C2 Sensodrive Problem - Gears Dissapear

BalleR

BalleR

Member
Tadpole
Joined
Mar 18, 2004
Messages
67
Location
Usa
Well,

I just had a scary incident on Epping Rd this evening. I was driving up eping rd, accelerating to the 80km speed limit, and approaching the crest of a hill, the car goes out of gear, and no other gears become available! At this point, there was a beeping sound, and a dash " - " symbol, where the current gear is normally displayed. There was also a snowflake symbol displayed i think.

So i had no gears, and i had to come to a stop somwhere, where i wouldnt get swiped by unsuspecting drivers on this main road. I eventually rolled it into a right turn bay.

I switched the engine off. Then attempted to switch it on several times, engine wouldnt start. Did it again, and it showed 5th gear. Odd. Then it went into first, and the car started. Then i pulled away, all seems fine now.

The car is about 2 weeks old now, 228 kms on the clock. Im lucky today was a sunday, and there werent many cars around. Im also lucky that this didnt happen while trying to make a right hand turn against traffic!

Has anyone experienced this? Any Advice? Basically, what i want is, for this to never happen again! And i want a guarantee from citroen. So if they can rectify it, and prove it, im happy. But if they give me some uncertain response, im not really interested in driving this car. Its dangerous.

So perhaps ill be talking to the dealer tomorrow.
 
It's most likely a software problem, I dont know if they can guarantee it would never happen again. It's just like saying my Mac or PC would never crash. One of my friend from Uni had a M3 with SMG, and even that went haywire & getting stuck in 1st as oppose to N when you starts the car. If I remember correctly it was a combination of software problem and mechanical fault. :nownow:
 
Well,

I dont see how they can bring cars out that dont drive. Im happy as long as the car runs, i know about the jumpyness of the sensodrive, and some of the little niggles. Thats perfectlly fine with me. But when the car stops working at 80+ kms, thats rubbish.
 
Hope you get a good solution from Citroen, although to be honest, it's hardly done any wonders to improve my poor impression of Senselessdrive.
 
???

BalleR said:
Well,

I dont see how they can bring cars out that dont drive. Im happy as long as the car runs, i know about the jumpyness of the sensodrive, and some of the little niggles. Thats perfectlly fine with me. But when the car stops working at 80+ kms, thats rubbish.
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Sorry to hear about your problem with SensoDrive, BalleR - my c2 has never done anything like that - in over 27000 km.

I suspect that it is a software problem...and I would definitely be going to the dealer and getting it fixed...maybe by reloading the transmission software again.

Cheers
 
Well i hope its software, and a matter or reinstalling/updating.

But its an 05 build, wouldnt it have current software.

I just dont want to get caught without any drive, in the middle of a hill, oncoming traffic, main road, harbour bridge, tunnel, ect. Ill be forever paranoid now.
 
This is one of the reasons, i wouldn't purchase any Citroen with sensodrive. These comments are all just too common.... :cry:

When will Citroen get their act together, when it comes to the Sensodrive and the rest of their auto box's.... They need to learn a thing or two from the Germans in this department. (NO NOT ZF :mad: :evil: :disappr: - that piece of junk is in my S-Type and i'm starting to experience numerous troubles)
 
In this issue of wheels, they are saying how good the ZF box is in the BF :joker:
In their word "WORLD CLASS" :D
 
The alfa selespeeds have exactly the same problem. That is the most hopeless transmission ive driven. And alfa failed to rectify any of the problems with it. It was thistry for oil, failed to find gears, and at times, didnt want to change gears.

What would it take for these companies to source a dsg box, or anything proven, and working. They shouldnt develop it themselves if they are'nt capable.

But dont get me wrong, the car feels great, and the gears work well. I just dont want freak occurances like these. Im concerned to let other people drive it now my car now, dont want them getting caught.
 
BalleR said:
The alfa selespeeds have exactly the same problem. That is the most hopeless transmission ive driven. And alfa failed to rectify any of the problems with it. It was thistry for oil, failed to find gears, and at times, didnt want to change gears.

What would it take for these companies to source a dsg box, or anything proven, and working. They shouldnt develop it themselves if they are'nt capable.

