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Got a 05 Citreon C5 2.0 diesel estate 18 months ago. £1k and in brilliant condition. FSH, 2 owners and the last one cried when I took it away almost 2 years ago. He had only done 600 miles in his last year. Kept it serviced and put 2 new tyres last week. Cheap, comfortable huge load carrying Galic nonsense that performed faultlessly for 32k economical miles in my ownership. 105k miles overall. Until yesterday.
Driving to pick up a new bike it seemed a little sluggish and didn't want to accelerate much and 60 was as much as it wanted to do on the motorway. No warning lights but indicates that DPF additive is low. Had this showing for about a week and was going to top up at next service/MOT which is due in August but not doing many miles at the moment obviously so thought I'd wait till then. The trip was 45 miles on pretty much motorway/dual carriageway stuff. 5 miles to go slows down and great cloud of smoke but no rattling or screeching. Smoke dies away and restarts mile later so pull over into lay-by.
Recovery man tows me to safe place and does FA else. Will restart but plenty of smoke. When I take top pipe off its got a lot of oil in it and smoke emerges from air filter intake. I thought DPF trying to regen initially but suspect its the turbo now. Either way thats quite big dosh but basically this has been an ultra good condition and very useful car.
Is it worth putting £750/£1k into or walk away with good memories and gamble something elsewhere. I in the lucky position to be able to afford to do either but the Citroen is the ctype of car I need for the next 12 months with house building bike carrying duties coming up.
Opinions?
Keep it.
I'd rather pay to fix one problem I know about rather than potentially buy a hundred I don't know about.
If it cost £1k for 18 months that's only £55/month. Pretty cheap..
If you're happy with the car and it's not showing signs of any major niggles I'd be tempted to get it done.
Sometimes it's better the devil you know.
Nothing to say that a newer £2k car won't blow up in a similar manner somewhere down the road.
I'm very much of the opinion you get a good feel for a car - do you feel good about this car? If so at least get it looked at. 105k isn't a lot of miles for a diesel and it may be a simple fix.
Keep it.
I’d rather pay to fix one problem I know about rather than potentially buy a hundred I don’t know about.
This is how I run my car, I don't consider what I could buy the same for I just decide if paying what it costs to keep running seems the best option.
I wish people would treat emissions additive alot more like oil and not like screen wash.
It's not optional.
I'd get someone who knows what they are looking at to have a look.
From your description nothing shouts turbo.
It does very much shout restricted breathing though
Agree with muffin on this.
New turbo, keep car.
Made a similar choice with my 2003 CRV recently when the timing chain tensioner went - paid the £1k bill and kept the car.
105k isn’t a lot of miles for a diesel
This. Keep it IMO!
I had the big ugly brother of your car (a 2002 Mondeo Estate, diesel 2.0). At around 100K it needed £1000 of work on the clutch. It then ran very happily to 175K with very few issues whatsoever.
Have you checked the oil level (assume it has a dipstick? Don't know too much about that era 2.0 engine)
Is there anything other than a lack of power to suggest a problem with the Turbo? In the absence of any other symptom I'd go with the one warning light you do have rather than guessing at expensive faults!
That does sound much more like it's being choked and that this sort of penny pinching "Had this showing for about a week and was going to top up at next service/MOT which is due in August" has just come to bite you in the ass! If it's begin restricted by carbon build up then the turbo won't spool up as it's not seeing enough airflow/pressure drop through the manifold.
How mechanical are you? Could you remove the DPF and clean it yourself?
The problem is if you block it to the point where the engine can't breathe then it can't get hot, if it can't get hot the carbon stops burning off and the process probably spiraled from "it'll be fine for a while" to "completely blocked" very quickly.
Could easily be a leak in the turbo pipe, which would be an easy fix. When turbos fail they tend to go bang rattle rattle rattle and you get instant smoke.
People always blame the DPF for a host of issues, but the DPF is just a filter, it doesn't go wrong. It can get blocked if either the regen isn't working for some reason or if there is some other thing wrong that is causing excess smoke. Replacing the DPF without fixing the original problem is just going to block another DPF. It's like blaming the tyres for wearing their edges and replacing them when your tracking is out.
Also, bangernomics isn't buying old cars for £1k. Specifically it means buying extremely cheap cars e.g. £200 knowing that you will scrap it and buy another one if it develops a fault.
Fix it. It sounds like it's gone wrong through user error than a breakage.
A Adblue whilst a pain is essential.
Sounds to me like the dpf is clogged most dervs have oily/carbony intake tracts due to egr systems.
Do you have any error codes?
Youd do well to bollocks a 2.0 hdi they're bullet proof.
My mates got a few engines and parts for these as he breaks cars but he never sells an hdi engine as they dont fail. I had one on 700k
C5 owner here (top pipe) are we talking intercooler pipe, Turbo not necessarily away but the way I understand it if the DPF starts to block it increases crankcase pressure and this can lead to oil mist finding its way to turbo impeller however if you ignore the DPF issue it can blow the engine so sort the DPF clean out oil and add additive and monitor for oil build up afterwards. The 2.0 hdi engine can do considerably more than 105k miles
What colour was the smoke?
People always blame the DPF for a host of issues, but the DPF is just a filter, it doesn’t go wrong. It can get blocked if either the regen isn’t working for some reason or if there is some other thing wrong that is causing excess smoke. Replacing the DPF without fixing the original problem is just going to block another DPF. It’s like blaming the tyres for wearing their edges and replacing them when your tracking is out.
this isnt a VW. your wrong.
No adblue + keep driving = full DPF, it wont Regen.
