Citroen C3 Owners

Hi all,

This may be a long shot but I need help!

Recently bought my very first car, cute little 2003 Citroen C3 with 90,000 miles. The day I bought it the snowflake and dash came up instead of the 'D' for drive - knowing nothing about cars I thought it just meant something to do with the temperature.

A couple of weeks after I bought it it got into a 'bump' - now needs a new wing, passenger side light and bumper plus wheel alignment but it still drives, no pulling etc so have been driving it around since it crashed. However, the ABS light has also now come on...

Long story short yesterday the power steering stopped working. I was parked around five minutes from home and attempted the journey anyway but with much difficulty and eventually had to pull over, turn the engine off (and have a little cry if I'm honest! Then when I turned the engine back on the steering was miraculously looser and on the 2 minute journey home it returned to normal! Googled the car and the fault, found this forum and found other people with the flashing snowflake so am now aware it's a gearbox thing and not a temperature thing...

Have driven it today, and the steering was fine but of course the dash and snowflake are still present as is the ABS light.

Right, so my main question is - all in all how much is this going to be to fix? For the bodywork alone I've been quoted £400, plus the realignment. With the ABS light, and the potential gearbox fault and now whatevers happened to the power steering I want to just scrap it but I actually love the stupid car.

I got it from a dealership who gave me a three month gearbox and engine warranty but I'm worried they're going to say the snowflake thing is connected to it being bashed (which I know it isn't because it was there before that) - but the ABS, is that to do with it being hit or not? And can I still drive it? I went from London to Southampton and back again plus I do around 30 miles a day for work etc and before I knew it was a gearbox thing I wasn't worried. Now, I am.

Please help! I'm so sorry for the ramble but this is quite literally the most money I've ever spent on anything and to find out it's not worth it is so very irritating!

Thanks all,

Sofia

Hi sofia88, welcome to the forum.

sofia88 wrote:The day I bought it the snowflake and dash came up instead of the 'D' for drive - knowing nothing about cars I thought it just meant something to do with the temperature.

Snowflake and S or Sport (or a flashing snowflake?) mean a major gearbox fault.

Snowflake on its own means you have selected a mode for driving in the snow.

Its nothing to do with the temperature.

sofia88 wrote:However, the ABS light has also now come on...

Fault with the ABS system, means ABS won't be active. Shouldn't drive it because a safety system is disabled.

sofia88 wrote:Long story short yesterday the power steering stopped working. I was parked around five minutes from home and attempted the journey anyway but with much difficulty and eventually had to pull over, turn the engine off (and have a little cry if I'm honest! Then when I turned the engine back on the steering was miraculously looser and on the 2 minute journey home it returned to normal!

Could well be associated to the ABS problem, but maybe not.

sofia88 wrote:I got it from a dealership who gave me a three month gearbox and engine warranty

Reject the car by taking the car back ASAP and let them knock off the cost of repairs to the damage you did?
The gearbox won't be due to the crash. But ABS could well be the wheel sensor.

sofia88 wrote:And can I still drive it? I went from London to Southampton and back again plus I do around 30 miles a day for work etc and before I knew it was a gearbox thing I wasn't worried. Now, I am.

Don't drive it. You could be doing more damage to the gearbox.....

sofia88 wrote:Please help! I'm so sorry for the ramble but this is quite literally the most money I've ever spent on anything and to find out it's not worth it is so very irritating!

Get the faults that are not your fault fixed under the warranty and the stuff that's your fault on the insurance?