Strut tops

[john alexander]

HI I recently picked up 2 good ones at the local scrappy for £15 Ive a 1.9td estate these were off a petrol estate I hope they fit. PS they made a mistake with the price , should have been £35 each ,fastest Ive ever moved Regards john.

[citronut]

[quote="john alexander"]HI I recently picked up 2 good ones at the local scrappy for £15 Ive a 1.9td estate these were off a petrol estate I hope they fit. PS they made a mistake with the price , should have been £35 each ,fastest Ive ever moved Regards john.

hi john the main diferants is weater your car is standerd susp system or activ/activa,they are model specific and do not interchange,i belive there is 4 types
regards malcolm
ps.has anyone opend the picys as i cant find out how to

[citronut]

ciaran if you still have not found and opened my thread on strut tops,homer has sorted it out,i have started a new post headed (picys from andy**ares forum),Homer has traslated the old picy files into thumbnails which you can click on to open them,enjoy
regards malcolm

[Homer]

ciaran if you still have not found and opened my thread on strut tops,homer has sorted it out,i have started a new post headed (picys from andy**ares forum),Homer has traslated the old picy files into thumbnails which you can click on to open them,enjoy
regards malcolm

They are in this thread.

And quite scary.

[Ciaran]

Hi guys,

Thanks very much for all the replies, and the pics... very informative.... and scary

I'll be having a proper check of the struts tomorrow hopefully... haven't tried the screwdriver on top trick.

Just a thought, if I was to get new struts, are there any preventative measures that can be taken to treat them, to prevent rust in future ?

Do struts from scrappers tend to be in just as bad nick ?

[andmcit]

Hi everyone my FIRST message posting/reply!!

I've seen the pics of the white Xant which I'm guessing is a VSX due to the alloys and the failure looks very similar to me...

I've recently ebayed an N plate dark green 2.0i VSX Auto with full years MOT that had a similar encounter on the VERY SAME driver's side strut!

The seller basically gave up on the car selling it Buy-it-Now £75 as spares or repair. He was forced off the road by a boy racer playing silly buggers in a Corsa - apparently the 'nice' traffic *calming* measures with speed bumps & killer islands have made the local road near his house into a bit of a game of 'chicken' for who actually has the legitimate right of way.

Suffice to say, the Xantia was in the 'right' and the flying Corsa made a jinx across his path forcing the Xant to take avoiding action against a massive brick parapet smacking the nearside wing and two doors and coming to rest with the driver's front wheel hard against another kerb...

The resulting new bonnet bulge was due to the metal plate of the strut top severing on the crown beneath the sphere.

Incidentally ALL the car's spheres are VERY good so I don't think there'd have been any hammering action to cause the failure which then 'went' faster by being hit hard against the kerb - it's a FSH well maintained 100k car and the wheel on that corner is 100% too...

For two VSX's to have the same failure seems too much of a coincidence - I'm wondering whether the problem lies with the VSX hydractive struts specifically rather than Xant one's generally. Certainly the fluid volume into the strut is larger than the non hydractive one and I'd guess it'll be a lower hydraulic pressure, but maybe when it's 'caught out' there's more of an incompressible pillar of LHM that hammers the crown of the strut and sphere hard. I'd have expected the sphere diaphragm to take the pasting rather than the metal strut top, but after a lot of pot holes etc just maybe...

I've had an offside strut top fail on an Xm 2.0 Sei too and that was due to the failure of the rubber cone rather than the metal on the Xant's. It let go as I pulled away from the front of the house from standstill which was quite 'interesting'...thought I'd run into something as it popped into my filed of vision!

BTW, does anyone have a set of dark green [ESYCR] Xant doors, a bonnet and possibly a tailgate that actually HAS paint on it? The car is a daily runner and is a VERY nice car bar the scrapes and bonnet wrinkles!

Andrew [Andmcit@aol.com]

[Ciaran]

Hello Andrew,

Fancy seeing you here

[andmcit]

Hi Ciaran.

Had to take the plunge here sooner or later, and for some reason there's not much going on elsewhere!!

Just been mulling over the reference to the crunchy underside of the strut on your new purchase. I'm a bit nervous about how the one that failed with my 'new' VSX almost looked as though the metal had leached away as flaking rust - it may be just a case of checking that yours is cleaned up of loose paint and protected now; it's quite thick but not enough to take aggressive rusting as well as the forces acting through it.