More modern version of the engine will limp mode if no adblue older ones will limp when damage is done.
+1 get it fixed
It doesn't matter what you paid for it, that's a sunk cost fallacy. All that matters is what it would be worth as scrap (i.e. its current value), what it would cost to fix, and what it would be worth afterwards. I'm inclined to repair if it's otherwise in reasonable condition, but you just need to do some basic arithmetic and go with the answer to that.
I was only putting off the DPF additive for a couple of hundred miles so it wasn't a case of pressing on regardless. I'm good at checking fluids/servicing etc so this has come as a suprise. The smoke was grey/brown/yellow after an initial darker almost black cloud but there was plenty of it. Tend to agree that repair is the way forward. I'll see what a proper investigation reveals. It has been a good car and I've serviced as required. Nothing else has been giving me concern. Mind you I have seen and Alfa down the road which has been reminding me of a 159 I used to have. Every trip in that was an adventure; a wonderful adventure.
this isnt a VW. your wrong.
I don't think I am? DPFs get blocked with soot when something else is wrong - this is my point. That might be lack of AdBlue but I was under the impression that AdBlue was for SCR not DPF regen. I thought DPF active regen relied on injecting extra fuel into the post combustion gasses which a catalyst in the DPF oxidises to increase the temps in the DPF. But even that would be overloaded if your engine was pouring smoke. Point is that the DPF doesn't have any active working parts to 'go wrong', it's the engine and the regen cycle that might fail.
unlike many cars
the SCR unit and urea injection is pre DPF on the PSA emissions system.
If the systems as a whole is not working right it gets all ****ed up and wont regen ,
We are saying the same thing i think - but different approaches
The DPF additive will be Eolys fluid also known as PAT fluid, I’ve come across it on Fords/Volvo with the 1.6 version of the same engine.
Eolys/PAT fluid is not Adblue.
Your car does not have SCR and Adblue
Adblue has nothing to do with any DPF ever, it is part of the SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) system, which is always after the DPF in the exhaust.
The SCR system mixes Adblue with the exhaust gases to neutralise oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) which occur in a diesel engine due to high heat and pressure.
The DPF filters out particulates (fine soot; as diesel as a fuel is quite impure so creates soot) hence the name (Diesel Particulate Filter), it does this by having ceramic material with very fine holes in which the particulates become trapped, you cannot clean the DPF yourself, it can only be done by a specialist using I believe (don’t quote on this bit) high pressure air flow and ultrasound vibration to dislodge the particulates.
However when a DPF is full you can burn down particulates, this is what a DPF re generation does, but there gets a point when it can’t be burned down any more and you need a new DPF, think like the ash in a BBQ when eventually you have to empty it out.
Short drives don’t get the DPF hot enough to ‘burn down’ the particulates, even long drives can vary in effectiveness.
This is where the Eolys/PAT fluid comes in, it’s part of the re-generation, it is injected in to bind to the particulates and help them burn, therefore allowing the temperature during ‘normal’ driving to be enough to burn the particulates.
It is a small reservoir and (again may be different as I know Ford/Volvo but) the car needs to be plugged in and told that the reservoir has been refilled as it is very accurately metered in only when required and also the car needs to be ‘told’ it’s no longer empty as it won’t inject it otherwise.
There is a differential pressure sensor on the DPF which should ‘sense’ a blocked DPF but it may be faulty.
Sorry for the essay but thought I clear things up as even some mechanics get confused with this stuff and wouldn’t want someone leading you up the garden path.
Oil in the air intake hoses post turbo is normal.
Check your engine oil level.
I’d take off the air intake on the turbo and check if the compressor wheel spins also check for any radial play (if there is so much play that the blades catch on the housing or if there is any axial play it’s mullered).
Be advised that the turbo (I believe if it’s the same as the 2.0D PSA engine in my Volvo) a variable geometry type so the vanes inside the turbo may have become stuck causing smoke/low power (can be sorted with oven cleaner as they get stuck/carboned up).
Getting it plugged in to check the reading on the DPF differential pressure sensor will give you an idea as to what is going on with the DPF, you may get away with topping up the fluid, resetting the counter and forcing a re-gen otherwise new DPF time.
If the systems as a whole is not working right it gets all **** up and wont regen ,
We are saying the same thing i think – but different approaches
Yes I think so 🙂
So basically fix it and Ad Blu
Great stuff and thanks everyone. Car is 50 miles away so its hard to drop in and have a decent conversation with the mechanic. Accepting top up of the additive, cleaning or replacing the DPF, new air filter etc, how easy is it to clean the turbo after the blow back? Is it a removal job or can we do an engine flush filter changes etc?
I had our turbo cleaned in situ before - Forte(?) flush machine thing the garage had. It wasn't too expensive iirc - £150 maybe.
Since I have the same 2.0hdi engine,175k and I've had it for 20k, nevr heard of adblue or Eulys, it must be something I need to do?
@alric not all 2.0 psa engines have this system fitted, a pug specialist should tell you if you do just based on your vin
Well thats all decided then... I had come to the conclusion drawing on your collective wisdom and several French forum that the DPF was the source of the issue and was going to sort appropriately. However the mechanic got a close look at it this morning and the turbo didn't survive. The combined cost means the last rites have been issued.
Thanks for the input - this is great collection of people when you need to be pointed in the right direction.
Now I've got to find a car to fit the two new tyres that I'm reclaiming....
Out of curiosity, what's the cost of a refurb turbo these days? Is that worth considering for an otherwise (believed to be) sound car?
pop the IC pipes off and see if there is oil in there, often missed when replacing Turbo's will also allow it to breath easier in the interim.