P1641 Permanent Fault in Injector(s) control Power Stage.

Hi folks,I am new to the forum so I will give a brief description of myself and problems encountered.
I am 63 yr old and a mechanic for most of it but had to retire for health reasons.Plus I think the electronic age was overtaking me car repair wise.
I bought my C3 18 months ago and it had 65,000 on the clock.I carried out some repairs to stop ratttles and knocks from front suspension,drop links,ball joints etc to no avail,only sounds bad on rough roads so learned to put up with it.
I drove the car to Germany on holiday,first time driving on the right ,woohoo,and did about 1,800 miles round trip with no problems.
In the spring of this year I started to get my first problems,namely fumes in car and then a tapping spitting noise on tickover.I knew this to be caused by the fire seals needing replaced which was duly taken care of.After the repair the car was hard to start and then would only rev to about 2,000 rpm and the MIL was on.I consulted some forums and then I popped a couple of connectors from the injectors and found no change from 2 and 3.I changed the injectors and hey presto it started off the button and ran a dream.
Weeks later I stopped on way home and went to get a newspaper and when I got back into the car it wouldn't start.tried for a while then got it towed home.Tried and elm 327 but it wouldn't connect to the ECU.
Eventually I towed it to my local Citroen stealer in Coatbridge and asked them to check the key codes and immobiliser function.Later that day they phoned me and said it wasn't the keys but a wiring fault which would require 2 hours labour to trace and rectify and they would phone me if they required to use parts.2 days later I phoned to enquire about progress and the receptionist asked if they still had the car.Very reassuring,a short pause and she came back and said the technicians,grave doubts about that,were working on it and there was wiring everywhere and it might not be ready for the weekend.This was a Friday.Short while later she phoned me back and said it wasn't the wiring but the injectors and ECU would have to be removed and sent to specialist for tests and it would be very expensive.I declined.
saturday morning I went to collect car,paid the £120 with severe protest and towed the car back home, without a print out or any firm diagnosis.
When I got home I checked the dashcam files,it activates when key is turned,and saw the receptionist come to collect the car with 2 technicians?? to push it.One tried to start it and afer a few revolutions said "it's f**ked" and pushed car round to car park.Then he said "I told him it needed an ECU,no he didn't.
My son had lifted the bonnet of the car and called me out and I saw the air cleaner assembly sitting on top of the engine,not connected in anyway and underneath it the electrical contacts to the injectors were all disconnected.And the technician??? had tried to start it in that condition.
I sent the ECU to ECUtesting and they said they could find no faults but that they couldn't access the software.They refunded my £300
I purchased a Lexia 3 clone and after a lot of trials I eventually got access to the codes,the RPO for my car is 09597 for anyone that may be looking and after clearing the piezo codes and couple of other I am left with one,
P1641 Permanent Fault in Injector(s) control Power Stage.
I know I could have just put that in a post but I felt that maybe somebody could benefit from my experience in this ongoing,to me,will draining saga,,thanks Davie

Hello snowie, welcome to the forum.

Thanks for all the info.

I will put my thoughts down regarding your problems, which may be helpful to others reading in the future:

fumes in car and then a tapping spitting noise on tickover. I knew this to be caused by the fire seals needing replaced which was duly taken care of.

diesel-c3-tips/identifying-a-chuffing-s ... l-t12.html
The link takes you to the page for replacing the fire seals on the 16v engine with plenty of pictures.

After the repair the car was hard to start and then would only rev to about 2,000 rpm and the MIL was on

.

The MIL or engine management light indicates a detected problem with the car, and the cars computer limits the revs to 2000 to protect the engine or the environment.

The bit that bothers me is, why did fixing the fire seals cause a fault? This HAS to be looked at deeply. Did the injectors get damaged on removal? as this seems to be the beginning of all your problems and the key to finding the solution.

I consulted some forums and then I popped a couple of connectors from the injectors and found no change from 2 and 3.I changed the injectors and hey presto it started off the button and ran a dream.

So, what broke the injectors? (if the injectors themselves were actually faulty), and are the two you fitted (2&3) still OK?

