My Back Suspension Will Not Stay Up.

[BML]

I don't pay much attention to my 1999 xantia estate and then one night I noticed that oncoming traffic kept flashing their lights at me because my nose was up in the air. When I started it the next morning the front came up followed by the back and then the back slowly dropped. A local garage fitted a new part but when I went to fetch it they told me that I would need to oporate the lever that lifts the whole suspension right up and then put the lever back to the correct position when the body would drop to the normal running position. If I wanted them to go further and get the car suspension oporating as it should it would cost a lot more.

If I leave the suspension as it is when I start the car up in the morning is it safe to run it?

[Guest Colin Hunter]

I Don't know what the garage did but it doesn't seem like much to me! This sounds very much like a height corrector problem. There is one at each end of the car and the lever between the seats connects to each via the long metal rod which goes between them. Each height corrector is connected to the anti roll bar (Front & rear) by a lever clamped to the bar and a plasic link rod which transmits the movement of the anti roll bar to the height corrector. SO! if the car is loaded and sinks the corrector allows more fluid into the system until the car levels up.......and vice versa.

 

There is very little trouble with the system as long as it is "exercised" occasionally (Pref once a week or so) by moving the lever through its range and making the suspension move from high to low and back again. The only known problem is that on the rear in particular the balls that the plastic link rod clip onto rust and the link wears and drops off. A new link rod is only pennies but, it too, will not be able to stay on for long. A recognised cure is to make an "L" shaped piece of steel and lightly tack weld it onto the corrector arm to stop the link dropping off.

 

This should cure your nose high attitude and cost no more than a tenner! Any more and you're being taken for a ride!

 

Cheers. Hope this helps. :lol:

 

PS Remember not to go under a hydraulic Citroen unless you've put axle stands in position in case it drops when you're messing with the height correctors!

[techbod]

they should have done a proper job and sorted the suspension out when they did a repair without the excuses like it would cost a lot more to sort it :lol:

 

it seems they didn't bleed the system which takes no time at all if they were proper mechanics and not expensive :blink: its in the heynes manual and all you do is rais the suspension to full hight then down to bottom then undo the 12mm bleed nut one turn only to let the air out and do it a couple of times till the suspension is right.