I'm noticing the same problem on my current Xantia, which I've only had for a few months so I haven't had time to look at the front height corrector. When I check the height while stationary it usually seems correct and height correction is working - however frequently after driving, parking and getting out it seems to be sitting a bit high at the front, but not always, sometimes it is correct.Jiffy wrote: Two problems:
1) The ride height was perect when I went out to the car this morning but when I got to the garage I noticed it was high. I could stick my whole fist in the gap. After doing everything, it's sometimes right but mostly too high. I guess this is something that's been written up before so what should I search for on the site to fix it?
I also notice while driving that occasionally the ride at the front seems a bit jiggly and I get a sense (from the perspective out the window) that the front might be a wee bit high, so I push the manual height lever forward for about 5 seconds to drop the front a bit and sure enough the jiggly ride goes away, so it does seem that the ride height is intermittently too high during driving as well.
There's only really two things that can cause this - one is a sticky height corrector linkage as mentioned by Peter - the sliding arm with the spring drags due to rust causing intermittent and inaccurate height correction. But there is another possibility - a misadjusted manual height override linkage. Where the manual override rod attaches to the height corrector assembly there is a free play adjustment - there should be equal free play in both directions when the car is at normal height and the manual height lever is in its normal location.
If its out of adjustment and there is no free play in one direction this can cause the height corrector to be "reluctant" to make corrections in one direction only. This means that whilst the height setting may be correct, it takes a very large error in one direction to get it to do anything about correcting the height.
In my case I notice that if I push the suspension down a small amount it will correct back upwards quite willingly, but if I lift it up, it won't do anything about small errors (under 20mm or so) and will just sit too high, and only correct if its really too high. In the dynamic situation of driving where corrections happen from time to time (including turning on sharp lock for a few seconds, which will cause it to lift due to suspension geometry) this means sometimes the ride height will be ok and sometimes it will be too high for extended periods of time.
The solution is to both give the sliding mechanism lots of grease/lubrication to make sure its free to move, (if you can get a lot of grease into the centre of the spring assembly with a grease gun that would be a good idea) and double check the manual override free play adjustment is correct. After you've put plenty of grease in the mechanism give it a good workout - lower and lift the height through the full height range with the manual lever at least a couple of times a day and this will help work the linkage through its full range of motion and let the grease penetrate. I had quite a sticky rear height corrector that wasn't correcting properly and after greasing it and working it through its full range of motion like this for a couple of weeks it sorted itself out without having to disassemble the mechanism and manually free it up.
By the way you originally commented on intermittently poor ride, whilst Hydractive 2 models have a number of additional faults that can cause intermittently poor ride, on a standard model like yours the number one culprit is inconsistent ride height - a height error of as little as +/- 20mm can cause an obviously worse ride, so making sure that the height corrector is working smoothly and accurately and that the height is actually set correctly in the first place is very important to consistently good ride quality. If the height corrector linkage is sticky and it can't maintain the height accurately it doesn't matter where the height adjustment is set, it will always be wrong sometimes...
It depends on whether you have the older "short" gaters which are made of a hard plastic like material, or the newer much longer ones which are a much softer material with a lot more ribs.2) I gave the struts a good dose of Lithium grease but I'm really struggling to get the gaiters back on. Any tips?
The earlier kind are a bit of a nightmare IMO, my Dad's 1994 Xantia had those, and when the suspension is right up they can barely stretch to the full length, so getting them on with the height right up is a challenge, and in fact if they're worn they sometimes won't stay on, we ended up having to use cable ties on his, not ideal, but...
The later ones are much easier as they're longer and softer, all I do with those ones is hold it in place then kind of press through the gater itself up under the edge with my fingers, to push it over the lip, and also rotate it at the same time. The ones on my current Xantia I was able to get them back on again in about 10 seconds each doing this. If you're greasing the strut be careful not to get grease on the rubber lip that the gater attaches to, or wipe it clean first, or it may result in the gater slipping off later...
