Xsara - airbag light back on 😂

[Noel Tidybeard]

i think mr beko needs to polish the cateracts on xara😎

[beko1987]

2 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

i think mr beko needs to polish the cateracts on xara😎

I had them done a couple of years ago, didn't make much difference 😢

New headlights cost more than the car is worth so I just keep hoping it passes rhe mot each year 🤞🤞 

[beko1987]

I have screenwash again! 

It died on the way to work Monday, so I ordered a new pump, which came yesterday. 

Nice and quiet at work/I've done so many hours these past couple of weeks for no extra pay I could have all next week off and still come out on top so don't feel bad. 

Only the finest quality parts here! 

Peeling back the arch liner and cutting 1 cable tie gave me the access I needed, so I pulled the old pump and saved the fresh screenwash I'd filled it with the prior Saturday... 

Fitted the new pump, sloshed a bit back in filtering it through a microfiber cloth as I went as there was some dirt that came out and... It leaked! 

Out it all came again, I tried again and it still dripped. Ffs never mind does it work? No. 

Got the multimeter out and there was no juice at the wires

Turns out it was the fuses, I was just looking at the wrong one (because the diagram in the manual bears zero relation to the fuse box I have.) Borrowed a 10a from somewhere else and 12v was restored.

Back out with the new pump, and I fitted it back in with the old rubber seal and it's not leaking anymore, and the washer jets are a shit load more powerful now! The old pump was knackered, between leak 1 and after the multimeter shot above I refitted the OG one assuming the new pump was just shite quality, changed the fuse from something else and it fired it once and blew the fuse again. Old seal and new pump sorted it

Also noticed the last proper fixing for the undertray had gone awol and it was flapping in the breeze like so many golf's and insignias I see on the m40, so I deployed more cable ties. There are now zero proper fixings holding it on, and it's probably stronger for it! 

Need to go into town at lunchtime and get more fuses (no idea what I robbed a fuse from and I don't care for now) and it should be good to go again! I'm also dripping wet after laying in mud and screenwash to fit the pump and sort the undertray. 

Almost 174k on the original pump, and I've had it empty and frozen many times so I'll forgive it. Hopefully this new one lasts at least a year

[abir246]

On 02/02/2024 at 10:35, beko1987 said:

I have screenwash again! 

It died on the way to work Monday, so I ordered a new pump, which came yesterday. 

Nice and quiet at work/I've done so many hours these past couple of weeks for no extra pay I could have all next week off and still come out on top so don't feel bad. 

Only the finest quality parts here! 

Peeling back the arch liner and cutting 1 cable tie gave me the access I needed, so I pulled the old pump and saved the fresh screenwash I'd filled it with the prior Saturday... 

Fitted the new pump, sloshed a bit back in filtering it through a microfiber cloth as I went as there was some dirt that came out and... It leaked! 

Out it all came again, I tried again and it still dripped. Ffs never mind does it work? No. 

Got the multimeter out and there was no juice at the wires

Turns out it was the fuses, I was just looking at the wrong one (because the diagram in the manual bears zero relation to the fuse box I have.) Borrowed a 10a from somewhere else and 12v was restored.

Back out with the new pump, and I fitted it back in with the old rubber seal and it's not leaking anymore, and the washer jets are a shit load more powerful now! The old pump was knackered, between leak 1 and after the multimeter shot above I refitted the OG one assuming the new pump was just shite quality, changed the fuse from something else and it fired it once and blew the fuse again. Old seal and new pump sorted it

Also noticed the last proper fixing for the undertray had gone awol and it was flapping in the breeze like so many golf's and insignias I see on the m40, so I deployed more cable ties. There are now zero proper fixings holding it on, and it's probably stronger for it! 

Need to go into town at lunchtime and get more fuses (no idea what I robbed a fuse from and I don't care for now) and it should be good to go again! I'm also dripping wet after laying in mud and screenwash to fit the pump and sort the undertray. 

Almost 174k on the original pump, and I've had it empty and frozen many times so I'll forgive it. Hopefully this new one lasts at least a year

Another win for the Xsara! 

[beko1987]

3 hours ago, abir246 said:

Another win for the Xsara! 

