Citroen Xsara Picasso - Grinding Noise on Accelaration

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Mon 30 Jan 2012 14:16
Citroen Xsara Picasso - Grinding Noise on Accelaration - PicassoFiasco

Hi folks,

I'm about to get rid of a Citroen Picasso and celebrate wildly in the street, possibly without clothes to make the celebrations more memorable.

The reason for my unrestrained pleasure in ditching this nightmare of a vehicle is because it's cost me a small fortune in the short time I have owned the car (over twice the original purchase price in 18 months) and I never want to see the car again.

Anyway, I'm digressing before I've even started.

Before I get shut of the monstrosity, I was hoping to get a bit of advise on one of the many issues with the car, as my knowledge of all things mechanical is somewhat lacking and it would be great to know what this problem might be before attempting to sell it to another poor soul!

The problem: When I accelarate quickly, or uphill, there is a loud grinding noise which appears to be coming from under the bonnet on the drivers side. If I set off slowly/gently/downhill, the noise isn't there. Although it has been getting progressivly worse for a few weeks now so I imagine over time the noise will be there all the time before long.

One guy told me "gearbox is about to go". I have no idea if this is right or not!

Does anyone out there have any ideas what might cause this noise?

Thank you.

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Mon 30 Jan 2012 15:46
Citroen Xsara Picasso - Grinding Noise on Accelaration - Roly93

The xsara picasso was Britains best selling small MPV for a while simply because it was cheap as chips and no other reason as far as I can see which is sad.

Its hard to say exactly what your problem is, but if there is a rough whirring sound on accelaration this may be a gearbox bearing. Other possibles are a broken engine or gearbox mount which you may be able to spot with a torch under the bonnet, or worst case scenario could be engine main bearings if the car has ever been run low on oil.

I had something very similar on a VX Astra and it was an engine mount.

Edited by Roly93 on 30/01/2012 at 15:47

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