Citroen Cactus 3 cyl petrol EML Lambda Fault

[Justin S]

My work colleague has a Cactus, that the EML light came on. She had just started at my place of work, so usually bimbled to her old place of work. She now has a good blast for 3 junctions of the M4 to work and same again home. So, I thought it may just need the lambda cleaned out by italian tuning. I checked the code and was lambda out of range. I reset it and had been good for 3 months. It came back and is usually at the start of her journey to work from cold, so suspected the heater in the lamda at fault. I reset it again and she went to her local garage as I said to get it replaced. I know if I did it at work, I would have a crusty manifold to try and unscrew it out and new one in, otherwise I would change it myself. They advised not to reset it if it comes on again. Well, it has in the last couple of months, she books it in and then before she gets there its gone out. Its happened tonight and was due in the garage tomorrow. Car has done 65k miles.
If a code is on the dash for eml , then I would have thought it would stay there until reset ? I still think its the lambda and it needs replacing. Has anyone else had a similar with EML coming on and randomly going out on similar cars ? Any thoughts on this please all

[stevieturbo]

Either test to see if the sensor is working and reading sensibly instead of pissing about. Or just replace it.

And yes, "faults" can come and go, depending on nature and severity of the problem.

[bearman68]

Justin S said:

My work colleague has a Cactus, that the EML light came on. She had just started at my place of work, so usually bimbled to her old place of work. She now has a good blast for 3 junctions of the M4 to work and same again home. So, I thought it may just need the lambda cleaned out by italian tuning. I checked the code and was lambda out of range. I reset it and had been good for 3 months. It came back and is usually at the start of her journey to work from cold, so suspected the heater in the lamda at fault. I reset it again and she went to her local garage as I said to get it replaced. I know if I did it at work, I would have a crusty manifold to try and unscrew it out and new one in, otherwise I would change it myself. They advised not to reset it if it comes on again. Well, it has in the last couple of months, she books it in and then before she gets there its gone out. Its happened tonight and was due in the garage tomorrow. Car has done 65k miles.
If a code is on the dash for eml , then I would have thought it would stay there until reset ? I still think its the lambda and it needs replacing. Has anyone else had a similar with EML coming on and randomly going out on similar cars ? Any thoughts on this please all

These are notorious for wet belt failure, and the resultant debris clogging all sorts of important engine bits. If I was a betting man, this is what I would be suspecting. New engine required. (Citroen have been fitting them FOC for a number of people).

[Justin S]

Car runs fine, sounds fine, so may implode , who knows. I dont have anything other than a code reader , so she will have to get the garage to check the readings etc, but like you say, just change the lambda, which I said from the second time it clicked up the EML light. They arent expensive but just need to make sure on a decent supplier for them.

[E-bmw]

If it turns out to just be the sensor, only change with NTK or Bosch or it will fail again short term.