Simon's new Xantia V6 and Leaf blog

[CitroJim]

Simon, I'm staggered you've done 12,000 miles in the Ion already!

You've really given it a very good test and proved to all of us that EVs are up to the task and do well at it

I'm sure more and more of us take comfort from your experiences and will be confident to go EV as soon as conditions are right...

Good work sir

[white exec]

Hi Simon

Glad you're finally getting a bit of peace and quiet out of the brakes.
A few things I picked up on from your last two or three posts...

Front / disc brakes:

- Squealing is more likely if pads become highly polished, or discs the same.

- Polishing is normally the result of lots of light braking, probably inevitable with a regenerating EV.

- Anti-squeal shims are standard fitting on lots of cars, and are there for a reason. To avoid squeal, it is essential that the brake pad is positively and firmly acoustically coupled to the heavy brake caliper casting. Although a 'floating' or loose brake pad can squeal (oscillate) easily, due to its relatively low mass, if coupled to the heavy caliper it won't do it. Although it is possible to acoustically couple pads to calipers with just a heavy grease, the effect can wear off. Using thin shims - usually greased or coated one/both sides - any tendency to a gap appearing between pad and caliper is much reduced. It is now common for new brake pads themselves to come already coated with a dry but masticky layer, for use with or without shims.

- Also possible for a brake disc to oscillate/squeal, but normally the pressure of the pads on it effectively anchors it to the heavy caliper, and damps the vibration. But, under light braking, this clamping action by the pads is half-hearted, and the situation can arise where the system is akin to a wet finger being rubbed around the rim of a wine glass (pad=finger, disc=glass). Press hard on the ringing glass rim, and the ringing will stop.
One additional reason to copper grease the joint between disc and hub, for acoustic purposes, as well as easy separation.

- Squealing disc brakes can, as you've found, be quietened down by hard braking, and by time. Both have the effect of improving acoustic contact between pad and caliper, as the lining beds in (wears) and the pad takes up the exact non-absolutely-parallel gap between disc and caliper.

- Softer brake pads will squeal less. Not sure about PSA-Mitsi, but GM have for years offered two distinct types of disc brake pad:
'Long-life' - a hard pad, for maximum pad (but not disc) life;
'Fleet' pads (unsure of exact name), intended to be changed at oil change intervals - softer, and extend disc life;
The second are quieter in operation, and have a lesser polishing effect on the discs.
If Ion pads are not available in 'soft', a change of brand might help. A good mechanic might know.

- Jim referred to squealing Citroen brakes. On XM (? Xantia too) squealing rear discs are somewhat notorious, simply because the rear brakes on that car do so little work. They rarely have to work hard, and can last decades, and sometimes lose interest and seize. No shims there, but greasing the pad backs and edges essential; new ones are now rear-coated. When they do squeal, some hard braking for a while will shut them up, I find.

- Worth using the shims, plus grease (if no coating present). Also worth greasing the edges of the pads, where they have contact with the calipers.

[Mandrake]

Although I'm doing 95% of my mileage in the Ion I do still need the Xantia or a Xantia sized car with long range occasionally. The range of the Ion is too short for long journeys beyond a moderate day trip, (60 miles in summer, about 45 miles in winter, with a rapid charge time of around 25 minutes) and its also a fairly small car. Interior space is comparable to a C1 - a bit narrower, but taller and longer, so it's no replacement for the Xantia on the load or people carrying front! Most people would not be able to make do with it as their one and only car I think it would be fair to say, with size and range both contributing to that.

But it's amazing that 95% of our driving is perfectly fine in such a short range and relatively small car, I never would have guessed that before buying it, but that's the way it turned out.

And despite being RWD, only having a 47kW motor, fairly narrow tyres (narrower at the front!) and a leisurely 12 second 0-60 time it is actually quite a lot of fun to drive and I never tire of driving it even though I'm doing 38 miles to work and back in it every day... Although it doesn't corner hard due to the narrow tyres and tall stance, and the ride is a bit on the bumpy side, it feels light and nimble and maneuverable, and the instant, silent and surprisingly high torque (185Nm from a 47kW motor) gives it a cheeky fun character to drive. Especially between about 20-40mph it is very responsive, perfect for city driving.

The closest car I've owned before in character would probably be my 1984 Daihatsu Charade Turbo which had a similar light and nimble yet checky character with its 1 litre 3 cylinder turbo - although that cornered MUCH better with it's oversized tyres, you could really chuck that thing around.

By comparison the Xantia feels a bit big and ponderous at low speeds and is a right pain to maneuver in car parks after being in the Ion for a while! The Xantia doesn't really come into its own until you're going faster and/or have more room to move! I enjoy the Xantia a lot too, but mainly because it is so much faster / more powerful and has such a wonderful ride together with pretty decent cornering and handling. So I get enjoyment from both cars...

