The Dispatch | Expert | Scudo Hub

Happy Sunday everyone one. Sadly I have run into yet another massive issue with this awful van.

I was going at almost 70mph on the way home from buying a welding kit to patch one of the outer sills when I had a sudden loss of power and tonnes of grey smoke out the back of the exhaust.

I couldn't stop without it being dangerous and since I was only 2 miles from home, I kept going at low speed and in the highest gear possible.

When I got home, I left it to sit and think about what it had done for a while before restarting.

On starting up and continuing, there is grey smoke that stinks of diesel and the engine sounds like it's misfiring .mile a lot, the thing is now undriveable...again

This sounds to me like it's either one of the injector nozzles or the high pressure pump throwing fuel in to at least one cylinder at the wrong time causing knock and unburned fuel. I tried tapping each injector with a bar and a small hammer to no avail.

My question is, how can I diagnose either which injector has gone bad or if it is the fuel pump?

Being a petrol person usually I'm unsure in diesels. I know enough that I have the PLN (pipe-line-nozzle) type injector type.

Also, how in the heck do you get that plastic intake manifold off? I know roughly where the bolt holes are, no idea on size and type of the heads though and I can't seem to fit any tools there..surely you don't have to pull the engine just to get that poorly designed manifold off right?

Anywho, this van is turning into a massive money pit and has solidified that I will never again buy anything but VAG..things which shouldn't be failing at this age and mileage (2006 and 133k) are all going wrong.

Citroen Dispatch 2006 with the 1.9 D

So I may be scrapping this Dispatch.

I took the lower dash off to try and get to the panel in the bulkhead for removing the brake booster... No idea how I'm going to get an angle grinder in there. I have a second hand booster from eBay. If only they'd spent an extra 5 minutes designing this thing.

Also, I took the opportunity to swap the vac pump with a new Febi part from Autodoc, worked great for a couple of miles before failing completely and I had no brakes on the A30.

If any one wants it for bits, it's located in Hayle, Cornwall but I can't part it out as I don't have the space.

I'm going to swap the old vac pump back on tomorrow and see if I can at least be back to where I started.

All in, I'm at around £2.3k ish plus insurance and road tax..new tires, new rad, new cambelt and water pump, new front pads, new tail light lens.

I think this is the nail in the coffin for buying french. My last french car was a Citroen C5 with the 2.0hdi, that got scrapped due to white smoking and it going into limp mode at the most dangerous times...but that was only £600.

I wish you all the best of luck with your vans but I may just save up for a T4 like originally intended.

Hi all, I finally joined the forum after lurking for a couple of months.

By weekday I'm an electronics and software embedded engineer; in my off hours I'm a semi-seasoned amateur home mechanic usually working on VAG cars. I've owned a fair number of "cheap" cars that were either due to be scrapped, spend a fortune at the garage or learn to do it myself and keep them on the road. I hate waste and especially dislike people who finance their cars saying "its not worth it" when I tell them how I spent £300 keeping a £450 car alive for another 4 or 5 years.

My daily until this van was a VR6 MK2 TT. Its now a garage princess while I try to keep the mileage low on it and use it for fun. I did the timing chains, variators and clutch a few weeks after picking it up.

Back at the end of March, I picked up a 2006 Dispatch 1.9 DW8 NA none-ABS with 133k miles "cheap" on ebay for £1400 with nearly a year MOT, what could go wrong right?

Well of course this one has been neglected and bodged along its life, and I've spent the last couple of months putting things right where I can.
Things I've done so far:

- all of the door lock barrels were broken, just spinning with the key..replaced the two front cab locks and kept the rest of the 5 piece kit for spares as I have a masterlock on the rear and the sliding doors can be locked from the inside.

- it has central locking but doesn't work, no buttons to do it internally and no action on the door locks..not really bothered about that one but I'd guess its one of the door switches stopping it from working. Opening the passenger door activates the interior light but the drivers doesn't.

- drivers side wing mirror plastic was destroyed, replaced with a new unit from ebay that likes to vibrate the mirror glass like hell at speed making it almost useless above 45mph

- starting leaking coolant after a pop noise on my way to get new tyres (it came with 4x nearly bald and cracked tyres), discovered coolant on the drivers side of the subframe, looks like it was coming from the water pump area, new cam belt and water pump done. Glad I did too since it had no history of being changed, the gasket for the water pump came off in about 50 pieces.

- top radiator hose was held on to the rad using a silicon sleeve and jubilee clips. This became an issue when I was changing the thermostat as I gently moved the hose and started having a coolant leak. On closer inspection, I found that the hose coupling had come off entirely. New hose and clip bought but it would still leak, new rad but it seems the barbs on the hose coupler just aren't big enough and the hose creeps off the rad under pressure...first bodge of mine using Sika Stixall Extreme adhesive sealant...I'm not proud of that one but it would be another 2 weeks for a more expensive gates hose from Autodoc and I really am done with it.

- did an oil service and the sump plug had signs of RTV sealant on it, I happened to get a new plug and washer with the oil, two turns on the new plug and the threads in the sump disintegrated. I helicoiled the sump, fitted the new plug and seems OK since

- changing the front pads and the drivers side was a lot more worn than the passenger side..not discovered why yet but brakes dont seem to be stuck. Both pistons moved easily when fitting the new pads.

- it tried to kill me on the way home after picking up, brake pedal went rock hard at least a couple of times. I've since changed the booster check valve and gasket, new fitting to the vac pump, new vac hose and bypassed the EGR entirely...still does it very intermittently so I've source a second hand booster, new master cylinder and seals and a new vac pump...fingers crossed on that one as I'm sure it will be a pain since the French apparently don't believe in eliminating points of failure in the brake actuation by using that darn silly linkage across the bulkhead instead of just moving the booster to the same side as the pedal! Hence will require cutting into the bulkhead to access the fittings and clevis pin.

- passenger sliding door had a gap you could drive a bus through when closed, I've shimmed the top runner and its better but still...well french.

- had a 350mA parasitic power drain... some previous owner had inexplicably shorted the radio live and switched live..ya know instead of just replacing the fuse. Put back to standard and fitted a 10.1inch cheap android head unit and reversing camera..best part of the van, even kept the steering wheel controls with a little bit of electronics!

- last but not least, its sooooooo sloooooooow. Like I wasn't expecting a lot from 69HP but that fact that it is empty with no load and struggles to get to 70 on a flat and can't hold 60 on a very slight incline is worrying. I've ordered a new fuel filter in case the current one is clogged..I don't imagine this will do well above 30mph with a full 500kg load.

All in, I'd say I'm in it for around £2200/2400 at the moment with some lingering issues, mostly the brakes deciding its time to crash at random but I refuse to let it put it and myself out of our misery.

Once I've resolved the brake issue, I can finally start using it for its intended purpose as a daily and something the throw my kayak and mountain bike in for weekends away!