Brigstock Road bus traffic and the older Citroën HDi diesel
Brigstock Road, the High Street and London Road all carry frequent buses, so a drive from West Thornton to the Clock Tower is a sequence of short pulls between stops and bus lanes. Plenty of the Citroëns doing that work are older C4s, C4 Picassos and Berlingos with the 1.6 HDi diesel, some used for private hire and covering big mileages in small pieces. Those engines are durable when looked after, but they have two well-known habits that this kind of driving brings out.
The first is injector seal failure. Repeated heating and cooling hardens the seals, and combustion gas starts to escape past them, leaving a chuffing noise, a smell of diesel or exhaust in the cabin and black, tar-like carbon around the injectors. We replace the seals and clean the injector wells before the carbon locks the injectors in place, because a seized injector turns a routine job into a long and costly one.
The second is the turbo oil feed pipe. It has a small internal filter that can block with carbonised oil, especially where oil changes have been stretched, and the turbo then runs short of oil. A whine, smoke or loss of power follows. We always replace the feed pipe with any turbo, and we look at oil change history, since a high-mileage car doing stop-start work around Thornton Heath Pond needs its oil changed on time or sooner.
For drivers who cannot afford a day off the road, we open at 8am Monday to Saturday, and collection and delivery can be arranged. Every repair is priced in writing before work begins, and carries our 3-month workmanship warranty. The route to us runs from Thornton Heath Pond down Thornton Road to the Lombard roundabout and across Mitcham Common, about 5 miles, so allow extra time if the Pond roundabout is queuing.