1.6HDi coming our way - Please Help!

[Welly]

Thanks, I do need to be sure what it is before doing the work, bloody annoying I hate mistery noises.

[steve_earwig]

Could the bat flattery and the squeaky noises be related? Perhaps in an "alternator bearings in death throws" kind of way...

[Welly]

Could be, I might squib a bit of WD at it to see.

My mechanic said the battery change was a bit of a PITA but he managed to frig up a temporary supply so the car didn't realise the battery was being swapped

[Bailes1992]

If you've had enough of the Citreon then I have a lovely Astra here. Could always do a swap?

[Welly]

There's been a few times I've wanted the Astra back recently but I am making progress with the C4....

On Saturday I fixed the known issue of the airflow direction actuator sticking and now the airflow can be adjusted in all directions warm feet again yay!

I then spent another hour trying to fix* the temperature adjustment flap actuators only to concluded that Citroen had already done that at the factory so I needn't have bothered at least I now know how to remove the centre console and lower footwell dash trims.

Then I tackled the Airfilter with the help of the internet and Welly_Jnr. Many swear words were delivered, torches were used, about 8 pairs of nitrile gloves torn to shreds but I finally got the (Citroen Genuine* ) new filter in and it looks like the old one was the original to me; 30K miles and 6 years of filth no evidence in the paperwork of it being replaced before....as per the Cabin filter which was laughably easy to replace we thought there must be a hidden pitfall somewhere but no you pull off a 'letterbox' door on the bulkhead and post the new filter in - literally 15 seconds and again no evidence of it being done before

Whilst at Citroen I had the service manager discuss the squeak/chirpy noise from the Cambelt end and he said without doubt it needs a new Cambelt kit as there was a TSB on the early DV6's about corrosion 'dripping' from the lower crank and contaminating the belt/tensioners. He waved the TSB at me showing this stuff dribbling from the lower cambelt pulley which you must clean off and then jobs a good'un seems to me like some kind of assembly lubricant that goes off or something as there's no actual leak present

We're up to £400.00 so far on fairly routine maintenance without the Cambelt and still need 2 rear tyres and front discs/pads. Cars eh?

[jasper5]

I mentioned the easiest way of replacing the air filter on these cars somewhere else on here not long ago....remove the shelf that goes under the wipers...dead easy then.

I've had that squeaky noise many times on the petrol models, it usually is the timing belt squeaking but I've never replaced the cambelt kit especially for that noise. The last one I did was February last year...it did about 20,000 miles with that noise until cambelt replacement time.
The good thing about these 1.6 HDi engines is that the cambelt job is an easy one.....one thing to note is that they changed the cambelt on the later ones...the tensioner, guides and water pump remained the same.

[Welly]

Thanks jasper, I did remove the 'blanket' thing and plastic cross bar but although I've had the scuttle tray off before this time it put up too much of a fight so although it was tricky it was doable with someone helping (holding things out the way or pointing a torch for me etc) I guess next time round I'd do it in half the time.

Predictably the new air filter has made no difference to the cars pick up on the road, I thought the throttle response would be sharper, oh well.

I paid £37.70 (after squeezing a 10% discount) at the Main Dealer for a Cabin Filter and Air Filter - is that expensive? I only decided to do the job on Sat morning so didn't have time to shop around. I did get some worthy free advice though but they would NOT give me a copy of the TSB for the Cambelt, blimey it was like showing me the UK's only £1,000.00 note

[Welly]

Just had a price for the 1.6HDi cambelt 'kit' at a Peugeot Specialist - £264.00 inc vat

Shitrun wanted £345.00

264 seems ok-ish to me??

[trufflehunt]

Just had a price for the 1.6HDi cambelt 'kit' at a Peugeot Specialist - £264.00 inc vat

Shitrun wanted £345.00

264 seems ok-ish to me??

Uh ?

This is the result for a search on C4 1.6 HDI cambelt kit ( ie not getting into any of the varieties of C4 )..

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from= ... t&_sacat=0

[trufflehunt]

I paid £37.70 (after squeezing a 10% discount) at the Main Dealer for a Cabin Filter and Air Filter - is that expensive?

Eye wateringly.

[highlander]

Just had a price for the 1.6HDi cambelt 'kit' at a Peugeot Specialist - £264.00 inc vat

Shitrun wanted £345.00

264 seems ok-ish to me??

Sure, as long as that includes fitting.

[Welly]

Sorry yes that's a fitted price above, it's a Poo-go specialist who say they've done literally hundreds of 1.6 cambelts. They've been in business for years I hadn't considered them before. My usual mechanic is having problems I didn't want to burden him with a potentially sh!t job at the moment.

Truffy - I was in a rush to sort the filters, had a kinda window of opportunity to change them crop up one Saturday morning so just took the wallet-emptying approach, won't do that again.

[steve_earwig]

Can't comment on the prices (wrong country) but you could order up stuff like filters in advance, you know your mileage more-or-less, so you could have them ready for when you've got a moment.

There's always ebay or a decent factors. Tbh I thought PSA were reasonable for routine service stuff but it's a long time since I bought anything there (sump guard I believe)

[jasper5]

These 1.6 HDi cambelts are an easy job.
I still have a Dayco belt (brand new) lying about in my garage at home...the later ones have a different cambelt but the rest of the parts are all the same...I found out that the later kit is a lot more expensive....2011 on if I remember.

Dayco are the OEM belt kits.
Can't remember what I charged for the job.
Ask them to change the aux belt at the same time.

[Welly]

Thanks, already done the aux belt and its tensioner (££££) in a bid to cure a noise which now seems to come from the cambelt area. Citroen issued a TSB on the early 1.6's about the tensioners/idlers getting contaminated with dirt and making a chirpy/squeeky noise until the cambelt kit is replaced.