C5 Tales from the Electronic Side

[MULLEY]

The psgr side dipped beam bulb stopped working a few days ago, took delivery of some Ring Extreme bulbs today. Now if i was fitting these to the BX, it would have taken all of 2mins max, but not in a C5, 1.5 FUCKING hours, jesus, modern cars are shit. Access is shit & i haven't even got large hands. I managed to get the back cover off both headlights, that was easy enough. The spring clip on both sides decided to pop out & i had to fish one out as it fell into a tight spot of the engine bay. Got the bulbs out & unhooked them, but bugger me sideways, trying to re-fit the spring clips was an absolute ballache.

Because access is so tight, its difficult to see how they were fitted in the 1st place, so i had to refer to the haynes book to get an idea of which way up etc they were supposed to go, took bloody ages to get them back in, grrrrr. Eventually got both bulbs swapped over, spring clips back on, hurrah, but before i put the engine covers on both sides back, i'll check to make sure they are working ok. FFS, the driver side one stopped working??? re-checked how i'd connected it, & luckily it was my mistake, so once i'd re-connected it correctly, it came on, phew. The bulb covers replaced & the engine covers put back on.

I jump in the car, put in the key & the car is as dead as a dodo, oh no, perhaps i've knocked a connector off, so have to open up the engine bay & took the psgr side engine cover off, spot that one of the battery terminal clip lever thingies is higher than the other side, so push it back down, fingers crossed & hurrah, the car has power, however. I noticed that an extra dash light has illuminated which now prevents the car from firing up, FFS. So i switch everything off, jump out of the car, alarm the car & then unlock the car. At this point although i'm an aethiest, please GOD fire up & thank fuck she does.

All i've got to do now is re-do the clock as its defaulted to zero hours, but by this point i just left it for another day.

If you bare in mind that this was all done outside, initially with a torch that was getting dimmer & dimmer, so another light from the garage had to be used to help, but it was too big to get into the parts that i needed, so my vision was hampered when trying to fit those damn clips & bulbs, it was windy as fuck & light drizzle was coming down at one point. So feeling quite pleased with myself, cos at one point i had 2 non working bulbs & i was thinking, oh shit, wish i'd never started this job, but when was i going to get time to do it, i work everyday except the weekends & didn't want to leave it that long with a bulb out.

So, if anyone needs some H7 bulbs changing on a mk1 C5, i won't charge you too much to do them

[Tinkley]

Well I understand on one Audi it takes 3 hours for a garage to change one of the headlight bulbs....

Also be grateful you did not have to remove the front bumper, wheel arch inside cover etc as quite a few cars need that too, for access. Still, an easy job to do by the roadside in France where one has to carry spare bulbs....

[Mothman]

Think yourself lucky it wasnt a Range Rover!! They dont have spare bulbs!! You will need to replace the entire light unit at well over 400 quid a pop!!

[mds141]

Sounds like the same bloke designed the 407 headlamps.

[mds141]

Although the C5 and 407 sound like a doddle compared to the XM.

[MULLEY]

It's good to share this bulb experience pain, haha....

[MULLEY]

Front washers not working, so in the freezing wind i managed to get them working. Not sure what the issue is tbh, i emptied the washer bottle & there wasn't a lot of crud in the water, so no idea??? It did work properly though after taking the various lines etc apart & cleaning them out, again, didn't notice much crud, v-strange.

[Tim Leech]

Could they have frozen?

[MULLEY]

Alas not, it's not been that cold & i'm running 50% solution, so good for quite a few degrees below zero. It may just be another citroen anomaly.

[Tim Leech]

My BX does that, sometimes it works, but not usually at mot time!!

[MULLEY]

Thing is though, i can hear the pump working, just no fluid was coming out, weird.

[MULLEY]

Tonight i changed the old air filter in the clubman for a shiny new k&N, very easy to do, even simpler & quicker than the C5 or BX, makes a change for a modern car to be better

[MULLEY]

Last tankful the C5 managed 46.5mpg, not too bad, but i was hoping for more with the re-map. I think i'll get in contact with the mapper & find out if there are any reasons for the mpg being lower than what i thought it would be. I filled up with tesco diesel tonight & bought 91 litres & with my 18p off a litre savings, that equated to 96p a litre, now that brings back memories of cheap fuel a few years ago Fingers crossed it continues to get less & less, i saw my local co-op selling diesel for £1.10.09 p/l

[Tim Leech]

I bought a k&n for the new daily, £28 delivered with about 4 extra stickers which are no use to me, if anyone wants them I can post them free?

[mds141]

What's the new daily drive Tim?