My brother’s Citroen Synergie has had a problem ever since first buying his 2001 plate HDI.
Although the car seemed normal to him, a quick test drive from yours truly revealed it to be severely lacking in low-down power between 1000rpm and 2500rpm. So much so that the car required a lot of revving to get it to move, which has also had the nasty effect of killing his clutch.
Well, if you’re suffering a similar problem with your 110bhp HDI engine, we may be able to offer you some hope.
We recently found a solution for this after paying for diagnosis from a main dealer. And the part to fix it only costs £17.71!
The problem was traced to something called a swirl valve diagram. It is a small part which allows the valves to all work effectively, but if it’s got a leak or split, it means you could be running on only 4 valves instead of 8. The symptoms I’ve described aren’t always picked up though, as the car doesn’t throw up a warning light for this error, will still cruise at 80mph, and may seem fine. But if you feel your car is flat as a pancake performance wise, this could be your answer.
Description and part number (from a Peugeot dealer, but should be the same for Fiat/Peugeot/Citroen) on our bill was:
P0000036394 DIAPHRAGME £17.71 EACH
Labour was roughly 1.5hrs on the job, and as he had it diagnosed and fitted by a main dealer we have no idea how it was replaced or what it looks like.
Good luck with yours, and let us know if you’ve suffered or sorted the same problem.
