Overheating and failing to start and much more!

Hello everyone,

I was brought an 04 citroen C3 Pluriel 1.4 Petrol by the inlaws as an engagement present (Its my daily driver), it has 2 owners, no service history or paper work and looks like the bonnet has never been opened, But apart from my sour feeling towards the car at the moment I want to give it a chance!

I have just spent abit of cash on service parts that I am going to be doing this weekend as I dont think its been touched in its life.

Anyways I have a list of issues that I have found wrong with it during my 2 weeks of ownership

I have a couple of questions though

The temp guage is mental, I cannot work out if its behaviour is normal for Citroen ? (I have never owned one) I use it to drive too work, its a 10 mile drive which is enough for a car to warm up properly so I would expect three bars on the temp guage, instead I will get 1 bar, sometimes 2, but then it might drop down to 1 again or show none at all ? if I go on a longer drive it will slowly creep up to three bars, be fine for about 10 more minutes and then sudenly go right to the to the red mark and beep at me. When this happens I just wack up the heater to max and cook myself in the cabin until I can pull over and let it cool down, the fan kicks in obviously and 3 minutes later temp mark is back down to no bars at all ? The engine doesnt feel hot and the coolant, although old and shoddy isnt boiling over at all and doesnt feel excessivly hot.

No I am giving it a good service this weekend and have order both a sensor and a new thermostat, as its had no service history I assumed the worst and had the coolant sniff checked which returned no carbons, no mayonaise on the dipstick / oilcap either so headgasket is unlikely, has anyone had this issue and am I digging in the right area ?

Just too add too the symptoms, I drove a good 40 miles today without it overheating, but did have the heater on max heat and power all the way (Yep I nearly died of heat exhaustion with the current weather), left the shitroen in the carpark for an hour or so whilst I did my food shopping, come back start it up and it would start ? You could hear it trying to start but nothing ? Only started once I have it some heavy gas and revved it too 4k mark and then it ticked over fine ? it did 'Overheat' again whilst driving home though. Is fuel evaporation possible with the C3 ? Has anyone had similar issues ?

Hi RoryK, welcome to the forum

RoryK wrote:The temp guage is mental, I cannot work out if its behaviour is normal for Citroen ? (I have never owned one)

From what I have seen, they behave as normal. 3 bars after a while and never above as the fan cuts in before they go any higher. If you get wild changes in temperature reading, its often a faulty sensor. Yours could be an air lock or thermostat trouble.

RoryK wrote:Now I am giving it a good service this weekend and have order both a sensor and a new thermostat,

That's got the above sorted, get the right OAT coolant, see this topic The right coolant for a Citroen C3 for links to the red stuff.

A tip for refilling the coolant from empty is to make up a header tank from a 2ltr coke bottle with the bottom cut off. Upturn the bottle and stuff the neck of the bottle into the coolant reservoir. This can allow you to gain a head of coolant much higher up than the highest point in the cooling system, run the engine till the thermostat opens with the header than in place (may require an extra pair of hands or some ingenuity ). You will waste the extra, so buy more than you need.


I think you will clear your faults with a good service; plugs, coil pack, oil and filter, air filter. There probably isn't a fuel filter, so don't waste too much time looking for it, if you can't see it


How many miles has the car done?


When all the work is done, this may be of use to you Reset the service indicator of a Citroen C3

Cheers for the reply buddy,

Shes only done 52k Miles but I dont think she has ever been serviced or looked after very well, the filter and pollen filter I replaced last night as it was a quick job and I can only go for so long before I have to tinker, but anyway both filters were black and the originals. Every panel has a scratch of a suff but nothing I cant work with and repair myself.

Cheers for the link I have seen that one, orderd 5 litres of pink coolant and 5 litres of de-ionised water as I am far too impatient to boil off tap water and let it cool down lol. Its all sitting in the back of the car at the moment.

Like you say my suspicions are the thermostat aswell, one thing I cant find though is where the bleed valve is for the coolant system ? I intend to drain everything it has at the moment and then bung the hose in and flush out all the old stuff before putting the new pink coolant in ?

I have to say though, although the car is very femanine and I must look like a complete nonse, I quite enjoy driving it, very easy going especially for work and back, I have a Nissan 200sx as my fun car but that can be abit hard going when I am driving to work at 5am in the morning lol.

Cheers for the reply buddy,

No problem

one thing I cant find though is where the bleed valve is for the coolant system ?

If you have the little pipe that can be seen in the picture, then that is the self bleeding part, get the header tank right and the self bleeding will work. (Picture is from a diesel, so its worth checking you have the same pipe on your petrol)

I intend to drain everything it has at the moment and then bung the hose in and flush out all the old stuff before putting the new pink coolant in ?

Good idea, maybe it will be worth flushing out the tap water with some de-ionised water before filling the system?

I have to say though, although the car is very feminine and I must look like a complete nonse, I quite enjoy driving it, very easy going especially for work and back,

If you ever get the chance to take the arches off and get the car into 'spider' configuration, I think it looks even better.

Hmm thats interesting! Mine doesnt appear to have that pipe comming out of it.. I thought it was just a breathing point ?

Spider position ? Whats that then ? Roof off I assume ? lol

Pluriel in spider configuration: (well, its only a model, but you get the idea).

Hmm thats interesting! Mine doesnt appear to have that pipe comming out of it.. I thought it was just a breathing point ?

Haynes says, for the petrol, there are bleed screws on the heater outlet pipe and on the coolant housing on the left side of the cylinder head.

The diesel one only has the heater matrix bleed screw and that pipe

Drain point on the petrol is the lower radiator hose.

Tips for getting the air out is to squeeze the lower radiator pipe and while the engine is running at a fast idle to allow the engine to warm up enough to bring the fan in and out and in and out, with the header tank attached. Then you are done.

I have done this by myself and getting the header tank jammed in nice and tight is key to only needing one pair of hands.

This is Citroen tool for providing a head of coolant when refilling, coupled to a extension adaptor bit of pipe to raise the container up a bit more.