1996 Citroen Xantia 2.0T Activa

[Zelandeth]

Mar 24, 2019 9:45:22 GMT strikey said:

i must admit it's not a car i've ever really given a second glance , let alone know much about. whats the actual spec on it? i bet that interior is ultra comfy!

The entire model range is vastly underrated in my opinion. The only real recurring gripe I have with the series 1 cars is the total absence of any decent oddment storage in the cabin.

Spec this one is producing somewhere around 180bhp we believe (up from the stock 150 courtesy of the boost being turned up a bit, the stock setting is very conservative) which is plenty to make it feel properly rapid for an unassuming looking family car. The real party piece of the Activa of course is the active roll control meaning that you can pull 0.98G when cornering. Combined with brakes which are more than capable of stopping the rotation of the planet this means that on twisty roads quite rapid progress can be made.

Equipment spec was pretty good by mid 90s standards too...power steering, air conditioning, stereo with cassette CD multichanger and aux in with steering wheel controls, leather heated electrically adjustable seats, heated electrically adjustable wing mirrors, front fog lights, electric tilt/slide sunroof, driver's central arm rest, illuminated vanity mirrors in the sun visors, electric windows all round, remote central locking and keypad immobiliser, oil temperature gauge, external thermometer, integrated rear windscreen sun shade. Probably a heap of stuff I've forgotten. Nothing there to really shout about nowadays, but by mid 90s standards there were a lot of toys.

The only glaring omission on the Activa in my view was cruise control which wasn't even an option...though I have a cruise control system in a box in the garage which I will be fitting shortly. This should make motorway driving far less stressful given the tendency of this car's speed to almost silently drift up from 70mph to significantly illegal speeds, which in this day of every other gantry having a camera attached is always a worry.

Even a base spec Xantia in 1.9TD form is a very comfortable way to travel vast distances with ease, though there's no reason not to go looking for one in Executive spec as they're worth next to nothing these days. The V6 I would suggest away from as a daily these days purely because there are an increasing number of model specific parts which are getting hard to find these days.

[Geordie]

Looks great

[coyote]

totally underrated car, specially the activa.
still the fastest on the so-called elk test.
see:
readcars.co/2018/05/13/the-best-and-shockingly-worst-cars-on-the-infamous-elk-test/

quote:

THE FASTEST OF ALL

It’s a Citroen Xantia, the 1990s equivalent of today’s Citroen C5. More specifically, it’s a Xantia Activa. The Activa part makes all the difference.



Like other Citroens of its time, the Xantia had very clever self-levelling hydraulic suspension rather than the more conventional springs and shock absorbers. The Activa had a more complex version of the same system which almost completely eliminated body lean.



This put a lot of extra load on the tyres, but that was easily compensated for by other advantages. The result was that the Xantia Activa was incredibly quick through corners.



The Activa tested by Teknikens Värld had a three-litre V6 engine which was not available on versions sold in the UK. We got the less powerful two-litre turbo, but since that was lighter it would probably have made the car even faster through the Swedish slalom.


Even so, the fact is that nobody – not Audi, not Mercedes, not McLaren, not Porsche, not anyone – has ever made a car that performed as well in the elk test as this apparently humble Citroen once did.

full list.

teknikensvarld.se/algtest/

[Zelandeth]

The way the Activa handles a slalom is quite something. In terms of where you notice it when driving normally is during moments where there's a sudden side to side weight shift like when you exit a roundabout. It really does feel like the car has somehow managed to temporarily turn off the laws of physics when you do that. It's really difficult to describe.

I have a little back road that I enjoy back up north which runs between the house of a friend and my former home. Until I got the Activa the record for that journey was held by my Suzuki Cappuccino. I never thought that would be beaten as it seemed impossible without actually breaking the speed limits on the few straight sections...until the Activa had a shot at it, and proceeded to utterly destroy my record. Despite being more cautious a driver than I was a few years back too. I really do hope to get it to a track day someday as that's really the only place that I'm likely to be able to even come close to seeing the limits of this car.


Not much to report today as I've been busily trying to clear our huge mountain of garden waste.

The Xantia and my ancient trailer are helping there.



For all the trailer looks rather scruffy it tows really well, yet is light enough that it's (just about!) possible to wrangle it through the gate on its side single handedly. Didn't realise quite how well mannered it was until borrowing a similarly sized modern one from a friend, that thing bounced and skipped all over the shop compared to this.

