I like the general ordering of your list a lot, however I would make a couple of small changes - in my opinion the Series 1 CX (My Dad has a 1978 CX2400) rides considerably better than a GS, both me and my Dad owned GS's for many years, and he had his one from new, and yet the second hand CX he bought about 7 years ago definately rides better, once spheres etc were brought up to scratch.DoubleChevron wrote:Hi Guys,
DS .... it is the smoothest hands down, no comparison. Especially the early ones.
SM .... Next best ... Unfortunatly I've never driven one.
GS .... Next smoothest, quite incredible little car.
CX series I --Quite good, but no DS
CX series II --Firmer again, but still vastly better than cars with crappy struts.
Xantia Hydractive --Dumb as it sounds, I rate this as a better ride than my BX19tri.
Next is the BX ... kinda average ride comfort, not a patch on the eearly cars. Much better than it's competition at the time.
Xantia non hydractive ... Why did they bother with the hydraulics, ride quite lumpy, so firmly tied down it feels like the hydractive model stuck in hard mode. Is it smoother than it's competition ??
We have the XM and C5 of course, but i can't comment on what I haven't driven. I don't have high hopes for them.
seeya,
Shane L.
I put this down to two things - the first is a lot more suspension travel at the front, (nearly 50% more from memory) and as nice as the geometry design of the GS is, (and the low unsprung weight) it simply doesn't have enough suspension travel at the front, its only about the same as a Xantia. (About 12cm including limit stop compression)
The CX will fly over those large broad backed speed bumps at 50 - 70Km/hr as if there were hardly there while both the GS and Xantia will bottom the suspension in spectacular fashion at anything more than about 30Km/hr on the same bumps.
The other difference is the isolation from harsh bumps such as potholes etc is vastly better on the CX than the GS because the entire suspension subchassis system is isolated from the body with rubber bushings, while on the GS only the rear suspension has this isolation, the front suspension chassis is bolted directly onto the body including near the footwells, which transmits a lot of vibration to the passengers.
So while the GS rides really well 90% of the time, certain types of harsh bumps can feel very harsh indeed. (This is even specifically commented on in one of the very first car mag reviews of the GS when it came out)
Another thing that makes the isolation of the CX quite noticable is when you start tweaking the sphere damper bypass holes to firm up the damping a bit - as soon as you try to firm the damping in the front of a GS the ride becomes very rumbly, almost harsh, due to the direct vibration transmition, whereas in the CX you can firm up the damping quite a bit from standard without any significant increase in road rumble due to the isolation of the bushings.
It also goes without saying that the CX rolls a lot less than a GS, and has a wider wheel track and much lower centre of gravity, so is definately superior in terms of handling, despite being a much heavier car.
As for DS vs SM, I've never driven either, (looked at a few SM's up close though
) but my Dad who worked on DS's for a living when they were a new thing has driven an SM on a couple of occasions and claims that the SM rides better, even though its not quite as softly damped.The SM suspension is basically identical to the DS with two changes - one is the front suspension arms have been swapped from left to right - on a DS the parallel arm pivots are BEHIND the wheel, so they are effectively leading parallel arms, while in the SM they basically swapped the left and right side suspension chassis so that the arm pivots are IN FRONT of the wheels, thus forming curved parallel trailing arms.
In my mind this would give a better ride than leading arms, and Citroen must have thought so too to go to all the trouble of doing that when it would make the car longer and require reworking the suspension chassis to body assembly to match.
The other difference is the damping is tuned a bit firmer (obviously) but I believe the springing rate is not too different, so in terms of roll and damping it is probably fairly similar to a CX. So think of a car with DS mechanicals and CX tuning.
Interesting your comments on the Xantia, it sounds almost as if the standard model Xantia you drove had something wrong with it, as I have a Hydractive 2 model and Dad has a standard model, and despite all the work and diagnosis I've done recently, the sad fact is that the standard model simply rides better than the Hydractive 2.
I find the hard mode TOO hard (despite the spheres being ok) such that the car is almost bouncing on the tires at the front in hard cornering due to lack of suspension movement, while the soft mode is too soft and uncontrolled.By comparison the standard model has nicely balanced damping rates such that the ride is good and handling is fairly good also, even though it rolls a little bit more than the HA2 model.
Neither Xantia holds a candle to the GS or CX or any of the earlier models however, and both still have a somewhat "fidgety" ride, mine more so than Dads, which I attribute to excessive friction in the movement of the McPherson struts vs the free and easy movement of the parallel arms in the GS/CX. (The fact that greasing the struts makes a huge but only temporary improvement in the ride quality and fidgeting/harshness seems to confirm this)
I recently had the oportunity to buy a 1988 Series II CX 2500 Gti in nearly perfect condition, and even though it was more expensive than the Xantia I ended up getting I gave it serious consideration, thats how much I rate the CX. (Also like the styling, the same can't be said for some of the earlier Citroen's
) In the end though I decided it was just too expensive, so passed on it. Would dearly love to have a Series II turbo like yours Shane, but they are almost non existant here and I couldn't afford the ones that are around if I did find one. 
Regards,
Simon
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