Like the Xm's, the only real solution is to shop for new or low mileage SH ones, with everyone else that's in the same boat!!

Andrew

[andmcit]

Ciaran.

I plan to pop into a local yard to me on my travels tomorrow so can check out what's available on the lights/strut tops front if you like.

I'm going anyway as I need a new airtight TD intercooler connecting pipe as the one on mine has split and the car does feel totally gutless now.

I'll keep in touch.

Andrew

[Mandrake]

Hi everyone my FIRST message posting/reply!!

I've seen the pics of the white Xant which I'm guessing is a VSX due to the alloys and the failure looks very similar to me...

You can't assume its a VSX just because it has alloy wheels... nearly all Xantia's have alloy wheels including my Dad's bog standard SX which has identical alloys to my VSX...

However in this case it is indeed a VSX which you can tell due to the large flexible hydraulic hose going to the strut top.

I've recently ebayed an N plate dark green 2.0i VSX Auto with full years MOT that had a similar encounter on the VERY SAME driver's side strut!

The seller basically gave up on the car selling it Buy-it-Now £75 as spares or repair. He was forced off the road by a boy racer playing silly buggers in a Corsa - apparently the 'nice' traffic *calming* measures with speed bumps & killer islands have made the local road near his house into a bit of a game of 'chicken' for who actually has the legitimate right of way.

Suffice to say, the Xantia was in the 'right' and the flying Corsa made a jinx across his path forcing the Xant to take avoiding action against a massive brick parapet smacking the nearside wing and two doors and coming to rest with the driver's front wheel hard against another kerb...

The resulting new bonnet bulge was due to the metal plate of the strut top severing on the crown beneath the sphere.

Incidentally ALL the car's spheres are VERY good so I don't think there'd have been any hammering action to cause the failure which then 'went' faster by being hit hard against the kerb - it's a FSH well maintained 100k car and the wheel on that corner is 100% too...

For two VSX's to have the same failure seems too much of a coincidence - I'm wondering whether the problem lies with the VSX hydractive struts specifically rather than Xant one's generally.

You could have something there - my VSX had impending signs of doom for the strut rubbers before I bought it, even though its only 8 years old.

On the drivers side (right side) strut there was very obvious cracking around the rubber block between the inner and outer section. The rubber ring which the gater is supposed to attach to had collapsed inwards and was no longer circular causing the gator to fall down. The left side was nowhere near as bad but it too had some cracks. Needless to say I had the seller (a car dealer) replace them with new strut tops at their expense before agreeing to buy it....

Certainly the fluid volume into the strut is larger than the non hydractive one and I'd guess it'll be a lower hydraulic pressure,

Then you guess wrong There is no difference in pressure.

but maybe when it's 'caught out' there's more of an incompressible pillar of LHM that hammers the crown of the strut and sphere hard. I'd have expected the sphere diaphragm to take the pasting rather than the metal strut top, but after a lot of pot holes etc just maybe...

No I don't think thats the case. If anything a Hydractive 2 model has MORE compressible medium to absorb large bumps, and I'm not convinced that the rubber failure is caused by bumps. In the case you mention the strut top must have already been dangerously weakened, and that impact was just the final straw that pushed it over the edge.

From what I've seen of mine I think its simply a case of the rubber perishing, perhaps there were some variations in the rubber used in different models/years. The metal of the strut top was perfectly ok, unlike the pictures referenced in this thread.

Interestingly (to your theory) my Dad's SX (without Hydractive 2) which is 10 years old has no signs of strut failure yet.

I will also get to see an 11 year old 1.9TD SX soon (another member of the family buying it) so I will be giving the strut top rubbers some very close scrutiny.

Regards,
Simon

[andmcit]

You can't assume its a VSX just because it has alloy wheels... nearly all Xantia's have alloy wheels including my Dad's bog standard SX which has identical alloys to my VSX...

Hi Simon, fair point - just around my part of the world any Xantia I do see with alloys IS a VSX - didn't think many Xant pilots were into them enough yet to go out and find S/H alloys...

However in this case it is indeed a VSX which you can tell due to the large flexible hydraulic hose going to the strut top.

