£30 Ebay Hydractive 2 Suspension Repair Kit?, Ive got one!

[Citroenmad]

Just wanting to know if anyone on here has tried the kit available from e-crofting to restore your Xms ride back to 'as new'?

I have fitted one today, ill let you know what i think later, but i was wondering if anyone else has tried one?





This post has been edited by Citroenmad on November 07, 2008 09:31 pm

[DerekW]

As reported elsewhere, I fitted one to my V6 purely as a backup.

[Citroenmad]

So you didn't notice any difference once fitted, interesting.

So my views then:

We always thought the suspension was fine, its was very soft, the self leveing works fine, the LHM gets changed often and the spheres regassed often too. However, it is nobbly around town at times, usually on smaller bumps, larger bumps it handles fine. Also when you press hardish (but not hard enough for it to be in sport) on the accelerator it sometimes dips at the rear and lifts at the front and other times it wouldnt, leading me to think it was in sport mode.

So a few weeks ago we regassed the spheres, to a little higher pressure than is normally in. That made it ride quite a bit softer than before, even though it had only been two years since they were last done - most of that time spent sat in the low position in between us using it.

I thought for the sake of £30 id put one of these repair kits on and see if it does actually make a difference. It was easy to fit, you need to supply your Xms RP number and they email you the right wire colours to put the 3 wires from the box into. Very easy to use connections are supplied, so no need to cut or splice wires.

The kit is from e-crofting, I ordered it yesterday and it turned up today. The colours were not quite right on the email so i rang him and he was very helpful at explaining which wires we needed to connect. I have also had a few electric window cables from him (my fault for needing a few!), very good to deal with.

So the verdict:

Its SOFT!

It rides the big bumps pretty much the same as before, but over smaller ruts and dips in the road it irons them out totally, it just floats along now. It never feels like its in sports mode round the town now, the nobbly ride round town has now gone, it is so smooth now. Obviously the sports setting still operates as before.

My dad tried it too and said "its more like a DS now" So it must be on its way to magic carpet like ride now! If anyone lives local, you are more than welcome to come and try it!

I really recommend everyone with an XM gets one of these, for the sake of £30 it could really improve your Xm, even if you think it rides nicely already, you could be surprised how much better this box makes it. If it doesnt improve it, then as Derek said, it always serves as a stop back if yours becomes faulty.

I didnt know mine was faulty, and it wasnt too bad but this has really changed the ride of the car! Which, after all, is one reason we drive Xms.

ThwartedEfforts i recommend you get one, its well worth it!

It also alerted me to something else .... The alarm! When reconnecting the battery it went off!

I forgot it even had one, its always had a bit of a fault. It did used to work but would go off in the middle of the night for no reason! Then after a while it would just give up working and the lights stopped flashing when i put the deadlocks on. So i forgot all about it

So now thats working again, and so far no false alarms! I hope it doesnt get me up tonight and my indicators now flash with the central locking again, so thats good too!

Its this magic box i tell you!

Happy Xming

[ThwartedEfforts]

Thanks for the write-up. At £30 it's definitely worth a punt, and particularly if someone here is genuinely impressed with it. My car's away at the vets so I'll need to wait for its return until I get get the RP number (which, I confess, I've only just this moment researched to find out what the heck everyone's talking about when they mention it!)

[Citroenmad]

Yes i found out yesterday what that was

It will be written in the front page of your service book and the inside of your door too.

Ive known about these for a year or two, but always thought mine was fine and never bothered. Im pretty happy that i have finally decided to get one. Possibly the best £30 the Xm has ever had spent on it!

I only had a short 15 mile test in it this evening, ill have to have a longer trip tomorrow and try it on some worse roads. It was mainly in town where i felt it could be softer, town driving is much softer now. Good job given the roads around here.

There is definitely an noticable improvement though.

This post has been edited by Citroenmad on November 07, 2008 11:57 pm

[Peter.N.]

Its quite easy to tell if your suspension is working properly or not. Simply open a door and check how much movement you have on the suspension, the rear is better, then close the door, wait 30 seconds or so until the electro valves close and ther should now be only about a third of the suspension travel that there was before. If it makes no difference, either the centre spheres are flat or the suspension ECU is not working, the most likely cause being failure of the shunt diodes

Peter.N.

[Citroenmad]

No there was a huge difference, much less movement when the valves are closed.

Spheres on mine are all as they should be, they were only done a few weeks ago.

If the ECU was not working i would know about it, it functions as normal, especially now, cutting in and out of sports mode as it should. If the ECU was broken - which is quite possible if these diodes are left broken too long - then this black box would not cure the problem. You would need the ECU repairing.

So my ECU is fine, as is my car now.

To drive you would never know anything was wrong (i say wrong but that seems a bit strong) it was still very soft but i felt it could be a little softer. It seemed to be intermittent, it rode soft at times and harder at others.

By the sounds of what the seller said (i know your thinking he will be biased) a lot of Xms would benefit from this device. Since over time the diodes wear out. It maybe that mine had not gone completely, as it still rode very nicely, however this has improved it again.

Ive been in enough Xms to know how they should ride. Ours was always used to show to customers how their car should ride and drive, so its not as if it was bad, i might have not made that clear. Maybe we just have not noticed it getting slightly firmer over time.

It used to ride great, now its fantastic. I believe there is very little else you can do to make them ride better.

Ive seen someone ate citroen events selling these, not sure if its the same person i got mine from, but i think he had a red Xm exclusive last time i noticed. They did seem to sell quite well at shows too.

I still recommend its a must have for all XM owners, i bet most people will notice a difference. Even if you think its fine, it might not be.

This post has been edited by Citroenmad on November 08, 2008 01:03 am

[demag]

Guys,

e-crofting is actually Roy Mackay if you didn't know. He is a long standing and well respected member of this forum.

[Citroenmad]

Ah, mackay1, its all became clear now!

I know his name but did not put two and two together!

Sorry Roy. - It was my dad Ray, who rang you while we were fitting it yesterday, thanks again for the help

Its a great item.

[dean]

Isnt it Roy mackay who does the stainless steel replacement inserts for the door mouldings too? or Techmanagain?

Glad to see you have what seems like a fully functioning hydractive system now cit-mad, they are lovely when they work

D

[Citroenmad]

It may well be Roy who deals with them too, if so ive also got them

Yes its fantastic

I just dont think we noticed it progressively getting more nobbely, which i think is the word to use, as it was never hard.

[dean]

I was/am very tempted by the stainless ones but whoever it is that does them said at the time that they could not make the curved bumper trims which put me off a bit because i thought it would look a bit mix and match with half chrome half stainless.........i will havee a look at your pictures in readers rides though

D

[Citroenmad]

Yeah i only have the side stainless ones.

I ordered new ones for the front and rear from Citroen, which were about £280. I also sealed the end of the new citroen ones with sylicone so hopefully that will keep the water out a bit better!

I never looked into it but i think to get the side chrome bts from Citroen you need to buy the whole black plastic trims?

You can only tell the difference if you look closely, and it looks much better than the nasty ones from before i changed them.

Infact i still have the original bits in both smaller pats of the side trims on either side, as they are not corroded. So ive left them for now but do have the stainless ready to go in.

So no i dont notice too much that the doors have the stainless, its a big improvement

[dean]

I had a look and i cant see any difference in the pictures between your door trims and the bumper ones.........they are all very shinny

D

[Citroenmad]

Nope you can't really tell can you.

I picked mine up from a Citroen event and got the bumper trims later. They always used to let the car down.