Citroen C3 Owners

Hi guys,
I have the fault code on a 2012 16v 1.4 EP3C C3 Picasso engine in a car I have just bought. No fault codes at time of purchase, good service history, drove 60miles, filled up with (Shell) fuel and on restart got the MIL warning light. (that'll teach me for maintaining the damn thing and putting fuel in it, Shell as well )

I used my Mercedes version iCarsoft https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ICARSOFT-MB- ... 3667115499 reader and got a "P0343 Pending - Camshaft Position Sensor A Circuit High Bank 1 or Single Sensor" fault, cleared it, restarted a few times but it came back and continues despite clearing memory.
On changing the sensor I did notice a fair bit of emulsion which has since burned off after a long run and wondered if this was enough to skew the readings, but no. Car still drives just fine by the way...

Hoping for a quick-fix I ordered a warranted compatible part https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CITROEN-C3-P ... 3712152940 and swapped out the top sensor of the 2 cam sensors (16v engine), then tried the lower sensor, resetting codes each time but the fault remains and does NOT follow the replacement or original sensors. This makes me think:

• Are the non-OEM sensors useless?
• Do I have a wiring fault to ECU - how likely/rare is this?
• ECU failure - not unheard of, it's a Citroen after all but I can't really find a plausible root cause for a sudden failure...
• Timing issues - it's a cam belt engine so not sure if this is relevant?

So my first Q for you gurus of the little French beastie is - do I need Lexia (and all the pfaff with Win7) to get more detailed data from the ECU or will my (new) iCarsoft reader offer the same data anyway?

any help is appreciated and I will post a progress report

G

gmanropley wrote: ↑Sat Apr 10, 2021 7:22 pm do I need Lexia (and all the pfaff with Win7) to get more detailed data from the ECU

Hello

Lexia (Diagbox) will do more than an OBD2 reader.

Will it give you the answer to the fault? sometime it does, sometimes it doesn't, it all depends if the fault is common enough to be saved in the software (or whatever criteria Citroen decides on).

Sometimes it gives you more tests to do and guides you through the tests, sometimes it doesn't.

I think the only way to know for sure for P0343 is to try it.

Just because it can for one engine, it may not help so much with the same fault code on a different engine as the faults can have different causes.