But dont get me wrong, the car feels great, and the gears work well. I just dont want freak occurances like these. Im concerned to let other people drive it now my car now, dont want them getting caught.
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First stop panicking. Have a cup of tea a Bex and a good lie down. It may as others have suggested be a software glitch or knowing how hard it rained in Sydney today it may be that there is a faulty or loose connector somewhere.

CALMY AND SENSIBLY report it to the dealer. POLITELY request their fullest attention and see what happens.

When these have happened please advise us what happened.
 
I struck this on one on a UK board recently and from memory it had something to do with the 'driving in snow' mode. Apparently if certain circumstances arise, the sensors get the same info that they get when they strike snow and react accordingly which I think you'll find means that it cuts all power to the drive. This sounds logical given the * symbol was showing at the time, but it would almost have to be a software or sensor fault for it to have not come right automatically and needed that jolt in 1st gear to get it all cracking again. You would imagine that given the use of computers in cars these days, that this fault would be logged in a memory somewhere.
I have to wonder at these comments about ZF transmissions that keep popping up; my son is involved in buiding a LeMans style race car at present that will be one of only two in Australia when completed. It's twin was at Qld Raceway on Saturday and cost close to half million $$s to build, and the owner is an engineer who buys things for what they are not for what they cost. When choosing a transmission, he asked all those in the know which was the best and every last one (race engineers, car owners, team bosses) came back with the same response; ZF.
So.....if these boxes are having problems in just one or two brands of cars, ask yourself why? It has to come back to the people doing the service.
As they say; "a good tradesman never blames the tools." :2cents:


Alan S :cheers:
 
BalleR said:
Has anyone experienced this? Any Advice? Basically, what i want is, for this to never happen again! And i want a guarantee from citroen. So if they can rectify it, and prove it, im happy. But if they give me some uncertain response, im not really interested in driving this car. Its dangerous.

So perhaps ill be talking to the dealer tomorrow.
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Well, you've probably seen my thread! The same thing within 24hrs! I'm lucky it wasn't moving at the time, like yours. Sounds scary! It'll be interesting to see what responses we both get!
 
Question time...

BlackC2 said:
Well, you've probably seen my thread! The same thing within 24hrs! I'm lucky it wasn't moving at the time, like yours. Sounds scary! It'll be interesting to see what responses we both get!
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Gentlemen....did you purchase your C2's from the same dealer?

Cheers
 
Nil Time said:
Gentlemen....did you purchase your C2's from the same dealer?

Cheers
Click to expand...

Mine was a demo (900km's) from Rick Damelian - no problems (or post purchase encounters) with them so far.
 
I have a feeling BalleR's C2 is from the dealer in Artarmon...

Dispite being a new car maybe they havent bothered to upgrade the software to the lastest version at the factory. Hope it's all resolved promptly.
 
BlackC2 said:
Mine was a demo (900km's) from Rick Damelian - no problems (or post purchase encounters) with them so far.
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If they are from the same dealer...maybe a glitch in their Proxia equipment??
 
Mines from McCarrols at Artarmon.

I rang the dealer this morning, and he put me onto the service department, obviously!

So i ring the service centre, which is at Roseville and is a joint service centre with lexus. I described my problem to the service manager, and mentioned that the snowflake symbol might have possibly come up, along with beeping. But to tell you the truth, I was pretty distracted when it happend. And he asked me if perhaps i switched the snow mode button on. Only thing is, there is no snow mode button!! So that was a bit embarresing for him. So i waited around, eventually they looked at it. Basically, the problem cant be rectified untill i reach 1500kms, the first service check. Then they will apparently "update" the software. So it wasnt very confidence inspiring.

So no fix as yet. Ill just have to be carefull, and not make any right hand turns against traffic.

The car however drives great, gears shift well, and if it continues this way, ill be quite happy. But a early problem like this isnt very reassuring.
 
BalleR said:
I dont see how they can bring cars out that dont drive.
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It's easy when you rely on software, which can never be 100% bug free. More and more computing technology is making its way into cars and these sorts of problems are to be expected. Hopefully in the years to come there will be less and less problems.
 
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