teeth and guys called Cleetus.

What my friend said was that he thinks both sides need done. So that would chime with getting a new back end. I found one for £130 quid which seems cheap as chips too. So I am kind of moving towards that. anyone know what timing this would likely take to give me an idea as to cost.