Flashing auto snowflake dash, engine light on and temperatur

Hi all, first post! I'm hoping someone might have some advice for a new owner of a C3 semiautomatic.

Bought the car privately this month and initially the car drove fine though the first gears seemed a bit clunky. Then after purchasing it and starting to drive off the problems started...bit of bad luck I suppose.

At first the auto and snowflake started flashing with a dash instead of gear number, then the temperature started yoyoing up and down, and it wouldn't engage 1st gear or reverse for a few seconds. So we contacted the previous owner who kindly looked into it and had the airflow changed and a new temperature sensor connected (it was seriously yoyo-ing so we figured it needed replacing).

After that we took it for a drive and the auto and snowflake still flashed now and then when starting up and intermittently before taking off in first gear or reverse. The higher gears were fine, no problem. Then after a while, the engine light popped on. Tried a reset of a few things (reset sensordrive, reset gear check by disconnecting battery as suggested in manual and online) but this didn't change anything.

The next day with the same problems we took it for a drive and the temperature gauge shot to the max after 30mins, and it hasn't settled down since (except on initial startup, but it shot back up after a few mins). I've attached a photo of the dash to clarify what I mean...

It's clear we've inherited a car with problems regrettably, and the answer might just be more expensive than it's worth, but I thought I'd see if anyone on the forum has some advice, any advice welcome!

Welcome to the forum Vki2015

Vki2015 wrote:At first the auto and snowflake started flashing with a dash instead of gear number,

Indicates a serious gearbox related problem. Need to stop driving it and get it checked for fault codes.

Vki2015 wrote:The next day with the same problems we took it for a drive and the temperature gauge shot to the max after 30mins, and it hasn't settled down since (except on initial startup, but it shot back up after a few mins). I've attached a photo of the dash to clarify what I mean...

Crops up quite often and can be anywhere from the sensor to the engine ECU (with the wiring in between) after ruling out any actual cooling problems like - a lack of coolant

Vki2015 wrote:It's clear we've inherited a car with problems regrettably, and the answer might just be more expensive than it's worth, but I thought I'd see if anyone on the forum has some advice, any advice welcome!

This is quite possibly the case with 2 faults.

If you want to get a bit deeper, invest in the lexia system (ebay) to read the gear box, clutch and engine ecu error codes to get some idea to what you are dealing with.

Our lexia topic is here https://citroenc3owners.com/citroen-c3-t ... -t655.html which can give you some info about the system.