just bought a citroen c3 and the power steering keeps going on it, then mess about with fuses and it seems to come back again this time it lasted 5 miles before it went again. please help

Try giving the battery a good charge or go for a long drive, l had one like this & it was because it had been stood & the battery was not upto scratch. They have electric power steering like the fiat punto. No steering pump.

If that does not cure the problem it could be a connection other than that it will be the electric steering rack they do not have a pump & if it came from a garage it will be covered under the warranty.
Not cheap u will be looking at around £375 just for the rack & thats not even from citroen.

These cars have electric power steering and your problem is going to be 1 of 2 things.

Because the power steering motor takes a lot of current to run it they only start working once the alternator starts charging.

You have either got an alternator starting to go or the power steering motor itself has a problem.

Both are expensive to repair and you probably could not replace them yourself.

on other Citroen cars the heater fan stops as well if yours does this then its a faulty ignition switch

As previously mentioned, it will be the power steering motor or lack of supply. l cannot believe they're still using this ridiculious excuse for a steering system from the days of the 106/Paxo. Not just Citroen though, tons of small cars use it for some unfathomable reason.

Anyway, in older variants, the ignition switch used to be the cause of this, other symptoms included intermittent / no heater fan, & the same with the heated rear windscreen. Have u had anything like that happen?

Its easy enough to check ur battery with a multimeter. At rest, with engine off, there should be 12 volts across the terminals. Any less, & its weak, anything approaching 10 & below, the battery is either severely discharged or faulty.

Start the engine & measure voltage across the terminals again. It should read at least 14 with the engine running. If its less, the alternator is not outputting as it should be, so make that ur next port of call.

Try the simple things (like borrowing a known good battery / giving the existing one a proper overnight charge) first though.