13th Mar 2016, 16:21

I have a diesel C4 Grand Picasso 2008 1.6 model and I'm having the same problem (depollution system faulty). Called my local Citroen garage and was told to give it a good run on the motorway, which I did, but the problem still exists. I was thinking of having a go again on the motorway, but I'm hesitant now after reading some of the comments like breakdowns on the motorway. I will ring Citroen again tomorrow and see what they will say.

24th Mar 2016, 23:41

I have had the de-pollution fault light on and off ever since I had my clutch changed. The car has had numerous diagnostics and no diagnosis to fix the problem. Just had a long drive (200 miles) and the light never came on. Got back and the light is back on again. If you live in the UK, Halfords do a DPF (Diesel Particle Filter) clean and regeneration. This is where the computer is told to regenerate the DPF. I will try this out next week. At a cost of £35 it's better than the costs I have already incurred trying to rectify this problem. Worth a go if it fixes the problem at such a small cost compared to Citroen dealers.

31st Mar 2016, 19:04

Having the same problem with my C4 Grand Picasso Exclusive. Just put some DPF cleaner in, but the light still comes on and it loses power, but turn it off and back on and it drives normal again. I am at my wits end with this car; just one problem after another.

31st Mar 2016, 19:15

Tried the DPF cleaner mate. Still the engine management light is on and the message still comes up.

21st May 2016, 00:06

Oh god. I assumed when I got the antipollution warning on my 1.8 petrol model, that it might just be a faulty filter. After idling in traffic, the alarm goes off, anti pollution error, and then warnings about the hand brake, and loss of any ability to accelerate.

Is there a definitive fix for this fault?

27th May 2016, 14:33

My C4 VTS HDI has turbo, but only if I don't use it too much! If I do it drops out & stays out til I restart it. Think it's the electro solenoid valve, but it's a bugger to get to. Been told it's on the bulkhead, but not sure as yet. Managed to find the valve for £25, but it's a 4 hour job to change as the subframe has to come off. If anyone knows where it is located, please let me know as I may have a go myself. Gives me code p2565 mainly.

Any advice gratefully received. Thanks.

4th Jul 2016, 13:43

Same issue. Depollution warning light, and the car goes into limp mode. Had the coil replaced, runs smooth. Four days later, same thing and the brand new coil pack has broken. Another one fitted, the car runs smoothly, but my trust in this car has gone. Will it break down on the motorway, will it not start, will limp mode start again? Help.

2nd Sep 2016, 04:38

Can anyone please recommend an autoclinic around Johannesburg South Africa for the Citroen C4. While it's a good car to drive, it is lately giving problems.

5th Oct 2016, 09:29

Citroen C4 VTR diesel 2008, same problems new, 2 new turbos, 1 fuse board, 3 ECUs, still in economy mode with DPF anti pollution fault. Don't buy a Citroen; it's happening to all of them.

8th Oct 2016, 19:07

Glad I read these reviews etc. I have a C5 2.2 E mk1, which is very reliable but is becoming a bit hard for me to park at my late age I'm finding, and so I started looking at a smaller Citroen i.e. the C4 etc...

Looks like I'll be keeping her as she's nowhere near as problematic as these newer Citroens it would seem.

I do have the diagnostic gubbins/laptop (bought off that site, well worth having ;)) and find I can fix/reset most of the stuff that Citroen charges millions for, myself...

Thanks all.

27th Oct 2016, 18:06

I have a Citroen C4 1.4 VTR coupe, and it keeps coming up with the anti pollution message when I start the car, then it makes a noise. I give it some revs and the engine will cut out; it's like it's struggling, but if I leave it for a few minutes, it will let me use the throttle, but still is making a strange noise until it warms up, then the noise goes away. If I stand near the back of the car, it stinks of fuel until it sorts itself out; it's every time I start the car. It's hard to explain the noise it makes; it's like the engine is going to pop out maybe.