Poor thing really does need a bit of cosmetic work though. Obviously varnish on the woodwork...what do you reckon for the frame? Red, black, Invacar blue or dark grey? I'll be completely redoing the wiring as well as there are so many patches on there it's hard to tell what's part of the system and what's ancient repair work.

[Zelandeth]

Feeling optimistic having got the Lada's throttle cable sorted today I thought I'd look into seeing if I could do something about the clutch on the Xantia.

This has been a bit of an issue as long as I've had the car. The clutch works just fine, no judder, no slip no snatching. However the bite point is about an inch from the floor, which gets quite tiresome around town.

Not knowing for certain if there was any way to adjust the cable I figured it would just make sense to find it and have a poke around. I've managed to convince supposedly self adjusting cables to tension up better with a bit of violence before. Now, the engine bay in the Activa is somewhat "busy" to be honest. Nothing obvious there, but I figured it would likely be easy enough if I pulled the air cleaner out.



Hmm...nope. Still can't find it. Let's pull the rest of the air intake elbow and look closer.



Plenty of obvious cables for the gear change...no obvious clutch gubbins. How about taking a look underneath?



Nothing (aside from a minor LHM leak - one of the return line weeps slightly at the reservoir). It looks horrendous in the photo but she's never used a drop of oil, water or LHM and doesn't mark her territory.

Turns out I'm an utter idiot. The Activa in 2.0T form (all we got in the UK) has the ML5 gearbox...which means hydraulic clutch! That had never even crossed my mind...once that gem of information crossed my mind the fact that there must be a fluid reservoir for it (unless it uses LHM...though apparently not) also joined the party. A tip from a fellow Citroen enthusiast has me now knowing where to look. Turns out I'd looked at it a hundred times and never given it a second thought.



I'd always assumed that was the interia switch as that's what it looks like.

So I'll check it there's fluid in it in the morning and see about bleeding it. Fingers crossed that might help a bit as there's no adjustment possible and it's been bugging me this last week (it's the van's fault as the clutch in that is lovely now).

[Zelandeth]

Finally back in action after an absolute stinker of a cold. Been ages since I've been knocked for six like that. 

So...the Xantia decided that it would progress the clutch issue from "annoying" to "dead" day before yesterday. 


Finally getting the lid off the reservoir revealed no fluid present. No huge surprise there given the behaviour. Topping it off and liberal pumping of the pedal returned something resembling a working clutch. Bleeding it will obviously be needed, though given the lack of any provision for that will make that job "interesting."

This is the point things got downright annoying. Having returned the car to a usable if imperfect state, I decided to call it a day and put the lid back on the reservoir...and promptly dropped it straight down the back of the engine. Did it drop all the way out the bottom? Of course not...Can I reach it? Heck...I can't even *see* the thing...Bother!

Will get it on the ramps at the weekend and see if I'm really lucky and it's sitting somewhere accessible from underneath. Not holding my breath...might need to find a new one...though I do have a spare Lada one which I'm really, really tempted to install somewhere actually sensible Inthe engine bay. The current arrangement is just downright idiotic.



Have a sneaking suspicion that the original lid will be buried down there for ever moree.

I'm just praying there's nothing wrong with the master cylinder...as I don't even want to think about the degree to which I'd need to dismantle the car to get that out. 

[duggers]

Have seen you about locally a couple of times and must say the car is somehow more handsome in the flesh than pictures.

Good luck locating that cap, that engine bay is very French in its layout!

[Zelandeth]

I've checked with a bit of random pipe that I had laying around, and the rigid plastic line running to the Xantia clutch fluid reservoir is a snug fit inside 3/16" hose as attached to the spare reservoir I have laying around...so I'm pretty sure that my long term plan here is to relocate it to somewhere sensible. The gap between the air conditioning receiver and inner wing looks pretty much made to measure, the bolt which secures the air con liquid line should do perfectly to secure the bracket to.

That's a task for next week though when I've got the patience to deal with it. The suggestion has been made that it might be worthwhile to try blasting the back of the engine with a hose pipe to see if the cap might then be dislodged...Not a bad shout actually as the engine bay is due a clean anyhow.

[Zelandeth]

Number one in "stuff I need to do today" was trying to track down the blasted clutch fluid reservoir cap which I'd in a spectacular show of hand-eye coordination dropped down the back of the engine. Thanks to the "busy" nature of the engine bay in the Activa I couldn't even see where it had ended up, never mind being able to get at it. 

Attempt number one to coerce it to fall out the bottom was by poking an air line down the back of the engine and blasting it in various directions. No luck. This was then upgraded to the hose pipe, equally unsuccessful. Eventually I gave in and got the ramps out. 