Yep! I'm hoping these small jobs aren't suddenly all going to come at once though. 🤞🤞

Car is still dry and it hasn't all leaked out, so thats good. If after some miles it all vibrates loose I need to remember not to panic and it's not coolant 😂 (coolant is still an ever go gentle occasional drip and has been since doing the belt so that's fine) 

[abir246]

7 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Yep! I'm hoping these small jobs aren't suddenly all going to come at once though. 🤞🤞

Car is still dry and it hasn't all leaked out, so thats good. If after some miles it all vibrates loose I need to remember not to panic and it's not coolant 😂 (coolant is still an ever go gentle occasional drip and has been since doing the belt so that's fine) 

My current small job is observing how long it takes for my headlights to obtain condensation - deleting the cap for bulb replacements helps but I dare not refit it in case it all respawns again 🤣

[beko1987]

 

1 hour ago, abir246 said:

My current small job is observing how long it takes for my headlights to obtain condensation - deleting the cap for bulb replacements helps but I dare not refit it in case it all respawns again 🤣

That doesn't sound fun, plus being a modern don't you need to be careful of moisture messing stuff up? 

Or drill it a drain hole, fit a tiny pc fan to each one to circulate the air 🤔😅

Love the profile pic too 👌

 

[abir246]

10 hours ago, beko1987 said:

 

That doesn't sound fun, plus being a modern don't you need to be careful of moisture messing stuff up? 

Or drill it a drain hole, fit a tiny pc fan to each one to circulate the air 🤔😅

Love the profile pic too 👌

 

I'll start whispering scrapyard quotes into it if it starts to act up with moisture - I did that with my old disastra and was rewarded with mechanical bliss xD

Drilling a hole would be excellent, but not sure if it constitutes as ermm, legal, and hah thanks! It's the face I pull when I hear the bm's warning chime so very appropiate

 

 

[beko1987]

I'd bought a tin of brake clean during the week, and went outside to have a look at some rubber pipes. It's been mostly fine but did loose the turbo twice during a 400 mile trip I did last Saturday... Again on and off the throttle (changing up a gear in reality but I think it's coming off and on the throttle that's doing it) fixes it and that's that! 

Cleaned off the weeping from the bottom intercooler hose and my eyes are sure they see a straight line running from the edge of the hose and up a bit. Not the circular line of the last layer of hose, it's not really clear on the photo. Gave it all a good squeeze and nothing was immediately apparent. 

Next was this hose coming off the back of the engine and running down the side of the block. I've read about this on a few forum threads. 

It's rock hard at the top, then goes very soft and squishy as it passes past the cambelt covers and goes to whatever metal thing I felt it clamp to. Engine was stone cold.

Didnt fancy removing pipes right now, they all feel 'old' and am sure will fuck up as I remove them and not seat properly when I refit. Going to see how much new hoses are and maybe treat it to them as a mild parts cannon guess. 

I did notice the bracket that holds all the vacuum things in place only had 1 nut... 

I'm lacking any suitable nuts to use (what size would this use? Wouldn't hurt to get an assorted sized set as I've found this alot as I work on it 😂). In leiu of anything proper some cable ties snugged it down well enough 

 

[beko1987]

Still at nill-nill on the day I remembered another annoyance, the bonnet latch. It's always been mushy and a bit meh to open, but more alarmingly recently it's been a sod to latch shut. As I was working on the above I fired some brake clean at it, and 5minutes later it had shit itself

Noting the trim piece covering it only had 2 fixings left and I've got a whole box of those I took it off and found a disgusting lump of shite

Bonnet cable looks happy m8

[beko1987]

I cleaned it off and flushed so much grit out with some small brushes I have

(and scrubbed the bit you push to open the bonnet so I don't get filthy fingers topping off screenwash 👌)

This revealed a structural cable tie

I've no idea what the end of the cable is supposed to look like but I assume part of it is snapped? 

[beko1987]

Whatever, the cable tie that was there was working fine so I simply replaced it with a new one with just a bit less slack built into it's placement

Then a good coating of lithium spray grease on the latch 

Bonnet has never worked so well 😂 Closes with the lightest of drops with a nice quiet thunk from the latch. Pulling the lever inside the car the bonnet now pops up a tiny bit whereas before it didn't and you just got used to sliding your fingers under the gap onto the lever. 

Sprayed the same grease over all the door check straps and hinges too, although not too much so it gathers grime. 

Ill call that good enough, got one job done and I think I'll go find some hoses and at least call it preventative maintenance. Anyone know wtf their called? 2.0 hdi 110

[RoverFolkUs]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

That to me looks like a coolant hose going into an EGR cooler?

The corrugated pipe roughly 1cm down and to the right of your finger in that photo should be EGR related which tells me that's a coolant hose

[beko1987]

20 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

That to me looks like a coolant hose going into an EGR cooler?

