Citroën Says Au Revoir To Its Hydraulic Suspension

[demag]

I suppose air would be a possibility. Surely cheaper than LDS/lhm.

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[qprdude]

E class ( and maybe others), Mercedes use air suspension. Brother in Law just has his 3 year old one in the garage to have it fixed. It leaked, and main dealer said it's very hard to trace where. New "bags" if that's what they call them, fitted. One week later the car (Estate) was down on one rear corner. Back to the garage. Apparently, the Merc has some sort of height corrector sensor too! They had managed to disturb one during the suspension work and didn't notice!
The bill was £2023. The leak had caused the compressor to run almost constantly to keep the pressure correct, and had burned out. Car had to be recovered on a flatbed recovery truck. Vorsprung durch Technik, my a***!

[myglaren]

^ They seem to be notorious for it, as is the C4 Grand Picasso.

[white exec]

Simple enough to introduce a tracer 'dye' to pinpoint a leak, similar to AC, I would have thought.

[myglaren]

Better not to have a leak in the first place.
Admittedly Citroen hydropneumatic suspension does suffer from leaks but on a reasonably well maintained car they are negligibly infrequent.
I can't recall a single leak on any of mine.
Only a slight weep from the return flow where the rear gaiter had a nick in it. - trivial and would never have stopped the car, only discovered on repairing exhaust and there was no discernible loss of fluid.
£13 to fix.
Others have not been so lucky (Jim) but overall the incidence seems to be quite low and the fix is cheap and easy in most cases. Octopus excepted

[demag]

Ah yes, the octopus....

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[white exec]

Better not to have a leak in the first place.

Absolutely. I wasn't enthusing about air systems at all, just amazed that a leak couldn't be found. They obviously adopted the T*y*t* approach: replace everything nearby, and make a fortune on the parts on top of the labour. If you replace enough parts, then . . .

Quite right, though - leaking green stuff is rather easy to spot. Even passers-by have been known to do it f.o.c.

[qprdude]

Simple enough to introduce a tracer 'dye' to punpoint a leak, similar to AC, I would have thought.

I've no idea what gas they use in the system, but I'm guessing it's just a little more complex than an A/C system.

[Paul-R]

^ They seem to be notorious for it, as is the C4 Grand Picasso.

You can add LR Discovery to that list. My brother's friend has problems with the air suspension at the rear of his car.

[qprdude]

^ They seem to be notorious for it, as is the C4 Grand Picasso.

You can add LR Discovery to that list. My brother's friend has problems with the air suspension at the rear of his car.

Wish you hadn't said that mate, my daughter has a Disco.
So far, the only problem she's had at the rear of the car is when some %$£**@* stole her spare wheel in the Leggoland car park. £300 for a family day there, and they can't provide parking security!!!

[GiveMeABreak]

E class ( and maybe others), Mercedes use air suspension. Brother in Law just has his 3 year old one in the garage to have it fixed. It leaked, and main dealer said it's very hard to trace where. New "bags" if that's what they call them, fitted. One week later the car (Estate) was down on one rear corner. Back to the garage. Apparently, the Merc has some sort of height corrector sensor too! They had managed to disturb one during the suspension work and didn't notice!
The bill was £2023. The leak had caused the compressor to run almost constantly to keep the pressure correct, and had burned out. Car had to be recovered on a flatbed recovery truck. Vorsprung durch Technik, my a***!

Yep - in the states they are $2000 for one air suspension strut and they fail quite often apparently!

[white exec]

Some of the best "steel spring" rides from my lengthy past have been from cars with torsion bar suspension. Front end of Rover P5 was notably good.

Actually, BL's Hydrolastic wasn't bad either, on their larger cars - the larger the better - and was simple and reliable too. The short wheelbase Mini felt very odd with it; much preferred Moulton's original rubber cones.

Real shame that Citroen never got seriously into SUV and 4x4, and with hydropneumatic. A real missed market opportunity. Toyota did, on both counts, with the Land Cruiser V8 riding on Citroen suspension.

[vborovic]

Vorsprung durch Technik, my a***!

That's Audi, not Mercedes ... ... theirs is "Das beste oder nichts"

[qprdude]

It's just a German phrase meaning advancement through technology . Audi pinched it, but anyone can use it.

[vborovic]

Rick, I know German ... ... and its not just a phrase, its an actual Audi official slogan ... that's why I corrected you, since you've been mentioning Mercedes ...