Automatic stuck in D3

[Darren1111]

Ran out of diesel night previous. Oil top up showing.

Next morning car stuck in D3. Indicating parking breaks faulty, the gearbox and the ESP faulty.

Even in manual I can’t change gear.

I assume running it of fuel caused these.

Any suggestions,

Darren

[Darren1111]

It is a Citroen C5 diesel

[GiveMeABreak]

First pop up your VIN so we can see exactly the correct model.

Next can you be a bit more descriptive. Where are you seeing those messages, which warning lights are being displayed and exact messages?

Any photos? You can upload them directly here.

Is the car starting and explain what happens when you put it into drive. Any detail will be helpful. Do you have a diagnostic scanner and if so are you getting any fault codes?

[Darren1111]

Thank you very much Marc,

It’s a C5 exclusive HDI AUTO
Cylinder 2179CC
Reg *******
The photo order is the chronological order of faults. Apologies for being upside down.

[GiveMeABreak]

Ok, so you have the DW12C 2.2 HDi Engine with FAP and AM6 box (2013).

From what I can tell and you will need to get it diagnosed; the AM6 Auto gearbox has gone into 'Refuge' or 'Limp' mode because of a problem detected by the ECU. This is a backup mode and shows the 'D3' indicator to confirm. It is a protection measure when there is an issue with the gearbox and limits the operation of the gearbox until rectified to protect itself. The fault normally clears when the car is restarted as far as I can tell.

The ESP / ASR fault and the parking brake fault can be related as the ESP ECU controls the electronic parking brake ECU. So if the ESP ECU is detecting a fault from the Gearbox ECU (as they communicate with each other) then this could be why it is throwing up associated errors.

We need to find the cause of the original fault first and work through them. When you say "Oil top up showing" what do you men buy this? was there a message asking you to top up the gearbox oil specifically?

What you need now is to get it read with Diagbox (Citroen's diagnostic tool) to find out the actual fault codes. Because this 'backup' mode can relate to several issues, we need to look at the fault codes to get an idea of the problem.

Was / is the car drivable after you topped up the diesel?

[Darren1111]

Yes, the car still drives. It stays in D3.

The message was a general engine oil message. It measured ok Ontario dipstick. I think an oil changed seems sensible.

I will read the diagnostics to find the actual codes.

Thanks for your help.

[GiveMeABreak]

Ok. Essential to get the codes read first. Although the gearboxes are claimed to be 'selaed for life', this is in fact not true and they do require oil changes to keep them running in good order. The oil cannot be changed in one go I'm afraid, as the oil cannot be fully removed, so requires several changes over a period of time to get as best a complete change as is possible.

There is a special procedure required to change the oil (documented here on this forum), but Elis has done his C5 and has some pictures on the procedure in his post here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=58134&start=45#p543115

[bobins]

Still not clear if this is engine oil that needs topping up or gearbox oil ?

[xantia_v6]

I don't think there is a gearbox oil level sensor, so I think it must be engine.

[bobins]

Presumably what caused the issue is the engine conking out whilst in gear. I don't know much about auto 'boxes but I'd presume that in itself wouldn't cause a major issue, but I could understand how it would throw the various ECUs into a spin.