It has had new oxygen sensors and I have replaced the air filter also, and still the same. I was told that it has to do with the oxygen sensors. I need a cheap fix; the car has never gone into limp mode while driving; will it be the spark plugs?

5th Jan 2017, 20:37

I have a 58 plate C4 Picasso 1.6 petrol VTR+.

About a year ago the same thing happened, anti-pollution system fault, handbrake faulty and the handbrake wouldn't work automatically; threw up a few others as well I think, so I took it to a mechanic who couldn't find the problem and said don't worry.

I drove home and the fan stayed on high after I turned the engine off so, when I came out to start it, the battery was dead so I had to bump start it, and everything was fine, no warnings, so I replaced the battery and everything has been good till a few weeks ago. It came on again and went into an almost limp mode and it sounds like you're running on 2 cylinders, but turned the car off, removed the red battery connection for a minute and put it back, and all was OK. But it's come back again and it's sluggish until about 3 thousand RPM, and then it feels normal, but lower revs feel like the engine's fighting against itself. But if you take lead off the battery, it goes OK with no lag for a bit till it notices something wrong. Looking at this thread, I am gonna check the fuse box and see if anything is going green, but I've had new rocker gasket and seals because they found a bit of oil in a spark plug well, and they replaced the spark plugs as well, which seemed to help for a bit, but if it's not that, it could be a thousand different things, and every time I go to bring it in to the mechanic, the warnings seem to stop, so he can't diagnose anything. Might have to take it to Citroen, but only for a diagnostic check to see if they can find anything or have the right machine to find the warning codes that I've been seeing. I've also seen that it could be an O2 sensor; where would I find this to check and clean?

25th Mar 2017, 13:12

We have a Citroen C4 Grand Picasso 2009. We've had the same problem - anti pollution filter warning light and hand brake warning light comes up, engine goes into limp mode and then within 30 seconds cuts out completely. Sometimes in the fast lane of the motorway - quite scary. Park up, turn engine off, wait a few minutes, turn on again and all error messages have gone from the console and the car is OK until next time it happens. We had a similar problem when just the antipollution light was coming on before the engine cut out when the car was new.

The Citroen garage replaced the filter and the problem went away then, but I wish we had challenged then why this minor warning caused the engine to stop, whilst it was still under guarantee.

This time round we have been working with a local independent garage to try to resolve it, so we took it up to him after each incident and sometimes the computer had the error codes recorded and other times it has nothing recorded on it. The garage owner is interested, so they are not charging what it's costing them, but we have now changed the computer and the hand brake module which in both cases it looked like it worked for a time, but didn't and now the garage have just changed the fuse box (no user serviceable parts, the whole box has to be replaced). We THINK this may have resolved the problem, but it takes a while before you can trust the car not to fail again. The garage have said that they thought there was a fault in the wiring of the CAN bus which routes all error messages from the sensors into the central computer. So you can have some form of legitimate minor problem which should show up as a warning light (hand brake or antipollution filter etc), but when the error code comes through into the CAN BUS, the CAN BUS can't handle it and confuses itself, sending random error codes onwards confusing the computer, causing the engine management computer to crash and cut the engine. So now I am not sure if the fuse board will totally resolve this aspect of the problem, or if the next time we have to change a filter or something else, the CAN BUS error management process may cause the engine to cut out again. The car does not have many miles on it and we can't really afford to replace it, but I am unhappy to drive a car that can cut out any time without warning. It's an accident waiting to happen.

15th Dec 2018, 19:19

Hi, just wondering if your problem was finally sorted? We have a 2008 Grand Picasso having the same issue. They have reset the computer, but after about a week of driving the error came back while on the motorway with a newborn and two other kids.

11th Jan 2020, 18:12

Hi all, Citroen C4 VTR petrol, same problem, lack of power, antipollution fault, my garage says most probably the EGR valve is dirty. I will try with that.

3rd Feb 2020, 20:07

It was the ignition coil after all...