24th Dec 2005, 15:41

Hello everyone I'm writing from Lithuania. My family has 2002 c5 2.0L petrol. A few days ago I was changing gears from 1 to 2 and suddenly everything turned off and I was in the middle of a corner, so the steering wheel locked and I almost had a crash into upcoming mini van. Still car does not want to start its engine, starter is working, but it seems that petrol cannot reach the engine. My display is a bit broken, so I don't see what it says, but there should be 3 letters or something like that. It is the first serious thing in almost 3 years of having the car. There were some small problems, like thermometer. The only problem that cannot be solved is the noise isolation inside the car, it is very loud when going through any bad road, the suspension (shock absorbers) are pneumatic and they are very "hard", a bit unpleasant, because mainly roads in Lithuania aren't very good.

Have a good day. I still don't have a car, because it is 24th of December, maybe on 27th guys will have a look at it.

13th Feb 2006, 15:00

I have also experienced a LOT of problems with front wheel balance. I must have had the wheels balanced and re-balanced between 15 and 20 times in the 4 years I have owned the car! It has been back to main dealers and well known tyre fitters. No one has the answer. Can never tie it down - and garages never road test a car to make sure it is cured. This is the only major problem I have had - otherwise the car is superb. But - it is a major concern and may persuade me to buy non-Citroen next time.

4th Jun 2006, 14:51

Hi, saw the last problem with the C5 that would not start as it does not reconise the key. All you have to do is disconnect the battery and join together the battery leads for about 5 minutes, then connect the battery and the car should then restart.

11th Jun 2006, 18:52

My Y Reg V6 has lost its SAT NAV display screen and the CD and Multi CD do not work.

These faults are related as is the radio remaining on when you switch off. Its been an intermittent fault and they all recover together when its OK. Probably just a poor connection, but it seems impossible to get service info. Gave it to my local dealer, but this kind of fault is beyond them. Want me to prepay for £1,000 worth of parts without any guarantee that the fault will be fixed. I like the car, but these and other problems show that gadgets are OK until they go wrong.

20th Nov 2006, 11:30

I have a Citroen C5. It's about 5 years old now. When it rains, water runs into the boot as the back hatch is lifted. The Anti Pollution fault light has come on in the last couple of days, but I did go through some deep water on a flooded road recently so that's probably what caused that, and the windows go up when it rains. Disconcerting when you have an arm resting on the sill as it starts to go up. I am assuming that the electrics get wet when when it rains. This also means that one of the back passenger doors also refuses to unlock when I use the central locking. The car vibrates when it hits 70 mph despite having the wheels balanced by a Citroen dealer. Oh! And the petrol gauge lies and I have run out of petrol twice. Other than that, it's a great car! ;)

6th Dec 2006, 06:38

I am also having problems with the radio on C5 Exclusive staying on after key is removed. One correspondent states that a simple removal of a fuse clears the fault. Could he please respond with which fuse to remove and where it is located.

10th Jan 2007, 09:01

I have just read the comment about the outside temperature gauge going mad. In the last two days mine has gone from 24 C up to 60 C. I'm not sure whether this affects the climate control system, but it seems to be blowing a lot of very cold air on automatic. Does anyone have a solution to this?

13th Jan 2007, 03:48

Having read all the horror stories about C5`s, I am wondering now whether to go ahead or not and swap my (third) XM for a C5,probably a 3ltr. But, the C5 brochure`s tell me that these cars do not have the normal wiring loom, but a system using radio signals to activate all the various electrical components. Having done a lot in the past with radio controlled aircraft, I know that it is very possible for RC systems to pick up what we called spurious signals from outside sources using a similar wave band. These days there are so many devices sending out radio signals, and these could cause the receivers in the car to be activated independently, making the components work very erratically. It may be only a thought, but I do feel that this theory could answer some questions.

15th Jan 2007, 16:01

I have just bought a 2001 C5 HPi Exclusive. I have had it just over 24 hours when it broke down in a petrol station, the antipollution fault came up and the car would not start. From reading all your comments it seems a common fault. The dealer balanced the wheels due to vibration which now seems better. Its back with a main dealer under warranty at the moment, but they seem to be struggling to fix it. The mechanic called out verified that there was no fuel getting through so it was recovered. The question now after reading all your comments is do I keep it or hand it back. It's a shame as its only got 34K on the clock, full leather and all the toys. We'll see what the dealer can do.

19th Feb 2007, 06:22

The above comments on C5s are very interesting. I have a 4 year old C5 petrol, 3l version, and have had problems with burnt-out ignition coils, ongoing wheel imbalance problems (still existing) and now have the external temp sensor reading - -C. I do get various spurious alerts such as One missing tyre pressure sensor, Faulty airbag etc. My inside temperature is haywire at the moment – it is cold when set to 27 degrees and below! and hot when at 28 degrees. I am hoping this won’t be too expensive to fix, as I have just had an 80k service plus radiator change & rear brake cylinder modification etc, costing £1800. Have also had to have a rear door lock changed as it couldn’t be opened.

Lovely car, suspension generally very good although it seems harder than on my old BX. But reliability needs to be improved.