Activa Rear End Shimmy

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Panjandrum
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Activa Rear End Shimmy

Post by Panjandrum »

It's always done this a bit, but recently it's happening all the time. Car sitting stopped with engine on; stand at the back; the rear end drops a bit driver's side; rises immediately; PR clicks. About 10 seconds later it happens again. Any ideas?
It also had an insane hour last week when the rear end would not go to max or min, but otherwise worked perfectly. That just went away.
stephen burch
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Post by stephen burch »

My Activa does the same thing, I think it's something to do with the onboard computer testing hydraulics, though I haven't had any max or min problems. Is the LHM level ok, is it clean and green and are the filters clean. Does it need a hydraflush?
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Panjandrum
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Post by Panjandrum »

That's reassuring - I think! I'd be surprised if the ECU was smart enough to do anything like that? Wonder if it is the Activa sphere? Just another wild guess. There don't seem to be so many ready answers for Activa problems.
LHM level and colour fine. Think the bizarre behaviour was some kind of short term post-operative reaction to work on rear bushes. It's been fine since. Also just had some rear-end knocking fixed by new bush at the bottom of the Activa ram. Maybe I've just become over-sensitive to the shimmy because of other strange behaviour.
paranoid
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Post by paranoid »

I have read somewhere before that they can do odd things at traffic lights etc, such as squatting at the back or at different corners, Sort of a self check thing.
xactiva
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Post by xactiva »

Does this happen when starting up first thing/ Or is it a traffic light thing?
If it is at lights it will probably be the car settling out all the pressures required to keep an Activa flat whilst braking, hard cornering then coming to a halt... It sits, thinks and does a quick readjust.
If when starting it's usually a hydraulic component up it... ram or sphere. Alternatively Activas do not use the antiroll bar for height correction because, for much of the time, it is "Out of circuit" so instead Citroen introduced another bar just for Activas, about a centimetre in diameter, to mount the height correction unit to. This is used as the datum for all the suspension acrobatics, Sadly I have had two break in my Activas and then there is no longer a reference point.. It kind of floats about,, The suspension might just stay down, middle high position goes straight to high(rock solid) etc, depending on where the broken rod is at the time. Totally random.
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