fake I.F.H.S sphere

[saeedm]

i bought a brand new I.F.H.S sphere but it may be fake one.
as you can see the threads on old sphere are clean but new one have low quality threads
is it fake?

[white exec]

The XA30RA sphere on the left would be for a non-Hydractive Xantia 1.8i, rear sphere, and looks genuine.


I cannot find any listing for an XA50HS in IFHS's listings, or a google reference, but someone else might want to check.
I can see three oddities with that sphere...
- the poorly formed thread
- the very thick stack of outer by-pass washers
- the rough finish on the central damper

IFHS - RT??
More eyes needed on this, but I'd be tempted to send your pictures to IFHS (in Belgium) for comment.

Where did you buy them/it from?

[saeedm]

me too cant find XA50HS .no clue
i understood that it is absolutely fake.
i bought it from seller that he is so popular for good spare parts!!
tanx for help

[ml11ML]

Is there any good place to buy spheres online in europe besides just risking it with random web shops? Autodoc and their clones are absolutely useless with listing details about their items and they only have other brands that appear to be worse quality than IFHS like monroe and suplex. Does anyone have experience with those? Only thing I could find was on c6 forums about how monroe spheres very quickly lost pressure and IFHS were fine...

[GiveMeABreak]

Citroen parts supply 2 types of spheres for the C5. You can opt for an original or they can supply you with a cheaper version for about £70 inc UK VAT (so the equivalent in your country)

[saeedm]

what about this one?
looks like fake citroen shpere
codes and citroen logo stamp are hard to see
have some holes on top and threads are not good as like I.F.H.S one.
but it wrote 4 on central damper!!

[white exec]

That one looks genuine, with all the expected markings, including the small dotted numbers on the damper.
SFAIK, only Citroen genuine spheres have these damper markings, although we don't know how to decode them.
The three large dimples round the filler plug are how Citroen mark their "multicouche" (triple-layer) membranes, for use in hot locations on the cars. Again, these are exclusive to Citroen.

The sphere is painted in a non-standard colour. They are normally a matt plain green, or later ones are in grey metallic finish, to meet with EU 'gas type' requirements.

[MGmike]

Is there any good place to buy spheres online in europe besides just risking it with random web shops? Autodoc and their clones are absolutely useless with listing details about their items and they only have other brands that appear to be worse quality than IFHS like monroe and suplex. Does anyone have experience with those? Only thing I could find was on c6 forums about how monroe spheres very quickly lost pressure and IFHS were fine...

I've had Monroe comfort spheres on my C5II for a number of years and I'm very happy with them. I'd be more than happy to use again.

[white exec]

There must be a very limited number of companies actually manufacturing spheres. My guess would be no more than two or three at the most.

We appear to know about IFHS (who also make for Citroen), but there are lots of other pretty much identical looking spheres offered by brands like Monroe, Febi, Bolk (from Mister Auto), Lizarte (Spain), and Tecnosir (Italy). It's almost certain that most of these are coming from another source.

[saeedm]

when i loosened the citroen sphere, the car was on jack and sphere should have LHM inside right? and with loosening sphere, it will push all LHM out
but after loosening the sphere, LHM was coming out so slowly. like it is clogged up!
after minutes it didn't end up so i shook it! and LHM start coming out with high pressure and with more shaking, pressure was increasing!
what was going on?

[ml11ML]

I've had Monroe comfort spheres on my C5II for a number of years and I'm very happy with them. I'd be more than happy to use again.

Good to know! So the user on c6 forum might have just had some bad luck... Which c5 do you have, h3 or h3+?

[white exec]

If you manage to completely de-pressurise the car's system, the leakage of LHM from a sphere being unscrewed will be quite small, but this isn't always possible, and so quite a lot of fluid (maybe a quarter of a litre) might leak out as a sphere is unscrewed.

If the sphere has a good amount of gas in it, it will be pressing down on the membrane, and after the sphere has been taken off, very little fluid will come out.

However, if the sphere is very low on gas pressure, or indeed flat, a large amount of fluid will have been pushed into the sphere by system pressure. If the sphere is completely flat (or the membrane ruptured) it will be completely full of fluid, and this will stay there - or might dribble out, given enough time!

If the sphere had low gas pressure (eg just a few bars), the remaining gas pressure will be enough to give you a "squirter", where lots of fluid will jet out of the sphere when it is unscrewed, and continue to do this for quite a while (it's a very small hole).

What you describe sound like this last one, but - as you say - with some sort of blockage, perhaps a piece of rubber membrane lodged in the damper, rather than dirt from the system.

[saeedm]

i lowered the car to lowest point and turned off the car then de-pressurised from 12mm bolt on accumulator.
after that i jacked up rear in order to access spheres. they was had pressure. so they sucked LHM? and magically pressurised? cant understand

[MGmike]

Good to know! So the user on c6 forum might have just had some bad luck... Which c5 do you have, h3 or h3+?

2.2 Excl H3+. At first I thought there wasn't a noticeable difference but I bought a second C5 Excl and jumping from one to the other really showed how much better they are to standard. Been on 6 years now and I'll be moving them over to a new (to me) low mileage replacement car in the near future.

[ml11ML]

2.2 Excl H3+. At first I thought there wasn't a noticeable difference but I bought a second C5 Excl and jumping from one to the other really showed how much better they are to standard. Been on 6 years now and I'll be moving them over to a new (to me) low mileage replacement car in the near future.

6 years! That's very impressive. I guess they must be higher quality than the IFHS spheres as they usually sell around 80€ to 100€ for one unit while IFHS are sold everywhere I found them for around 54€ to 58€.