Sport Suspension Light, fault or feature?

[aperfect]

Hi All

As a new owner of an XM I wondered if anyone may be able to shed any light on a possible suspension problem I have.

The truth be known I am not really sure if it is a problem or just normal behaviour of the car.

My apologies for the length of this mail, but I think the more information I can give you, the more chance there is of my getting across clearly what is happening.

I have a 95' XM 2.0i 16V. The car has run superb for the last 650 miles with the exception that I have not yet been able to figure out when the Sport indicator light should be on or not.

When turning the ignition, 9 times out of 10 the sport indicator lights up (as I believe it should, as part of the self test). Then after starting sometimes it stays on for several miles and sometimes not. This is all with the suspension switch set to normal.
The actual ride feels fine, very comfortable and not at all as though there is anything wrong.

However I have just begin to notice something that may have been happening previously and I was just unaware. That is that when the light comes on, the rear of the car ducks down.

I will let you have a few scenarios to let you know exactly what I mean. When leaving work, I have to pull away from a driveway that meets the main road at quite a steep downhill angle and on pulling up to this junction to leave one night, the rear or the car felt as though it had dropped down. The ride for the next mile or so was quite rough, so I pulled over.

The amount the car had dropped at the rear was maybe 2", however while I was looking at it, the sport light went off and the rear rose up to normal height again.

I bounced the rear of the car hard, to see if there was in fact a problem, and once again it ducked down then after a minute or so rose back up.

Even at one point, while it was running at normal height, I got out and the 'ducking down' and sport light coming on appeared to be triggered by my getting into the car

Apart from maybe immediately after it has dropped, the ride quality does not seem any worse than normal

In all these situations the suspension switch is set to Normal.

One other thing that may also be related or normal behaviour is reversing uphill. We live on a hill and if I reverse up it while parking at anything other than a very slow pace, the rear appears to rise somewhat (it then makes it very difficult to see where I was actually reversing to)

Anyway, enough waffle - my question is: Under what conditions should the light come on? As I understand it it may be when you put the switch to sport (which in my case it does not), and in the event of a fault (which in my case may be). Also when into sport mode, does the ride height drop - is this just normal XM behaviour or could it be a regulator fault.

The car has just had a service at a Citroen specialist and had all spheres replaced about 12-15 months ago

Any advice you could give on what may be at fault

Thanks
Alan

[Peter.N.]

Hi Alan

Your "sports mode" indicator light should only come on when you are switched to sports mode, you could possibly have a problem with the suspension computer. Does the dot matrix display indicate sport mode when the light comes on? The mode setting should not affect the ride height as it only closes the solonoid operated valves between the main and centre spheres in order to stiffen the suspension. On the Mk1 the ride is hard when switched to sport mode but the Mk11 (yours) uses a slightly different system that just makes the roll/braking sensitivity higher but does not affect the straight line ride. The change in ride height could be due to a sticking rear height corrector, try spraying some oil on it, and see if you can borrow a suspension computer to swap with yours.

Peter.N.