C5 Aircross Timing Chain

[Steve Walsh]

My Aircross is in Citroen dealer for a service in the morning, 1.5 Blue hdi, DV5RC. Is there a service bulletin regarding the 7mm / 8mm chain. I have just short of 90000km on and would rather it was changed before it becomes an issue.
I have never used a garage to service my vehicles but they gave me a warranty when I bought it and don't want any arguments if things go wrong in the future

Steve

[GiveMeABreak]

Hi Steve - yes, absolutely an issue with the 1.5 HDi DV5R engines from before late 2023, which includes mine.

The problem is that the 7mm camshaft chain is of insufficient strength for the job and later, post late 2023 vehicles are supplied with the 8mm chain.

There are various technical bulletins regarding excessive noise from the timing area for which a complete replacement kit is required. This is not just a matter of the chain of course, but involves a few grand of parts!

PSA have, I believe extended the warranty for this issue to about 5 years for vehicles that have these symptoms that have a full service history. They will not however provide an early intervention util the symptoms start exhibiting (cop out clause IMO).

Some people have decided to actually just replace the existing 7mm cam chain to help circumvent the problem from arising, which apparently doesn't take too long. Of course the 8mm chain can't simply be replaced without all the other bits, but this may be a preventative solution. However once the noise is there, that would indicate that it is starting to break, so may also require the the complete repair if this is the case.

Just for your information the 'kit' contains the following:

Service Action
Check of the noise coming from the camshaft drive chain.
Identification of the type of camshaft drive chain fitted to the internal combustion engine.
Replacement of the camshaft drive chain with an 8 mm chain (Modernisation of the internal combustion engine ).
Engine management ECU downloading (if necessary).

Parts required
1Camshaft kit (Part No. 16 381 598 80).
1 Camshaft pulley bolt (Part No. 0806 49).
1 Crankshaft pulley bolt (Part No. 0516 A3).
1 Camshaft seal (Part No. 98 239 200 80).
1 Seal (Part No. 3111 27).
1 Timing belt kit with coolant pump (Part No. 16 289 261 80).
1 Injection pump outlet pipe (Part No. 98 162 963 80).
1 Cylinder 1 injector supply pipe (Part No. 98 117 373 80).
1 Cylinder 1 injector supply pipe (Part No. 98 117 375 80).
1 Cylinder 1 injector supply pipe (Part No. 98 117 376 80).
1 Cylinder 1 injector supply pipe (Part No. 98 256 155 80).
4 Injector seals (Part No. 98 042 205 80).
4 Clamp fixing bolts (Part No. 98 089 827 80).
1 Set of oil separator seals (Part No. 16 381 593 80).
1 Set of vacuum pump seals (Part No. 4556 24).
4 Injector well seals (Part No. 98 173 808 80).
1 Air union seal (Part No. 98 137 583 80).
1 Diesel injector return pipe (Part No. 98 247 231 80).
1 Oil filter (Part No. 16 806 824 80).

N.B. : To optimise logistics, the parts kit available contains the camshafts, the camshaft carrier, the chain, the tensioner and an information label to be affixed in the engine compartment

Check

The engine coolant temperature must be higher than 80 °C.
Engine running at idle.
Check if there is a knocking noise in the upper area of the cylinder head on the timing belt side.
If there is a noise: Continue the check.

Identify the type of camshaft drive chain fitted to the internal combustion engine.
Locate and note the part number engraved on the camshaft carrier (1) (at "a") using a mirror .
If the part number is 9812647280: The internal combustion engine is fitted with a 7 mm camshaft drive chain: Carry out repair .
If the part number is 9830580480: The internal combustion engine is fitted with a 8 mm camshaft drive chain: The internal combustion engine has been modernised: Do not apply this document; Carry out in-depth fault finding.
N.B. : If the camshaft drive chain is noisy and the internal combustion engine is fitted with an 8 mm camshaft drive chain, send a dealer issue detection incident (DID I)

Repair

Remove the camshaft carrier (1).
Additional parts which must always be replaced: None.

In addition, carrying out this repair requires the following operations to be carried out:
Observe the safety and cleanliness recommendations
Use the products recommended by the manufacturer
Perform the operations that are required prior to a disconnection of the ancillaries battery
Remove the under-engine protector
Remove the scuttle panel
Remove the air filter housing
Remove the windscreen wiper arms
Remove the timing belt
Remove the air mixer unit
Remove the vacuum pump
Remove the camshaft position sensor
Remove the 4 Diesel injectors
Remove the fuel high pressure common rail
Respect the safety and cleanliness recommendations that are specific to high pressure Diesel injection (HDi) engines
Modernise the internal combustion engine by replacing the camshaft drive chain with an 8 mm chain.
Replace the following components :
The camshaft chain
The hydraulic tensioner
The exhaust camshaft
The inlet camshaft
The camshaft carrier
The coolant pump
The timing belt kit
Fit the new camshaft carrier (1).
Additional parts which must always be replaced :
4 Diesel injector seal
1 Camshaft pulley bolt
In addition, carrying out this repair requires the following operations to be carried out :
Observe the tightening torques
Apply a bead of sealing paste of about 1,5 - 2,5 mm diameter around the seal face ( Index "E10" )
Refit the fuel high pressure common rail
Refit the 4 Diesel injectors
Refit the camshaft position sensor
Refit the vacuum pump
Refit the air metering unit
Refit the timing belt
Refit the air filter housing
Refit the under-engine protector
Perform the operations that are required following a reconnection of the ancillaries battery
Bleed and top up the level of the cooling circuit.