The corrugated pipe roughly 1cm down and to the right of your finger in that photo should be EGR related which tells me that's a coolant hose

Ah! Maybe, I'm going in blind here! Need to read up on the engine and see what pipes go where, might find a Haynes that covers it and the year. 

Someone on the fb group agrees with me that it's probably some pipe sucking itself flat somewhere waiting to split though. Was hoping it might be that one, it's not too tricky to access 😂

[RoverFolkUs]

9 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Ah! Maybe, I'm going in blind here! Need to read up on the engine and see what pipes go where, might find a Haynes that covers it and the year. 

Someone on the fb group agrees with me that it's probably some pipe sucking itself flat somewhere waiting to split though. Was hoping it might be that one, it's not too tricky to access 😂

They could be on the right lines, if a vac pipe has got saturated with oil residue it could be doing that, check the vac lines going to turbo waste gate, EGR etc. could be a bit tricky and messy because it's all buried away on the DW10

A bit of oil residue is typical around boost pipes, yes it's a leak but it's not going to cause a complete lack of boost. 

Have you scanned it for any fault codes? That's a good place to start even if it's not bringing on the EML (yet)

[beko1987]

Nope, not done any scanning. Do we have anyone on these pages with the tools? Or are the hooky ebay jobs decent enough nowadays? I remember trying with my 406 and getting nowhere, the list of requirements to get the shit software running on a certain build of xp etc was bad enough and I never got it talking to the car

The bottom intercooler pipe has always had the same size looking oil residue around it which I did clean off today, will keep an eye on it but the fault is too intermittent/I don't drive the right way to provoke it for it to be that. 

 

[Anthony]

Whereabouts are you based - seem to recall you are/were somewhere around Marlow / Wycombe sort of direction?

I've got a copy of the dealer Diagbox / Lexia tool and if theres no one closer and you're not in a desperate hurry then I'm happy to plug it in and see what is says - how repeatable is the issue though as it sounds quite intermittent from your description?

[beko1987]

9 hours ago, Anthony said:

Whereabouts are you based - seem to recall you are/were somewhere around Marlow / Wycombe sort of direction?

I've got a copy of the dealer Diagbox / Lexia tool and if theres no one closer and you're not in a desperate hurry then I'm happy to plug it in and see what is says - how repeatable is the issue though as it sounds quite intermittent from your description?

Yes I'm in Thame, work in Marlow though! 

Where abouts are you? Would happily take a little trip out. It's still quite intermittent though, I've not found a way to fully reproduce it. Just trying to investigate it before whatever is unhappy goes fully

[rainagain]

I had a really annoying issue with the 110HDi in my 307, I initially thought it was the remap that was causing it. Basically it would drive like an old school turbo, you'd put your foot down and nothing would happen, the revs would slowly rise, then all of a sudden you'd get a big shove and off it would go. I had a chat with the guy who provided me with the remap file and he thought it could be a problem with the vacuum system not having enough vacuum to operate the variable vanes of the turbo until higher revs as the vacuum pump is driven off the engine (maybe a leak or a blockage). The 110 HDi has four vaccum solenoids on it, I ended up removing two of them (EGR and anti bulldozing valve which I also gutted) and I cleaned and simplified the vacuum pipework. Annoyingly this made no difference. The actual fault was the MAF sensor, as soon as I changed this everything was fine. During this issue there were no lights on the dash or fault codes in the ECU.

[beko1987]

16 minutes ago, rainagain said:

I had a really annoying issue with the 110HDi in my 307, I initially thought it was the remap that was causing it. Basically it would drive like an old school turbo, you'd put your foot down and nothing would happen, the revs would slowly rise, then all of a sudden you'd get a big shove and off it would go. I had a chat with the guy who provided me with the remap file and he thought it could be a problem with the vacuum system not having enough vacuum to operate the variable vanes of the turbo until higher revs as the vacuum pump is driven off the engine (maybe a leak or a blockage). The 110 HDi has four vaccum solenoids on it, I ended up removing two of them (EGR and anti bulldozing valve which I also gutted) and I cleaned and simplified the vacuum pipework. Annoyingly this made no difference. The actual fault was the MAF sensor, as soon as I changed this everything was fine. During this issue there were no lights on the dash or fault codes in the ECU.

Interesting, cheers! Not sure it's annoying enough to try a new maf yet, but I guess the coming on/off the throttle would reset it enough to work the next time the revs rose up 🤔 And its never happened when cold yet, always when the engine is up to temp (usually when I'm on the m40 wanting to move into l2, but the traffics usually moving at the right speed that no turbo isn't a problem, then it comes back

[beko1987]

My airbag light has made an unwelcome appearance. Been on and off then mostly on and then always on all week. 