[CitroJim]

That's an excellent little essay Simon

That's exactly why I like my little cars... I love their nimbleness, ease of parking and nipping around busy urban streets...

[Michel]

That's an excellent little essay Simon

That's exactly why I like my little cars... I love their nimbleness, ease of parking and nipping around busy urban streets...

I took the 107 down to West Norwood in South London last night. Via the A4, back of Earls court, Clapham etc. Hilarious fun. Nipping in and out of gaps, foot hard down at every opportunity. Probably never exceeded 45mph but it was great fun.

[RichardW]

Simon

You'd better hope it doesn't need a new cable as although it only costs £115 quid, the book time to fit it is over 4 hours...and high amongst the list of operations is removal of the traction battery....

There appear to be 2 separate switches on the box giving the position signals- there is a procedure for adjusting them, but you need a special tool. I would try some spray grease or motorbike chain lubricant as it will go in easily, and tends to be quite sticky.

[lexi]

Only £115 quid? for a cable? That's 10k miles of fuel for the leccy

[Mandrake]

Simon

You'd better hope it doesn't need a new cable as although it only costs £115 quid, the book time to fit it is over 4 hours...and high amongst the list of operations is removal of the traction battery....

There appear to be 2 separate switches on the box giving the position signals- there is a procedure for adjusting them, but you need a special tool. I would try some spray grease or motorbike chain lubricant as it will go in easily, and tends to be quite sticky.

Doh. I won't be paying £115 for a cable if I can avoid it that's for sure. And I won't be removing the traction battery either, as that requires a gurney for the battery to rest on and a hydraulic lift to lift the car off it!

It seems to have come right again with some drier weather so I'm pretty sure it will respond well to grease. I do have some halfords spray grease but its a bit runny for my liking and wouldn't stay in very well I think, and I don't have any motorbike chain lubricant to hand although if you think it would be ideal I can get some.

I still have quite a bit of that Permatex brake slide pin grease left - it's synthetic silicone based and its quite sticky. If the cable has enough travel to work it into the cable I think it would stay in there well and keep the water out, but it might be hard to get it in in the first place and if there is already mineral grease in there it might not be a good idea to mix it with silicone stuff ?

Interesting that there are two physically separate switches ? So the relative adjustment of the two can be adjusted ? "Special tool" ? Pfft, when did that ever stop us ? It's probably about as necessary as the "special" tools you supposedly need to adjust height correctors on a Xantia, which is not at all.

[Mandrake]

Only £115 quid? for a cable? That's 10k miles of fuel for the leccy

Actually it's about 3739 miles of driving but I get your point.

[RichardW]

Only £115 quid? for a cable? That's 10k miles of fuel for the leccy

I was expecting it be made of the same unobtainium as the front brake discs apparently are, and therefore be about 2 grand

[Mandrake]

Hi Simon

Somehow I missed your post until now!

Front / disc brakes:

- Squealing is more likely if pads become highly polished, or discs the same.

- Polishing is normally the result of lots of light braking, probably inevitable with a regenerating EV.

Yes that's the conclusion I've come to as well - the brakes were just being used too lightly if I drive with a light foot on the brake...

I'm still using regeneration to slow myself as much as possible when just varying my speed in traffic - for example if I'm on the motorway and I need to drop from 70 to 50 due to catching up to slower cars I'll just take my foot off the accelerator and decelerate that way without touching the brake, likewise if I need to drop from 30 to 20 in city traffic I won't touch the brake unless I need to slow quickly.

However if I'm pulling to a stop instead of trying to do that hardly touching the brake as well I'm now just braking "normally" and at a greater rate than I have been doing. After just a few days of this the problem basically seems to have gone away. There is a slight squeal braking in reverse but that may require a few hard applications of the brakes in reverse as well to bed the opposite edge of the pad - which is normally the trailing edge but becomes the leading edge in reverse...

So it might all have been much ado about nothing due to insufficient use of the brakes to bed them in properly!

- Anti-squeal shims are standard fitting on lots of cars, and are there for a reason. To avoid squeal, it is essential that the brake pad is positively and firmly acoustically coupled to the heavy brake caliper casting. Although a 'floating' or loose brake pad can squeal (oscillate) easily, due to its relatively low mass, if coupled to the heavy caliper it won't do it. Although it is possible to acoustically couple pads to calipers with just a heavy grease, the effect can wear off. Using thin shims - usually greased or coated one/both sides - any tendency to a gap appearing between pad and caliper is much reduced. It is now common for new brake pads themselves to come already coated with a dry but masticky layer, for use with or without shims.

