Stuck in 1st gear then wouldn't start

Hi. I have an 05 reg C3 that has flappy paddles as well as the usual gear stick with an 'auto' button.
I got stuck on the motorway crawling along stop/start for about an hour. When I got past the obstruction and started to pick up speed the car wouldn't change up from first gear. I tried using the paddles and also the gear stick to shift it up but it wouldn't budge from 1st. I pulled over and the battery light came on so I turned the engine off. Called the AA, who came out and tried to start it.
First off it was stuck showing 1st gear on the display, so the AA guy tried a reset. No luck. He put a battery pack on it and also tried jump leads to boost the battery but it just wasn't having it. Got it up on the bed of the breakdown truck using 'sliders' and took it to my local garage. They had it for 2 days and just can't find out what's wrong. They put a new battery on it and it showed '-' on the display. After much effort and numerous attempts at a reset they managed to get it into N but, although they got it started, it now won't select any gears. They suggested that I take it to the Citroen main dealer, but that means getting a recovery vehicle and are going to charge £114ph + V.A.T for diagnostics. (minimum 1hr)
I spent about £600 roughly 6 weeks ago on new a clutch (was making grinding noises) servicing and new tyres so am a bit short of readies. Apart from being loath to scrap it after spending out so much, I'm not willing to undertake another four digit expense.
Any ideas what could be stopping it selecting the gears?
Any help / advice would be much appreciated.

Hi blueovation, welcome to the forum.

blueovation wrote:roughly 6 weeks ago on new a clutch (was making grinding noises)

Was the clutch actuator also serviced/replaced at this point?

blueovation wrote:They suggested that I take it to the Citroen main dealer, but that means getting a recovery vehicle and are going to charge £114ph + V.A.T for diagnostics. (minimum 1hr)

Your better option if you want to do the work yourself, the work that Citroen would do, is to buy a Lexia tool from here and use that to run a test for fault codes. From the fault codes you can post your screen-shot results of the codes and descriptions for advice on how to proceed. Citroen would connect up to some very similar equipment and do the very same code reading as you can.

You can read-up about Lexia on this topic https://citroenc3owners.com/citroen-c3-t ... -t655.html. Any old OBD2 reader is not going to be good enough to read the sensodrive ECU, so go with lexia.

blueovation wrote: Any help / advice would be much appreciated.

An ECU fault code stored or a worn/damaged clutch actuator.....

Hi C3CAR
Thank you for your reply.
I will get a Lexia, try that and see what readings I get. if I'm not back crying into my coffee, then I've fixed it.
Thanks again

blueovation wrote:They suggested that I take it to the Citroen main dealer, but that means getting a recovery vehicle and are going to charge £114ph + V.A.T for diagnostics. (minimum 1hr)

That sounds ridiculously high even for a main dealer, or does the hour include recovery?