Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

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tomthered
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Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by tomthered »

This is for my son in law who has a 2006 Citroen C8. My daughter parked up today, opened the rear offside automatic door and now it wont close. Would anyone know if there is a procedure to close it manually as it is stuck open at the moment. When he presses the button inside it beeps and tries to open, you cannot even push it closed.
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by miked »

Our 807 often bounces the door back open. Seatbelt hanging out the door is the usual culprit.
You only get a couple of goes with the buttons, then it reverts to a manual sliding door.

If it will not move/slide with physical effort then I would guess something is mechanically wrong. When the auto motor shuts down and it goes to 'slide it yourself' mode, it is just like a normal sliding side van door, just with a bit more effort.

Can you give us a bit more information. Is the door stuck wide open? Or does it slide but not latch?
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by tomthered »

It is stuck wide open and will not move at all. When you press the close button it then tries to open, even though it is open. I thought you could manually close it but this won't budge. Unsure what you mean by latch? Just wondered if there are any usual culprits to look out for? :(
Last edited by tomthered on 25 Apr 2015, 09:42, edited 1 time in total.
citronut
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by citronut »

i'v not had experience of these, but could it just be dirty/tarnished electrical contact pads,

what is meant by latching is on pulling it closed does the lock engage,

but you do say it wont even move from the fully open so the only latching involved here is the fully open latch,

if its electricary/a complicator bugged causing the fault, i wonder if disconnecting and reconnecting the battery will reset it,

mind on disconnecting and reconnecting the battery, on doing either/both do not touch, operate any switch's or open/shut any doors, bonnet or tail gate, basically do not operate anything that has electricary in it for a good minute, this allows the BSI to shut down and reboot correctly
Regards, malcolm.

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tomthered
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by tomthered »

Will pass the message on but as she is a childminder, she needs such a large car to transport all the kids. Am always wary of the battery disconnecting routine in case it throws some other problem up for them. Will pass the info on and see what happens. It does seem strange because it was working normally before then with no issues whatsoever.
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by myglaren »

Check the latch.
If it has been knocked and thinks the door is closed it will only try to open it.
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by miked »

I've never had much trouble with our doors, but knowing how they usually behave I would be confident saying it must be mechanical rather than electrical.

You should always be able to manually slide the door shut, just like you would on a van / minibus side door. My first thought is that the motor or cable must be jammed. Access to the motor is through the panel behind the door (ie. back row of seats). I've never had to work on our doors but I remember seeing the motor when I was tracing the rear screen washer pipe. If I remember correctly I didn't need any tools, the cover just pulls off. I would start by having a look at the motor, if it can turn by hand, and from there try to work out how it pulls the cables to slide the door.

A bit more background info in case it helps (now or later for anyone reading in the future) All the electrics in the door (Window winder / locks / anything in the latch which tells it it's closed) are disconnected from the car when the door opens so there is nothing electrical (switch / sensor etc) in the door itself which could be a problem if the door is open. The near side door has a mechanical interlock with the filler cap which prevents the door opening if the filler cap is open (I don't think this is relevant to this problem). Each door has it's own ECU. I've never seen one but the lexia found them. I don't think any diagnostics would help you though, other than confirming that the door won't close. If I think of anything else I will update this.

EDIT: Just been out for a look at ours - The latch is in the door so cannot be a problem. The cover over the motor is behind the rear speaker. It's quite small but you can see the cables if you remove it. Actually you don't remove it. There is a screw at 12 o'clock which you cannot undo unless you were to take the whole interior panel off. You can pull the motor cover forward and rotate it around the screw though.
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by tomthered »

Gave him your info guys and he found a damaged cable but has been able to manually close the door until he can get it replaced. :)
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by tomthered »

It seems the cable has like a nipple at one end to locate somewhere and the other has like a washer attached to the cable where a bolt goes through. However, he is unsure where this goes, just glad to get it closed but would anyone have an inkling how this fixes in, is it hard or easy? Even a diagrammatic schematic from Service Citroen might help explaining it!!
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Denzil
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by Denzil »

Hi...One end of the cable is fitted to the motor drum through a slot and slide nipple holder....The door end just presses onto a post on the door slide Bracket at the back of the inside of the door and runs in the door channel ...An internal spring clip retains it there....There are two of cables and two posts...One for opening and one for closing....Tension is maintained by using an Allen key ....Push the Allen key in against spring pressure on the motor cable drum and turn to tighten or loosen tension...Hope this helps
beaker141
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Re: Citroen C8 offside rear door will not close

Post by beaker141 »

Denzil - thanks for that information - very accurate and useful.

I had a stuck door (open) - one of the cables had frayed/snapped and then got drawn in to the motor body and snarled the whole thing up so the door wouldnt close. As its all tensioned, as soon as the tension isnt there it goes wrong (A bit like the spare wheel mechanism!)

I had to cut both cables off the door to get a "non electric" door so it would close - its a bit easier to use manually once the cables have been cut off - hence anyone reading this whose door is broken and you dont plan on fixing it - cut the cables off and it'll be easier to use.

I called citroen parts thinking I could possibly get new cables - that was a bit optimistic - so no you cant, you have to buy the complete motor assembly which they quoted at £500 ! There should be laws against this sort of stuff.

So I've got a motor/gear/cable off Ebay for £30 that has both cables complete and I'll try swopping the whole motor over this weekend.

1st Question - with there being some form of ECU on the motor, is it best to try and swop the ECU over across from the old to the replacement - or might the car just deal with it? It knows there is an electric door there - I'm just worried it might be coded somehow with a specific id?
2nd Question - I will need to take the rear bracket off the sliding door in order to get the cables attached - is the door easy enough to support or could I easily drop it and bend something !
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