How often should you change the diesel fuel filter?

midiman wrote:

midiman wrote: So injector 1 could have gone back in position 2 and so on etc.. I don't know if that would have made a difference? But all of the injectors are the same, they are the original ones.

C3driver52 wrote: Yes, all the numbers in the boxes in the ECU are in the wrong places. Injector timings will be off, maybe even enough off to give a timing error code? But I couldn't see it making it smoke or smell, but maybe there is more going on.

Can you screen capture and add the lexia screen showing the 'Cylinder 1 injector circuit Injection time correction outside limits.' and attach it using the form below while replying please?

midiman wrote:Where it's failing in Lexia is on the Global Test, the stage where it checks the injectors.

C3driver52 wrote:You need to go further, into the fail. Screen capture with 'ALT and Prt Sc' or use the lexia screen capture feature and paste into paint, then save and attach it to the forum topic reply.

Hi,

Here are the screen shots from my Lexia session.
The car is barely starting from cold, it's kicking out a lot of smoke, and the fuel consumption has increased.

I can't do anything else until I get to see my mechanic on Wednesday.

I need to get to injector 1. From the diagram I take it that it is the Cylinder nearest the crank pulley end, or am I wrong?

Thanks

midiman wrote:Here are the screen shots from my Lexia session.

Thanks for those, they save you a lot of typing

You can clear the intermittent ones, it may help the running, but not the starting. It also tidies up the list because more faults can be listed below the bottom of the screen (see the red down arrow on the bottom right).

midiman wrote:I need to get to injector 1. From the diagram I take it that it is the Cylinder nearest the crank pulley end, or am I wrong?

Haynes says number one is 'At transmission end of the block'

midiman wrote:

midiman wrote:Here are the screen shots from my Lexia session.

C3driver52 wrote:Thanks for those, they save you a lot of typing

C3driver52 wrote: You can clear the intermittent ones, it may help the running, but not the starting. It also tidies up the list because more faults can be listed below the bottom of the screen (see the red down arrow on the bottom right).

Hi, those codes come back when I try to clear them.

The car just about started this morning.

I think I will have a real issue tomorrow.

Need to get it to my mechanic asap.

Hi,

I have just come back from visiting my mechanic friend.

We changed the following.

• Oil Filter,
  Oil,
  Fuel Filter,
  Crankshaft Pulley,
  Drive Belt

He said the manifold would have to come off to do the injectors again.

But something weird happened!!

It started to sound a bit quieter as I drove away. Although it was still smoking a lot.

So, I put it back on the Lexia and notice that Injector 1 was showing the same fault.

Then I had another go at clearing the codes. This time it said that the codes had been successfully erased.

So I performed the injector test again and it passed.
Holding my breath, I waited for a while and tested them again. The result was that that had passed again.

The real test will come in the morning once the car has had time to cool down, and I need it to start from cold.



Will keep you updated.

midiman wrote:He said the manifold would have to come off to do the injectors again.

Not necessarily, have a look at https://citroenc3owners.com/diesel-c3-ti ... l-t12.html if you want to avoid having to remove or lift the inlet manifold while removing the injectors on a 16v diesel.

midiman wrote:So, I put it back on the Lexia and notice that Injector 1 was showing the same fault.

Then I had another go at clearing the codes. This time it said that the codes had been successfully erased.

So I performed the injector test again and it passed.

If you clear intermittent faults, the car thinks you have repaired the issue. The car goes come out of downgraded, running on defaults mode and run as it should. Trouble is, if you haven't actually repaired the intermittent faults, they may return and the system will detect this and ignore the bad data, run on defaults and performance drops.

midiman wrote:Holding my breath, I waited for a while and tested them again. The result was that that had passed again.

The real test will come in the morning once the car has had time to cool down, and I need it to start from cold.



Will keep you updated.

Thanks.

It started magnificently this morning.

I got in, turned the key and bang!!

Not even a bit of hesitance.

The juttering has gone, it didn't kick out a plume of white smoke, and it came up to temperature fairly fast.

I can't explain any of this.

It may not have even been the injectors?

Now I am thinking that I should have done this before taking it to the garage. Because the garage may have re-conditioned my injectors for the fun of it, or maybe they do them at all?

The owner of garage did say that it could be my fuel filter, and he agreed to change that before anything else. But for some unknown reason he decided to re-do the injectors.