Tried and elm 327 but it wouldn't connect to the ECU

ELM327 and any other OBD or OBD2 code scanner won't work on the early (2002/2003) Citroen C3 Diesel. They do work on all the petrols though. Your only choice is the Lexia for the early diesels (as you have discovered). You can find Lexia on eBay too

Citroen stealer in Coatbridge.......said it wasn't the wiring but the injectors

That's interesting, as its back to the injectors.

P1641 Permanent Fault in Injector(s) control Power Stage.

This could be the ECU, wiring or an injector. The ECU has been tested (but the software may be corrupt). The wiring has been disturbed and needs to be checked, but interestingly it could also be a faulty injector.... back to the injectors. The thing that's really going to complicate things is that it may need new injectors and an ECU to get sorted.
Lexia should be able to access the injection ECU to check the software (or just install some new firmware).

My choice would be to first get the injectors tested, then the wiring to the injectors, then check out the ECU.


Good Luck!

Thanks for the reply,the injectors may have been damaged when my son did the seals on 2&3 as I was unwell and he wanted to help me out.He removed the injectors without removing the top cover/inlet manifold and levered the injector top leccy conns to the side for better access to pipe nuts and securing bolts.This may have damaged the electrical connections.
When I felt better I removed the top cover and replaced the seals 0n 1&4 and replaced injectors 2&3 with ones I bought on ebay
the only difference was it had 2 pairs of differently numbered injectors.As I said it then ran very well for a few weeks before it went into non start mode.
while I was trying to get the Lexia to communicate with the ECU,it came with no instructions,I got a warning saying that the wiring from pin 1 ECU to the turbo electrical control was shorted to earth.This may be a spurious warning as I hadn't found the RPO to connect them yet and I can't see any electrical conns around the turbo,,Davie

This may have damaged the electrical connections.

Its worth checking these as this could be your issue. But also,

difference was it had 2 pairs of differently numbered injectors

which may need to be coded to the ECU to run properly (quite why is ran ok, then failed is beyond me though)

I was trying to get the Lexia to communicate with the ECU,it came with no instructions

Lexias don't come with 'instructions' but there are some hints in the software for some jobs, but without the citroen training its all a bit of searching your way through the menu system, its not all laid out as you may expect though.


This post discusses the turbo electrovalve, with pictures of it and its location (no where near the turbo!). This could be what your 'warning saying that the wiring from pin 1 ECU to the turbo electrical control was shorted to earth' is referring to:
https://citroenc3owners.com/diesel-citro ... .html#p480
the link should take you part way down the post, straight to the relevant part, but the whole thing is worth reading

This may be a spurious warning as I hadn't found the RPO to connect them yet

You can enter the VIN into lexia instead of the RPO/RP/ORGA,


This post states the location of the RPO and has some information about the sticker:
https://citroenc3owners.com/citroen-c3-t ... -t204.html


If Citroen technicians were unaware that non trained hands had been on the injector electrical connectors and even the injectors themselves (they can't take any rough handling, injectors or technicians), its unlikely they would have had all the information they needed to make a complete diagnosis of the problem as the connectors just don't break in normal usage.

Thank you Arfur.This gives me much more to work on.The Electrovalve diagrams are for 16 valve and mine is an 8 valve but at least I know I need to look a bit deeper.I will go through as many system as I can to get to know how the Lexia operates and what I can do with it.If I am able to code and re-code Injectors/ECU then that would be an enormous help.I'll keep you posted,pardon the pun,,,,Davie

Hi,I was just posting to bring everybody up to date with my problem.I found an electro-valve at front right of engine near the front mounting.I couldn't see any damage or pinching to the harness.This valve seems to only serve the EGR valve.I have put the injectors into a specialist so I'm just waiting to hear from him as to their condition.I will post any info I get from him,.Davie

snowie wrote:Hi,I was just posting to bring everybody up to date with my problem.I found an electro-valve at front right of engine near the front mounting.I couldn't see any damage or pinching to the harness.This valve seems to only serve the EGR valve.I have put the injectors into a specialist so I'm just waiting to hear from him as to their condition.I will post any info I get from him,.Davie

Hi Davie, how did you get on with the problem?