Xantia Hydractive 'bypass'???

[robert_e_smart]

Phil has a 2.0 8V Automatic Xantia, hardly the pinnacle of performance! A car one buys for comfort, and ease of driving.

2.1 Turbo Diesel Xms, again hardly the pinnacle for performance. I don't want my big Citroen to not feel like a big Citroen. If I wanted a car that was "sporty" etc etc, I wouldn't buy a Citroen, I would do as Richard suggested in other threads and look at those BMW 5 series cars. I want comfort from my Citroen, hydractive in permanent soft is the answer for me! CXs and BXs managed fine witout this hydractive nonsense, as did most Xantias sold! Its going back to Citroen UK's marketing strategies. No Non Hydractive XMs, TCT Xantia Activas only; Great!

I like to hammer my cars on, and a nice soft ride over rough roads enables me to do so. I don't find the body roll unsettling, or have problems easing off to go round corners.

Other gripes with hydractive cars. Bloody hydractive spheres that are nigh on impossible to get off as the pressure is not released. On countless cars that I have re-gassed spheres on, rear hydractives spheres are always burst. Hydractive spheres being inaccessible (Xms in particular here).

Hydractive sounded like an impressive bit of kit back in 1989, but in 2011, it doesn't offer the advantages it was meant to due to failure.

[Xaccers]

Having been in a Xantia accident caused by oscilation from soft suspension, I would much rather have had hydractive.

[Peter.N.]

If you like XMs you wont like a BMW 5 series - I know I bought one - for about 6 months. In addition to the ride, which I must admit wasn't to bad, but it was the one with proper sized wheels, they have no room in them and the diesel has very little low down torque - I kept stalling mine. They are nicely made though, but hard work to drive compared to the 2.1 XM.

Peter

[Duracell]

From my experience Hydroactive 2 is by far the nicest (and safest) suspension version - my GS, GSA, BX's and non hydroactive Xantias were conventionally soft, but you could never argue that the handling/body roll was particualy good even for a non performance car (and poor handling does not improve "ease of driving"). My Hydroactive Hdi Xantia however is a joy to drive - Citroen comfort, minimal body roll, massivly improved handling - Admittedly more complex and not so good if its not working correctly, but well worth the effort (and its not that much effort) to put it right if its not.

[citronut]

i have not tried a Hydractive car on the road as yet, but if your a fan of citroen hydraulic suspension you should be used to the roll, i have never found a hydraulic citroen with the suspension functioning corectly to be a hand full on cornnering/roundabouts,

maybe you should have Louis Barbour take you all out for a drive off road in one of his 4x4 dersh'ys (2CV's) if you are scarred of body roll

http://www.2cv4x4.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

regards malcolm

[Duracell]

Total agree with that Jim - none of them were a handfull but they were not as good as the Hydractive Xantia, and neither is the C5 I drive now. Hydroactive was an attempt to combine the advantages of Citroen comfort without some of the dissadvantages - I think they made a fair job of it, so would not consider bypassing it

[davetherave]

I lovet the ride in my cx, but still think the hydractive system on the xm when functioning correctly is far superior and much more practical.
For instance I can go round roundabouts on four wheels in the xm.
Admittedly when not working properly the ride is just horrific, I would definatly try to find the root of the problem rather than bodging the system!

[DickieG]

Personally I won't buy a Citroen without Hydractive if it was available when new, the days of super soft suspension as on a DS are over as the body roll is so excessive that that alone disturbs the level of comfort if you are driving at what are now considered to be a 'normal speed'. Just look at the performance of cars from the sixties and seventies then factor in road design and layout and the difference between the pace of traffic generally sets very different parameters.

If I drive my DS at 'todays normal speed' including around bends my passengers are left constantly reaching out to brace themselves against the side of the car due to body roll. Interestingly as I mentioned earlier my Xantia's are smoother over small corrugations than the DS although the DS wins hands down over larger undulations due to the additional travel available in the suspension, Hydractive was clearly designed to address this issue.

Maintenance is now an issue as Xantia's and XM's are now that much older and mileages higher, but due to the research carried out by people on this forum I think that just about every possible problem has a known solution, the best preventative thing to preserve a Hydractive system is to solder in a couple of diodes to preserve the ECU in case one of the electrovalves sends a spike which will fry the ECU, I had this happen to one of my Xantia's previously and managed to solder in a replacement component but not everyone will be that lucky, everything is still available and other than a new ECU is not overly expensive to replace with new components so I'll be sticking with Hydractive suspension if its available on any further Citroen's I buy in the future.

[citroenesque]

This is all very, very informative - thanks everyone Clearly it would be best to have my Xantia's H2 working correctly. But it's not and even after time and expense it is not something I want to live with.

Simply, what is the next course of action for me? I am considering that maybe the sphere(s) are not happy. So those will be checked. Then, if they are fine, what next? A hydraurinçage? Some have said that might - others have said it might not - solve the problem, but it is an additional cost - by quite a bit given the fluids and time - so I won't do it unless I really have to. The LHM's new and the car's done 83k miles, so I would hope it isn't critical.

So assuming the spheres are OK, is it a suspect electrovalve? Are replacements easy to obtain and easy to fit? Also, alluding to a point Sir Jim of the Spheres makes, how straightforward is it to test the pressure regulator's output pressure?

OR, do I cut my losses so to speak, remove the F8 fuse and fit non-hydractive spheres all round?

Help me decide - with a clear plan of action... please!

[DickieG]

If the sphere's turn out to be OK I'd try the easy things first such as removing the electrovalve return and observing the flow of LHM according to the state of the valve as in open or closed. I wouldn't think that Hydraflush will sort it out but I stand to be corrected on that point.

I'd certainly look to test the pressure regulator by fitting a pressure gauge to the pressure regulator output as as I did in the photo from my DS below, I foolishly presumed that pressure regulators just worked correctly pretty much forever but I've been quite surprised since I started testing them that that isn't the case. Obviously you'll need a pressure gauge and a length of pipe with the correct fittings thereon, if you don't have easy access to those I wouldn't think it'll cost much for a Citroen specialist to do the test for you as it'll only take a few minutes to set up if you already have the equipment.



Electrovalves are still available and apparently not too bad to fit although I understand that the valve can be very tight to undo, Jim'll answer that question as I know he's done that task a few times, I haven't.

If you don't fancy getting your hands too dirty I think a quick call/visit to Martin at Pleiades will get you to the source and resolve this matter quite quickly without great expensive.

[citroenesque]

Thanks, mate. Encouraging.

I shall report back.

Onwards and upwards (and downwards, and upwards and... )

[Peter.N.]

I don't mind a bit if it rolls as long as I can't feel the bumps - but them I'm old

[Duracell]

Sorry Malcolm for calling you Jim - another one of my blonde moments

[citronut]

Sorry Malcolm for calling you Jim - another one of my blonde moments

Jim who'z Jim

regards malcolm

[Dommo]

I don't mind a bit if it rolls as long as I can't feel the bumps - but them I'm old

Hydractive attempts to provide a softer ride to standard hydropneumatic as well as providing good body control/reduced roll when it thinks it needs to. Unfortunately this is sometimes noticable when it doesn't need to be. For instance when you start accelerating it switches to hard mode to stop the back end sag, but if you start accelerating just before a speed bump for example, you hit the bump in hard mode and it is more noticable than it would be in soft mode.

If you drive gently this very rarely happens so I'd personally rather keep the hydractive system as long as it's in good order, I wouldn't like it if it were constantly stuck in hard mode, might as well get something else if you're not after a comfy ride.