All I can do is continue to monitor the situation and hope that the car works well.

It's had :

4 Injectors tested, re-worked and tested again.
Full oil change.
Oil Filter,
Fuel Filter,
Air Filter,
Crankshaft Pulley
Drive Belt

Now the question is.

Do I sell it while it's ok, or continue to drive it knowing that I have had so much work done to it?

At least I know the history of mine. Getting a new car can come with new issues.

But I'm still lost as to why clearing the stored codes improved things.
Surely the codes should clear on their own after you have repaired a failing or faulty part.
It's like it remembered it had an issue when the problem may have been rectified.

Even my friend said that he wants to get out of the motor trade. The cars have become too hard to work on from when he started 30 years ago.

Thanks

midiman wrote:It started magnificently this morning.

I got in, turned the key and bang!!

Not even a bit of hesitance.

That is good news

midiman wrote:But I'm still lost as to why clearing the stored codes improved things.

C3driver52 wrote:If you clear intermittent faults, the car thinks you have repaired the issue. The car goes come out of downgraded, running on defaults mode and run as it should. Trouble is, if you haven't actually repaired the intermittent faults, they may return and the system will detect this and ignore the bad data, run on defaults and performance drops.

Did the explanation from C3driver52 not help?

midiman wrote:Even my friend said that he wants to get out of the motor trade. The cars have become too hard to work on from when he started 30 years ago.

Time he gets out and lets a younger, more technical and computer whizz have a go?

midiman wrote:Surely the codes should clear on their own after you have repaired a failing or faulty part.

Not an intermittent one, well, not until that car is sure is fixed, which may take many restarts. But if you clear the code, you clear the counter. If you haven't fix the fault, you will have problems. If you have fixed the fault, you should have cleared the codes.

midiman wrote:It started magnificently this morning.

I got in, turned the key and bang!!

Not even a bit of hesitance.

Arfur Dent wrote:That is good news

Indeed

midiman wrote:But I'm still lost as to why clearing the stored codes improved things.

C3driver52 wrote:If you clear intermittent faults, the car thinks you have repaired the issue. The car goes come out of downgraded, running on defaults mode and run as it should. Trouble is, if you haven't actually repaired the intermittent faults, they may return and the system will detect this and ignore the bad data, run on defaults and performance drops.

Arfur Dent wrote:Did the explanation from C3driver52 not help?

To a degree.

midiman wrote:Even my friend said that he wants to get out of the motor trade. The cars have become too hard to work on from when he started 30 years ago.

Arfur Dent wrote:Time he gets out and lets a younger, more technical and computer whizz have a go?

This is what most experienced mechanics would like to do.

midiman wrote:Surely the codes should clear on their own after you have repaired a failing or faulty part.

Arfur Dent wrote:Not an intermittent one, well, not until that car is sure is fixed, which may take many restarts. But if you clear the code, you clear the counter. If you haven't fix the fault, you will have problems. If you have fixed the fault, you should have cleared the codes.

I lead to believe that the fault was fixed, but I couldn't clear the codes. So I assumed that the problem was still there.
The codes were pointing to the a permanent injector fault, turbo and speed sensor issue etc...
It only allowed me to clear the codes after we changed the Oil, Air, Fuel Filter, and Crankshaft Pulley. ?????????????
After that I would suspect that the codes would have come straight back if the issues were still there. ?????????????
To me permanent means not going away.

Anyway so far so good.

Make sense out of it if you can.

midiman wrote:

midiman wrote:I need to get to injector 1. From the diagram I take it that it is the Cylinder nearest the crank pulley end, or am I wrong?

Haynes says number one is 'At transmission end of the block'

Thanks for the help C3driver52.

The car is starting like new.

Fingers crossed that all of this work keeps it running smoothly for another 5 years.

But, now I'm debating whether to sell it, or continuing to see how it goes.

Maybe it just needs a bit more TLC at the grand age of 12 years and 120K miles.

midiman wrote:Thanks for the help C3driver52.

The car is starting like new.

Fingers crossed that all of this work keeps it running smoothly for another 5 years.

But, now I'm debating whether to sell it, or continuing to see how it goes.

Maybe it just needs a bit more TLC at the grand age of 12 years and 120K miles.

I am glad its running ok for you now.

Thanks for updating us with the good news