Strut Top Movement When Steering, Is some normal?

I'm thinking of just purchasing some new / second hand strut tops and treating them, and being done with it. I think the ones on my XM are good, but like Andrew says, how can you trust them?
The Xantia ones are certainly not good, and as a consequence that car is off the road until I source new ones. I'm not allowing my daughter to be carried in it until it has both tops replaced.

I am honestly surprised no one has died or at least had a bad accident from a strut failure yet.
What would physically happen, were a strut to go at speed? Would the wheel still rotate, or would it bounce around and destabilise / flip the car?

I think we should start raising awareness of this, we could begin by all emailing Citroen with our concerns. What address did you use, Nige?

Ciarán.

I just went onto the citroen UK website and clicked through the 'Contact Citroen' tab.

The Xantia wasn't in the dropdown list of cars so had to put down model - 'other'.

The site asks for full contact details - address & phone number as well as e-mail address. I'll see what comes back from them next week....or if not there is also a mailing address listed - that'll be the next step as e-mails can conveniently be ignored quite easily.

I didn't mention the XM's - perhaps that's another fight or hope the xantia response sets a precedent.

Being reasonable -I feel Citroen UK Head Office is morally obliged to give a discount towards the purchase of new strut tops for affected cars. I find it hard to visualise a situation where a recall, etc is issued, because lets face it these cars are all 10+ yrs old now and the average life of a modern car is about that.

I think that's probably the argument Citroen will use, that the car is designed for a reasonable lifetime.

Andrew, non Cit-suspended cars with McPherson struts don't suffer the same problem because the car's weight and all the suspension loads are taken through the coil springs to the upper spring mount on the underside of the turret. The only load taken by the strut top is the reaction to the damper (often incorrectly called the shock absorber) within the leg. Rusting of the turret is as important to those cars as our strut tops are to ours and is a reason to fail the MOT.

At least we are aware of the problem and the potential danger. I agree that Citroen need to at least acknowledge it for the benefit of those owners who aren't aware. Maybe it should be introduced as a specific check on MOTs?

Derek

Good point Derek, I have no doubt that the attitude of Citroen (and indeed, any car company), will be 'Its old, what do you expect, scrap it and buy a C5', etc etc.

Interestingly though, I have heard reports of failure in young cars, especially in hot environments. I seem to remember a thread by an Australian guy on French Car Forum, where he described how the tops were going on a 3/4 year old Xantia he bought.u

I totally agree that at the very least there needs to be public awareness. Its Ok for us, but what about non mechanically, or Citroen minded Joe Bloggs who haven't a clue about this ticking timebomb under their bonnet.

Less so with the XMs, as they're a more unique / specialised car and more likely to be owned by an enthusiast at this point in time, however there are literally thousands of Mondantias out there in daily use as A-B machines by unsuspecting drivers. Most of them probably don't even know what a strut top is, let alone that they could be seeing it pop through their bonnet to say hello at 80 in the outside lane sometime soon...

I suppose as the years go on, more and more will pop, and perhaps Citroen's hand will be forced into acknowledging the problem. I think now though they are more than aware of it and just hoping it will go away, or that that enough cars will be scrapped due to other mechanical failures, well before their struts give up.
The trouble here (for them) is that these cars are actually quite durable, and with their corrosion free bodies and decent engines (especially the diesels), its no problem at all for them to go on well past 10/12 years, so I really suspect we haven't heard the last of it. I'm going to write to Citroen as Wirdy has... I don't expect much in the way of a tangiable response, however we can but try and pester them about it...

Hi Guys.

As an equally keen owner, I'm sorry to have to say I think you're dreaming if you think there will be the slightest flicker of recognition from Citroen on the strut top issue. Manufacturers go to extraordinary lengths to avoid any public recognition of inherent defects and on a vehicle that's now out of production for seven or eight years they will care even less.
A parallel issue that has always amazed me is of all the XMs I've had, which goes down to ones with as little as 30k on the clock, I have never had one where the bodyshell corrosion checklist at the back of the handbook has been filled in. Amazing that owners of then new XMs just didn't seem to bother !

Mike.