Today I had 10 minutes so whipped each seat out

Passenger seat had some tray thing cable tied under it, removed that for better access

 

Unplugged each.connector and sprayed it with brake cleaner and reconnected them

But the light is still coming on solid with a beep on startup. It's not the passenger airbag off symbol (turning the airbag off results in no beep and both lights as it does). Airbags all on and it's a single solid beep and the AIR BAG light blazing away like a twat

Doing some reading deep in the bowels of the French car forum and 306oc forum it's suggested to cut the connectors out fully and re-solder. Mightily tempting as a next step

Especially as on the passenger side 2 of the connectors have tape around them... Drivers side has a big multiplug the passenger side doesn't but the other smaller plugs too

[RoverFolkUs]

20 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

My airbag light has made an unwelcome appearance. Been on and off then mostly on and then always on all week. 

Today I had 10 minutes so whipped each seat out

Passenger seat had some tray thing cable tied under it, removed that for better access

 

Unplugged each.connector and sprayed it with brake cleaner and reconnected them

But the light is still coming on solid with a beep on startup. It's not the passenger airbag off symbol (turning the airbag off results in no beep and both lights as it does). Airbags all on and it's a single solid beep and the AIR BAG light blazing away like a twat

Doing some reading deep in the bowels of the French car forum and 306oc forum it's suggested to cut the connectors out fully and re-solder. Mightily tempting as a next step

Especially as on the passenger side 2 of the connectors have tape around them... Drivers side has a big multiplug the passenger side doesn't but the other smaller plugs too

I would try and scan it for fault codes first, probably no harm in bypassing the connectors but there's no point causing yourself a headache in the future if you ever want to remove the seats, if the fault ends up being something else in the system

[beko1987]

Popped into the garage I use for my mot whilst in town earlier, and he said "with a shrug" £20 for a code read. He didn't say he specifically had a lexia, but equally I don't want anything reprogramming so a decent other unit might read the details. 

He then said had I checked the seat connectors? I said I had but I'm still not sure

I thanked him and said I'd be in touch. Given how the system turns off fine with the key switch (AIR BAG and the passenger bag off symbol comes on with no beep) with no fault, something being open circuit makes sense, and the seat connectors on my age of psa are supposedly renowned for being shit I'm tempted Sunday afternoon to do some soldering... If nothing else to rule that out and make any diagnostics I get done after that point to the cause. 

Or I start saving for its replacement... Got until September. Problem is there's nothing* wrong with the car, I'm just bored of it and that's no reason to change on its own

 

[loserone]

Is it not worth getting a lexia? You can probably do it for about £20

[beko1987]

9 minutes ago, loserone said:

Is it not worth getting a lexia? You can probably do it for about £20

I've been scouring for adapters and such since RichardK got some software working, but their not cheap, and a minefield of Chinese random stuff. 

I'd happily buy one if their weren't too dear, need to keep looking but I don't think I'm searching for the right things. Bar £30 adapters for the vans or £££ for full in lexia kits there's not much inbetween 

[IronStar]

Doesn’t Lexia work fine with generic ELM 327 adapters?

[ruffgeezer]

I have cut out dozens of those seat plugs for airbag lights.  Mind you I've changed a few comm 2000 (clockspring) units too!

[beko1987]

2 hours ago, IronStar said:

Doesn’t Lexia work fine with generic ELM 327 adapters?

Not sure. If it does it would be cool but I don't want to start buying them until I find one that works... 

The Internet says 2004 was obd2 for dervs, mine is 2002 and a mix of all sorts, with no concrete info/threads from 2011 on the subject 😂

[beko1987]

1 hour ago, ruffgeezer said:

I have cut out dozens of those seat plugs for airbag lights.  Mind you I've changed a few comm 2000 (clockspring) units too!

Yea I've got that in the queue of "what could be wrong"... Bloody hope not, their not cheap nowadays! 

I'd try many things before trying that, I've been putting off fixing the indicator stalk my entire ownership so as not to disturb the clock spring and bring this very warning up 😂 I'll be annoyed if it's caused the light regardless (does diagnostic pinpoint that or did you have it apart and swapped to test?) 

[Sigmund Fraud]

5 hours ago, IronStar said:

Doesn’t Lexia work fine with generic ELM 327 adapters?

No, you need the Lexia 3 interface which is full of electronic wizardry (relays etc., like the Delphi DS150) :

Chinese copies are widely available and pretty cheap nowadays. The Diagbox software works for all PSA stuff from the late 1990s onwards, including the Xsara.