N.B.: A label supplied with the camshaft kit must be affixed in the engine compartment; this label indicates that the engine has been modernised and the mileage of the next timing belt replacement (in 180 000 km or 120 000 miles or 10 years)

[Steve Walsh]

WOW, Not sure how good the garage is, it is a Citroen Main Dealer, As far as I know it is fine at the moment. When I booked it in for it's service I lied to them and said maybee there was a rattle in timing chain area in the hope they give it a good looking at and at least my concerns are on record. I have a warranty on the car from them until the end of Jan 2025..... I do quite a lot of km's and don't need a failure. 13000km since beginning of Feb.

Thanks for all that info Marc. Very much appreciated..

[RichardW]

In this thread (viewtopic.php?t=74956), wheeler suggested an RP no for the change over of 15758 (31/12/19), but service box suggests a change over RP of 16855 (01/01/23). So confusion still reigns! You'd certainly want to be monitoring it on cold start for any rattle noise.

[GiveMeABreak]

I've done a fair bit of looking into this and if affects just about all 1.5 DV5 engines, except revised late 2023 models that have now got the 8mm chain fitted from factory.

And further, I'd ignore all the build date crap to be honest as if there's an issue with the chain on these it's going to affect all of them already running and this is one of the issues. The bulletins are there for just about all of these that I've looked at and each one keeps getting updated, so about 50 odd I 've checked from pre late 2023 and they all have the same. It's a nightmare and PSA have screwed up again but won't cough up and just do the right thing.

Hence for those who are going to be well out of any so called good will of a paltry 5 years (that's only another 2 years after your official warranty), you're doomed, so may as well consider replacing the existing 7mm chain only as a job for peace of mind at some stage.

Oh, and in the case of the TSBs I referred to back in that post, we are now on update 17 and 35 of each of these TSBs respectively, so they keep changing the info.

[GiveMeABreak]

I think they've had to resort to the 'repair' as there are short supply of the engines as we're all being forced into Duracells, and they're probably reserving those for owners where the engine has just failed spectacularly as it has for some.

I've very low mileage and have only done just over 20k miles in just over 4 years, so there's no hope for us getting any good will should the inevitable happen. So light on the foot and no harsh driving for me!

[PaulC5]

I today used our 308 2019 with the 1.5 hdi engine and noticed it is making a whirr whirr noise at the timing belt end, just like in the video in this link where a new timing belt, tensioners and water pump seemed to be the fix. https://www.peugeotforums.com/threads/e ... tby=oldest Also 2 months ago it had its service and the dealer put in the latest oil spec and today whilst warming up it made a noisy tappet sound so maybe the tappets do not like the thicker oil now being used to help the timing chain. All disappointing when it is only on 13700 miles. A trip to the dealer is in order but it reached 5 years at the end of May so any extended warranty probably will not apply.

[GiveMeABreak]

Take it anyway as you may find they won't argue given the low mileage. They should check by manually turning the engine to see if there is a beating noise from the cam area.

It may be something else, but I'd get them to look at it now rather than later and tell them you're aware of the cam chain issues and the upgrade to an 8mm chain.

[bobins]

It's been over 150 years since the first internal combustion engine was made and there's been a lot of progress since then, and now we're reduced to this where they won't make one that'll last 5 years
The inexorable march of progress, eh ?

[PaulC5]

The 308 is now booked in at the Peugeot dealer to be looked at next Tuesday.

Bobins makes a good point about engines now being fragile. Used to be rusting bodywork to write a car off, now engines ? I had a 1988 Saab 900 2.0 petrol that was on 190k miles when I changed it in 2000 and it did not use any oil between servicing. Only major repair I did was to replace the gearbox bearings. Next was a 1993 Saab 9000 with a turbo 2.0 petrol and it was on about 150k miles when I replaced that but it needed a timing chain around 130k miles as well as gearbox bearings. Then a 1998 Saab 9-5 2.3 petrol which was a GM engine, worn chain at 90k miles, turbo failed around then, did not breath very well so always had mayonnaise in the oil filler cap. This was replaced with the 2004 C5 and then the 2007 C5, both seem to have decent engines.

[Steve Walsh]

Just back from Citroen Main Dealer, 90000KM Service. 237 euro's....... All the parts have been ordered to do the full change, cams, chain, belt etc. Ringing me when parts arrive and they want it for 2 days... Pleased with the service, free loan car today and for the chain job. 130km round trip to them but no faith in my local dealer 5 mins away..Well done Citroen Perigueux

[zakazak]

237€...I expected a lot more.

Is this also an issue with the 1.6 PureTech 180 engine from 2019/2020?

[GiveMeABreak]

No, we are talking about the 1.5 DV5 diesel engine specifically here.

[GiveMeABreak]

It's been over 150 years since the first internal combustion engine was made and there's been a lot of progress since then, and now we're reduced to this where they won't make one that'll last 5 years
The inexorable march of progress, eh ?

I blame the EU on all this with all the Emissions standards - forcing constructors to make lighter, more efficient, more compact engines, more sensors to break more cost to maintain - some of this commendable in theory, but useless in practice. Everything snaps, breaks, runs hotter and faster and won't last nearly as along as more traditional engines.

[PaulC5]

Our 1.5 hdi 308 was checked at the Peugeot dealer yesterday but it did not make the noise, typical. They let it run for an hour, did a test drive and I also listened to it when we went to collect it. They asked us to do a video when it makes the noise again. Their 1.5 hdi expert said the chains can wear at any mileage, low or high but it is mainly vans that suffer due to the hard life. When it starts to get bad it will rattle so not at that stage yet. He said being serviced all the time by them might help if there needs to be a repair/claim, despite being just over 5 years old.