Please help

rhianna99

Hi, hoping for some good advice about a problem I have with my citroen c82.0. We bought this car just over 3 months ago as we will be needing an 8 seater in the near future, and there really isnt that much choice in vehicles available. It is a 06 reg, and we paid £5,700 for it.

We do a lot of motorway miles and so were not expecting an issue with the dpf filter, but unfortunately thats what we are now faced with. Car engine management light and depollution faulty light came on the next day a message flashed up saying risk of particulate filter blockage. We took it to a citroen specialist, hoping to avoid the dealer prices, and he says the filter is 97% blocked, egr valve not working properly, and there is a faulty sensor on the eloys (sp) fluid compartment so the filter has not been receiving the fluid, it may have also run out of fluid, he hasnt checked yet. There are also other fault codes, which he is investigating, but hes had the car since tuesday and still havent got anywhere.

So I rang the trader we bought from, because this is obviously going to cost a lot of money and we read there maybe some comeback on the trader for this, we paid with a credit card if that makes any difference? His answer to this problem is to get the car towed to the specialist he deals with which is about 70 miles away, and have the dpf removed at our own expense of about £250. Now I didnt think this was legal and that it will fail its next mot, but he is insisting that as long as they leave the outer casing it will pass becasue they are not allowed to poking around in there. I said wont the emissions be all over the place without it, and he said no because it will basically just be non - fap.

This sounds dodgy to me, what would you advise?

Thanks for reading

facade

You can get your DPF chemically cleaned, the EGR valve sorted, and the eloys sorted out by the specialist, who is already going to charge you for the investigative work, why not ask him for a quote.


Removing the DPF is illegal, and fails the MOT if it is missing.

What is proposed is removing the innards from the DPF, and hoping that it passes the smoke test at MOT time (or at a roadside check, these do happen)
Some people go this route, as sorting out a DPF system at dealer prices can run into 4 figures.

If you want to do this, likely someone nearer than 75miles can do it.

I'd get the DPF & EGR cleaned and the eloys working personally.

rhianna99

I would prefer to get it fixed properly really, garage that has the car has charged £50 so far for diagnostics, he is not able to quote for it to be fixed as he still is unsure whats wrong. can a filter filled 97% be saved, mechanic said yes, but google seems to say no. I really need the car back, so phoned citroen but they cant look at it until the 9th September. My biggest fear is paying out a couple of grand to fix it and whatever caused the blockage in the first place to remain and break it again.

facade

If the eloys system isn't working the filter will block up as it doesn't regenerate properly.

Your specialist is going to be a lot cheaper than a Citroen dealer. Get that quote!

If you google Citroen DPF removal, everybody and his dog will do it, and remap your ecu. You can expect a few more mpg without the restriction of the dpf and the waste of fuel regenerating it.

The internet is full of success stories where DPF removed cars fly through the MOT return more mpg and have noticeably more power.

Your choice really, if you are worried about future failures fix it as cheap as possible and get rid of it quick.

mcpitman

facade wrote: »

The internet is full of success stories where DPF removed cars fly through the MOT return more mpg and have noticeably more power.
QUOTE]

The internet is full of stories of how to make millions overnight too! :rotfl:

Sorry, only joking.

MOT testers are not allowed to look at or remove the dpf casing to see if the filter exists or not. (it is only a visual check).

However if any visible smoke is seen on the MOT test this will fail an MOT.

The dpf reduces soot emissions to almost zero (hence it filling up), easy to notice if the dpf has been removed, as you wil see smoke out of the back on overfuelling/heavy acceleration.

As previously stated, it's your choice wether to remove or not, personally I wouldn't/haven't.

rhianna99

Well have spoken to trader again, he has offered to replace our car with a peugeot 807 8 seater but we will have to pay £1200. £500 becasue it is more expensive than ours was, and £700 becasue we have put 5000 miles on the clock and Iv told him I have made a scratch down the side. This seems like a reasonable offer, as the peugeot has only done 57,000 miles, compared to our 97,000.

Im not sure I trust the trader though as he insists its ok for us to just remove dpf and has told us that he usually removes dpfs on all these cars before selling them and that the only reason he didnt on ours is because it was in really condition. Surely he cant do that?

He also has said that this new car he has offered us is a 2007 model and has a different type of engine and they no longer have dpf filters is this right?

Thanks for all your help

jimjames

facade wrote: »

Removing the DPF is illegal, and fails the MOT if it is missing.

Removing the DPF isn't necessarily illegal.

It depends if it was fitted as standard to that model or was optional. Friend had similar problem with their car and due to the year the DPF wasn't required at the time so could be removed without issue - by the main dealer.

facade

rhianna99 wrote: »

Well have spoken to trader again, he has offered to replace our car with a peugeot 807 8 seater but we will have to pay £1200. £500 becasue it is more expensive than ours was, and £700 becasue we have put 5000 miles on the clock and Iv told him I have made a scratch down the side. This seems like a reasonable offer, as the peugeot has only done 57,000 miles, compared to our 97,000.

Im not sure I trust the trader though as he insists its ok for us to just remove dpf and has told us that he usually removes dpfs on all these cars before selling them and that the only reason he didnt on ours is because it was in really condition. Surely he cant do that?

He also has said that this new car he has offered us is a 2007 model and has a different type of engine and they no longer have dpf filters is this right?

Thanks for all your help

As Jimjames says, the DPF wasn't compulsory until 2009, so it is possible that this car didn't have one.


He is going to charge you £1200 to swap to a car that likely he has had the DPF taken off, then use £250 of it (probably less at mates rates) to get the DPF taken off yours and sell it on.

I'd google for faults common to the 807 first, on the face of it, either spend £250 on removing your DPF or £1200 buying the other car, if you prefer the 807 then it might be the solution.

However, it sounds like you could easily have bought the Citroen after he had taken the DPF off, then had no trouble, and never have known any different, unless it failed a smoke test.