diagnosing knackered xantia struts

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mseymour
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diagnosing knackered xantia struts

Post by mseymour »

I'm still trying to solve the crap ride in my VSX (one year on). All spheres have been changed, hydraulics flushed, filters cleaned and new fluid. Even drove it 120 miles to Pleiades who said it was ok, it clearly isn't.
I'm told that if one or more struts is leaking internally that will lead to a harsh ride. So here are a couple of questions for you good people.
If just one strut is dead, will it cause the ride to be harsh overall, or would it be noticeable that it's just one wheel?
How do I diagnose this? I've checked the LHM returns and, it ignoring the pump return, there's a steady stream coming back down two pipes. I'm guessing one of these is from the steering ram, so what's the other one?
Does anyone know which return pipe is which?
That'll probably do for now.[;)]
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Post by mseymour »

Bump....
come on Anders, lets have the benefit of your encyclopeadic knowledge of all things citroen...
mseymour
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Post by mseymour »

Bump, for one last time.... Someone must know this.... surely..
paranoid
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Post by paranoid »

Have you greased the struts ? Mine got loads better after this, But workmates with proper Michelins does seem a fair bit better, my cheapo kwik fits seem to crash and bang about a bit.
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Post by broomie »

Diagnosis
put the Xantia on low, now put it to High. How does it rise?
1. Smoothly and evenly - Struts Ok
2. Jerky, stilted movement at the front - Struts worn
good luck
paulB
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Post by mseymour »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by broomie</i>

Diagnosis
put the Xantia on low, now put it to High. How does it rise?
1. Smoothly and evenly - Struts Ok
2. Jerky, stilted movement at the front - Struts worn
good luck
paulB
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Hmmmm. The car rises and falls pretty smoothly. But I'm wondering if one of the rear struts is leaking internally as I'm lead to believe this could cause the nasty harsh ride I'm experiencing. I suppose it could be that the brand new spheres I fitted immediately failed, but I'm not convinced.
The car has some cheapo tires on the front but conti eco contacts on the back.....
It really is like driving an old van, it's terrible.
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Post by mseymour »

It's maybe worth adding that the ride is worse than pretty much any other car I've driven, including a 206, until I get to high speeds (60+) when it's ok, but not great.
Richard Gallagher
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Post by Richard Gallagher »

You could do the same as me and change the spheres on each strut to non-Hydractive TD/2.0 ones.
I've done this to the one listed below, another TD saloon 110K miles and a 2.0 Turbo CT estate 115K miles.
Personally I think its the best thing you can do to a Hydractive Xantia because you then get a superb ride yet still retain its handling, best of all it costs less than £100 to do.
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Post by paranoid »

Yep that sounds like mine, but havent got the money to change the nasty tyres[V]
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Panjandrum
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Post by Panjandrum »

Back to the original question...
"Does anyone know which return pipe is which?"
Is there really no-one with the answer?
mseymour
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Post by mseymour »

Ok, so last night I put a new accumulator sphere on (the old one was about two years old) At idle the regulator still ticks about every nine seconds, which I believe is too often.
Also added a new front centre sphere, no discernable difference. Put the old front centre sphere on the back which should make the back really soft, no difference. It still feels like it's riding on dead spheres, but it isn't. [:(]
Next plan is to undo the pressure release screw and see if lots of LHM is still coming back to the reservoir, if it isn't then I've definately got at least one dead rear strut... right?
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Post by davek-uk »

With a new acc sphere I'd say that a 9 second tick is far to quick - this does lead me to think that you do have a component that is returning too much fluid. I've read earlier that if you put the car into low it isolates the suspension struts, so do you still have the same 9 second interval when running in low? If you think you have a leaking strut, I'd expect the tick interval to increase dramatically in low with the suspension cut out of the system.
When you undo the pressure release screw I don't know how you'd tell between all spheres ejecting fluid and all but one ejecting fluid. You wouldn't see the difference, you'd have to measure it. I don't think it would point to a dead strut though - the struts are only pistons in effect. The only way I can see of detecting a duff strut is to see how much fluid it is returning - a few drips, a trickle or a torrent.
If you can't get an answer to what return pipes the struts use at the reservoir then you'll have to check the return pipe at the strut itself. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer.
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Post by mseymour »

Cheers Dave, it didn't occur to me to drop the suspension and see what happens. I'll do that tonight.
I see your logic about the fluid return. I'm confident that both the front stuts are ok, because their returns are easily accessible, but I was trying to find a way of confirming the problem without having to lift up the car and mess about with the returns from the rear struts.
Changing the rear struts looks easy (according to Haynes [:o)] ) Is it?
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Post by AndersDK »

Dave-k is right.
You got to diagnose the system untill something at wrong comes to daylight.
It's known that problems with the main hydraulic pressure have large influence on the ride in hydractive systems :
9 seconds ticking at idle are **way too fast** !
It's GOT to be down in the 1-1.5 minutes interval with a new acc sphere - period [:0]
You're looking at a leak problem somewhere. Simply start as Davek writes : have car in lowest height, then start your diagnosing from there, then move on to any suspect strut/cylinder, unplug the leak off hose to see the problem with your own eyes.
This must of course be done with pressure (height) on the suspension. Note that you can only have a leak in the leak-off rubber hoses. The HC's are constructed as a sliding valve, either letting extra pressure TO the struts/cylinders - or - releasing pressure FROM the cylinders.
Might be your PR itself at fault ??
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Post by mseymour »

I dropped the suspension and although I don't hear the regulator tick, the engine still labours slightly every ten seconds or so. Does this mean the Pressure Regulator is faulty, or could system pressure be leaking anywhere else?
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