As far as I can see the anti-squeal shims available for this are not factory fitted, and they certainly weren't present on this car. It looks like an optional part that can be ordered by dealers for "troublesome" brakes to silence picky customers.

- Softer brake pads will squeal less. Not sure about PSA-Mitsi, but GM have for years offered two distinct types of disc brake pad:
'Long-life' - a hard pad, for maximum pad (but not disc) life;
'Fleet' pads (unsure of exact name), intended to be changed at oil change intervals - softer, and extend disc life;
The second are quieter in operation, and have a lesser polishing effect on the discs.
If Ion pads are not available in 'soft', a change of brand might help. A good mechanic might know.

No idea if hard and soft pads are available - these are APEC pads and discs, and didn't seem to come in different grades. I always used to run softer pads in my older Citroen's like the GS - which was also renowned for squealing with hard pads.

[white exec]

Re the availability of hard and soft pad options, you could speak to any Vauxhall-Opel workshop, as it was standard procedure to offer both sorts when servicing Vectra etc. I'm sure they could clarify on brands/types/qualities. Easy conversation now, with V-O part of PSA .

[RichardW]

The special tool appears just to consist of a piece of plate that allows you to align a lug on the sensors with a slot in the end of the input shaft - however, this is only untill RP 12534 - after that the special tool is a T25 torx spanner 12535 = 5 mar 2011... what date is yours? In fact, I think after 12535 there is only one sensor. Mind you, that is made of the aforementioned unobtainium as it is £230 Cheaper than the earlier cars with 2 sensors at £195. Each

[Mandrake]

My RPO is 12517 so it looks like it is the earlier design of switch. (Just!!)

The misalignment of the two switches is very small - I have to hold the lever in the exact right place between reverse and park for a few seconds to trigger the coherence fault. I think the real fault is just mechanical stiffness that is causing the lever not to come to rest fully in the park position.

The lever seems to have freed up a lot since it got stiff and I've only seen the warning light once since then so I'm hoping that greasing it and fixing the stiffness will be all that's needed. Just trying to decide what kind of grease to use! (And waiting for opportunity to work on it, which won't happen this weekend...)

[Mandrake]

The special tool appears just to consist of a piece of plate that allows you to align a lug on the sensors with a slot in the end of the input shaft - however, this is only untill RP 12534 - after that the special tool is a T25 torx spanner 12535 = 5 mar 2011... what date is yours? In fact, I think after 12535 there is only one sensor. Mind you, that is made of the aforementioned unobtainium as it is £230 Cheaper than the earlier cars with 2 sensors at £195. Each

Well!! It looks like fixing this gear lever issue might be a bit more urgent than I first thought!

Although it doesn't seem to have caused any problems with driving the car aside from a warning light, tonight it prevented it charging.

It had been fine all day when we were out then just as I got home and put it in park it started flashing and the MIL came on as I turned it off. I didn't think much of it at first.

I plugged it in to charge and the green light on the charger went on as normal - normally I'd go inside immediately after doing that, however this time I was going back and forth to the bins and noticed the light changed back to blue again after about 20 seconds, which means charging has stopped. Hmm...

I unplugged it and plugged back in again - green light again for 20 seconds like it was starting to charge then back to blue again. Bugger! I know it won't start charging unless the car is in park so it was obvious that the switch coherence problem was causing the ECU to doubt that it was in park thus it was refusing to charge.

I turned the key on to press the brake and release the gear lever, pushed it down then back up to park, turned it off, plugged it in and it charged normally. I can't say I'm surprised it refused to charge but the worrying thing is it took a good 20 seconds of pretending to charge before it gave up and decided not to - by which time I would normally have gone inside, only to come out in the morning for work and find the battery wasn't charged!! As I've never had a charging failure at home before I didn't really have any reason to check up on its progress before now...

Looks like it will rain tomorrow but if there are any clear spells I'll have to reverse it up onto the ramps and have a look. In the information you have on the early design that mine should be, are the two switches mounted together at the gearbox, or is one at the gearbox and one at the gear lever, thus providing a coherence check of the cable ? What does it say about the adjustment procedure ? Turning the switch on its mounting ? Adjusting the cable in the centre console maybe ?

If I can turn the two switches independently then the Lexia standard parameter measurement mode can show the position of the two different switches in real time and I can use that to find out how much out of adjustment from each other they are. One of the switches (primary I think) seems to be working normally and registering P reliably, the other one doesn't register P unless the lever is pushed right up, so it may be that the two switches are slightly out of adjustment with each other, combined with a bit of cable stiffness not letting the lever rest all the way up like it used to...