Missed the other picture showing the fatter feed pipe = giving the game away that confirms it's a VSX. On the repair of the damaged VSX I missed this straight away as the donor had been broken ages before and I'd managed to 'conveniently' miss the 3.5mm pipe opening versus the big bore one!!

You could have something there - my VSX had impending signs of doom for the strut rubbers before I bought it, even though its only 8 years old.

On examining the remains of the failed strut it looks as though it failed across the metal crown NOT the rubber...unless the rubber did go first and the metal tore away after being the only remaining part that was holding things together!

The rubber ring which the gater is supposed to attach to had collapsed inwards and was no longer circular causing the gator to fall down.

Could this be the only giveaway that there's something amiss under the wheelarch then?!

All the best, Andrew

[Mandrake]

You could have something there - my VSX had impending signs of doom for the strut rubbers before I bought it, even though its only 8 years old.

On examining the remains of the failed strut it looks as though it failed across the metal crown NOT the rubber...unless the rubber did go first and the metal tore away after being the only remaining part that was holding things together!

Well actually there seem to be two failure modes for the struts - which can happen independantly or together depending on the country and the local environment. (Seemingly)

One is that the plate can rust away (hidden from view by the rubber) until it shears, as happened in those pictures. This only seems to happen in places where corrosion is a big problem, like some parts of the UK. Here in New Zealand despite being a coastal country Xantia's simply don't rust here. All the ones I've seen have been rust free, and have something of a reputation for not rusting. (Not so for older Citroen's though!!)

You can see on those pictures that that white car is simply infested with rust in the engine bay, which would not be the case over here unless it had been driven on beaches all its life.

The other failure mode is the rubber block itself deteriorates, cracks, and finally shears - even if the plate is rust free and intact the rubber can deform so much that it literally flows up through the hole in the middle of the plate and finally shears away. This is what my strut tops were on their way towards doing. The ring in the middle where the gator attaches to was visibly deformed upwards by about 20mm.

There is some speculation that the failure of the rubber is hastened by high humidity and/or high temperature climates, but there is only anecdotal evidence of this. Here in NZ we have somewhat higher humidity than the UK (I think) however nowhere near as high as the tropics in areas like Malasyia where I understand the failure of the rubber tops is much more prevalent.

The rubber ring which the gater is supposed to attach to had collapsed inwards and was no longer circular causing the gator to fall down.

Could this be the only giveaway that there's something amiss under the wheelarch then?!

Yes, its well documented that in most cases of strut failure you can't see anything amiss from the top, you have to look in the wheel arch with the gator pulled down. In the case of (impending) rubber block failure you can see what I describe - cracks and deformation of the rubber quite easily, however in the case of a rusty plate I understand that you can't always see that from EITHER side, as the rubber on the bottom hides the rusty plate. (Scary )

Have a look at this URL:

http://www.landtransport.govt.nz/public ... 200310.pdf

Personally I think that this problem is widespread enough and also dangerous enough (imagine hitting a bump during cornering at high speed only to have your suspension collapse on you! fatal!) that its irresponsible of Citroen not to acknowledge it as a design flaw and order a recall, or at the very least send out a bulletin to dealers and provide redesigned strut tops for free.

The bulletin I linked shows that vehicle testing authorities were aware of this problem at least 2 years ago, and at that time some Xantia's were as young as 2 years old and were well within the age that would warrant a recall for a redesigned part.

The strut tops are very expensive to replace new relative to the value of the cars, and its a bit unfair to expect people to replace them themselves when it does appear to be a design fault which may quite conceivably cause EVERY Xantia to become unsafe with this problem by the time its 20, if not much earlier.

Is anyone petitioning Citroen in this regard ?

Regards,
Simon

[Clogzz]

Is anyone petitioning Citroen in this regard ?

Quite a task.

From what I understand from the French 'Planète Citroën' forum; before they go belly up too, Citroën chips in for the replacement of broken strut tops only after they have broken, not before.
The customer goes through a 15-minute inquisition to assess the extent of Citroën's contribution to the repair:

Where did you buy the car from ?
How old is it, what mileage ?
Under what circumstances did it happen ?

About 10 days later comes a reply with the extent of their contribution to the repair, and that goes from nothing to the full bill.

There's mention of a 1993 Xantia that collapsed when it was 2 months old, repaired under warranty back then.

There's also mention of a guy whose strut top collapsed when his car was parked in his driveway while he was mowing the lawn.