Hi All

I agree with On-the-cut I am afraid. A good while ago I broached the issue of replacing the strut heads under the corrosion guarantee with a dealer I had bought an XM from. He asked for the booklet (from a car maintained and sold by them) and turned up the corrosion section, found it blank, pointed out that the car had not been returned for inspection as required and that this invalidated any guarantee. He also mentioned that as a dealer they got a block cash discount from Citroen to cover all guarentee claims not reimbursement of actual labour and parts costs when incurred. I note with interest that the corrosion inspection includes the washing of the wheel arches (at customer expense) prior to the inspection. Have they always known the underside of the struts were at risk?
On a more general point strut heads appear to have a design OR manufacturing feature that can lead to rapid failure. Xantias appear to be much worst than XM's. Replacing with New or Good secondhand does not solve the fundamental problem just move it a few years hence. I now stongly suspect that the strut head baseplate can suffer from mill scale caused by the forging process which is not completely cleaned off before the thin rubber layer is applied. Poor preparation leaving mill scale is a regular cause of failure of expensive protective coatings applied to structural steelwork. If this is so then strut head rusting is likely to be particular in its extent to batches of baseplates and possibly to individual baseplates.

Regards

XMexc

This post has been edited by xmexclusive on February 25, 2007 01:49 pm

Received written reply from Citroen UK today -

CITROEN CUSTOMER RELATIONS CENTRE
Citroen UK Limited
221 Bath Road
Slough
SL1 4BA
Tel: 0870 606 9099 Fax: 01753 748143
Email: CUKCustomer_Relations@citroen.com
www. citroen. co.uk


Re: Citroen Xantia Activa
Thank you for your e-mail from which I note your comments.

I am sorry to learn of your concerns regarding the suspension on the above model. Like all manufacturers, Citroen do strive to maintain the highest possible standards, however, it is always possible that individual components may require attention on a vehicle that is over ten years old.

In a situation where there is an outstanding problem, it will require the participation of your Citroen dealer to investigate the cause. In the event that your dealer requires assistance, they are able to contact our Dealer Support who will be pleased to offer them technical back-up.

In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time and trouble to bring your concerns to our attention.



Yours sincerely CITROEN UK LIMITED

RICHARD O'DARE
CUSTOMER RELATIONS CENTRE




You can guess what's next then...... 'it's ten yeers old, Sir, that's wear & tear' or 'could I have a look at the corrosion inspection stamps at the back of your service history book?' or ' can I see the full service history, Sir?'

I was lucky to catch mine in time with just some minor corrosion & I've managed to clean up and reseal.

Ciaran - yours sound a lot worse than mine - do you fancy testing the water with the dealer to see if Head Office would authorise you a discount on some new strut tops?

I'll certainly try, however the car is a 95, so I'm guessing their line will be something similar to what you got.

Other issue is it doesn't have a VTC at the moment, and it won't get one with tops like that, so it won't be going anywhere until they're changed.

I can try removing the tops and bringing them down there, but I suspect I'll be laughed at

Just a thought. Don't know if I'm missing something, but as the leg is attached to the antiroll bar shouldn't that limit the amount a failed strut top would move upwards? In other words the suspension movement should be absorbed by a combination of the torsional wind up of the antiroll bar and the sphere on the other side.

Not enought to prevent the bonnet from being speared, but enought to prevent catastrophic failure.

As an aside, what purpose does the steel cap above the rubber serve?

Derek

Sorry, Another double post.

Derek

This post has been edited by DerekW on March 05, 2007 07:25 pm

>As an aside, what purpose does the steel cap above the rubber serve?

I have often wondered that myself. It seems to have no purpose whatsoever, other than possibly to shield the rubber covering on the metal underneath from initial corrosion. I'll cut a section of a strut top and photograph it for comments.

>non Cit-suspended cars with McPherson struts don't suffer the same problem because the car's weight and all the suspension loads are taken through the coil springs to the upper spring mount on the underside of the turret. The only load taken by the strut top is the reaction to the damper (often incorrectly called the shock absorber) within the leg.<

That suggests that a well-maintained car (in respect of front spheres) is an essential strut-top life-improver.
Don't forget that the spring-mounted Macpherson struts rotted at the mounting on the body shell and broke away at that point instead. It was just easier to see, that's all. Ask any Ford dealer how many Escorts/Fiestas he has seen fail MOTs with that fault, and it applies to many other makes as well.