Xantia Has No Go........

[Guest xantia ooops]

Hi all ,

This is my first post so hope you can welcome me with some wisdom!!!!!!

Bought an S reg xantia exculsive lovely car but had no steerin/brakes or suspension ,from a mate found the problem was caused by a spilt hose so replaced it and re-filled with x3 bottles of LHM fluid everythings now tip top apart from wen i tried to drive it would`nt accelerate very well (over reved) and the "s" and snow flake symboll starts flashin on dash display.... turn off and bk on .resets to normall try- accelerate same problem and takes forever to get to 30mph . brought it home parked on grass ,,,, wont move at all now????? please help cheers Jon

[DickieG]

When the snow and sports mode light illuminate together it indicates that a fault has been recorded in the gearbox ecu which puts the gearbox into limp home mode. What you need to do is to visit either a dealer or a diagnostic centre to get the fault codes read from the gearbox ecu.

 

What sort of mileage has the car done, 100,000 by any chance? The reason I mention that is that Citroen state that the gearbox is "Sealed for life" i.e. Its not necessary to change the gearbox oil, however unless its changed at regular intervals the boxes have a tendency to fail at 100,000 miles ;) whereas when the oil is changed the boxes last very well indeed.

[Guest xantia ooops]

Thanks for such a quick reply..... the cars done roughly 160K but really doesn`t look like it and certainly doesn`t sound like it!!

I took it to a main deal.... charged me £32 for a check up and they came bk to me sayin needs a re-con box coastin roughly 2K or a new box at 6K .... the cars not worth anywhere near that!!! and seems a shame not to get it sorted the leather seats are like arm chairs!!!! and bein a 1.9 td nice run around cheap!! surely theres a fix!!!

[Guest xantia ooops]

Another question.... is it normall for the brakes in xantia`s not to have alot of travell in the pedel? first time i drove it nearly went through the front window lol??? I drive alot of different cars so it not as if i not use to adjustin to different cars. Any one else noticed this? is this a french thing on the bigger models.... (also have a saxo / nothing alike!)

[DickieG]

Another question.... is it normall for the brakes in xantia`s not to have alot of travell in the pedel? first time i drove it nearly went through the front window lol??? I drive alot of different cars so it not as if i not use to adjustin to different cars. Any one else noticed this? is this a french thing on the bigger models.... (also have a saxo / nothing alike!)

Hydropneumatic Citroen brakes work differently from other cars in that they are powered by the high pressure pump. When you press down on the brake pedal you open a valve to allow the fluid (LHM) to pass through the valve to the brakes, whereas on other cars you (the driver) create the pressure by the action of pushing down on the brake pedal.

 

Models equipped with this system of braking include DS, SM, CX, XM, GS, BX and Xantia but not the C5 which has a 'traditional' system.