After a not inconsiderable amount of poking and prodding the cap eventually dropped out, not entirely sure where from actually as it just randomly landed next to my head from somewhere else. 



Managed to get the thing back on this time. I suspect there's still some air in the system somewhere as the pedal isn't great. That will need some further thought as there's no provision for bleeding the system. For now though it's driveable at least so I'm not going to worry too much.

[rickygolf83]

Despite all the effort, at least it was a £0 solution!

[Zelandeth]

Jun 23, 2019 0:16:55 GMT rickygolf83 said:

Despite all the effort, at least it was a £0 solution!

Well that remains to be seen...if the fluid stays where it belongs it's a solution...if it's leaking though we need to fix it. The reservoir contains a tiny amount of fluid though so I'm not discounting a tiny amount of loss year on year having just run it dry though.

[rickygolf83]

Good luck! Fingers crossed for you! 

[Zelandeth]

The clutch is still working lovely. In fact far better than it ever has since I got the car...so I'm guessing I was actually nearly out of fluid for well over a year. If I can sort out the rattling front suspension she'll actually be driving perfectly.

This afternoon I took an hour out to investigate a gremlin which has turned up in the last week or so - that the rear of the exhaust had taken up rattling somewhere. It's driving me round the twist.

Being a hydraulic Citroen has pluses and minuses. Needing to pull the axle stands out to safely crawl under it to poke the exhaust is a minus. Not actually having to do the jacking up manually though is a plus.

Obligatory safety disclaimer:
Obviously it's essential to put the axle stands in as should there be any failure in the hydraulic system, the car could drop on you. There are far less stupid ways to die than get squished by a Citroen because you accidentally poked and annoyed the rear height corrector while inspecting the exhaust.

I've had a good poke around the exhaust end to end...I'm precisely none the wiser. All of the hangers are present and correct, the system hasn't split anywhere (nope, not even the usual joint on the front of the back box which usually rots out on Xantias), no obvious dents or anything. The hanger rubbers even look healthy.

The only thing resembling a theory I've got at this point is that someone has smacked my car in a car park, but they've managed to very specifically hit the tailpipe...just hard enough to either bend the system or one of the hangers slightly.

It's all I've got...the rear silencer is fouling on the rear chassis rail (okay fine...I know it's a monocoque, but you know what I mean) and boot floor quite firmly. It's never done this until the last couple of weeks, so either the car or the exhaust has changed shape!

I'd known the rear box was a bit crusty though so wanted to give it a good look over. Of course I'm a complete idiot, so I poked the crusty bits.



Now there are two holes in the box. This one and another one just by where the pipe joins on the front.

The centre section isn't bad, but it's not in its first flush of youth either and I know from prior experience that the flange at the rear (for those not familiar with PSA exhausts, these use a sort of spherical joint with a cup on each end of the joining pipes) is likely to be a mess once I remove the clamp and will then be a pain to seal again.

So I realistically need a rear box, probably a middle section...and four tyres. Fronts are worn out, rears have plenty of tread left but date from 2010 and are starting to perish. This is going to be an expensive month isn't it.

[Zelandeth]

One of the cosmetic issues this car has faced since I picked it up was that the window seal was lifting at the rear edge of the front and front edge of the rear door on the offside. This looks unsightly at the best of times, and quite often you would find that someone walking past the car had snagged on it in a car park so you'd come back to this.



I seem to recall this being a really common issue even back when we were selling these cars at the garage 20 years ago. There should be a couple of little locating pegs in there, but they're long gone here.

My solution here was to gloop a bunch of Sikaflex behind the seal and clamp things in place...



...Then forgot about it for three or four days!

Once the clamps were removed things look far better.



Especially looking in the wing mirror where you used to be able to see it sticking out all the time.



The unexpected bonus of this has been a very noticeable reduction in wind noise at motorway speeds. Mostly though it just looks a hundred times better.

[Zelandeth]

About time this car gets some proper attention. She's used pretty much daily and really hasn't needed anything of note beyond regular servicing since I got it at the end of 2016. Not bad for a 26 year old 135K mile car which the majority of people consider to be fragile and overcomplicated. A credit both to Citroen themselves and the care with which the previous owner looked after the car.

Over the last month or so I've started to notice an odd symptom through the steering of the car tending to want to wander under hard acceleration, tending to pull more to the right. From the driver's seat it feels very much like torque steer.

One thing I was aware of was that this had become noticeable right about the point that the front tyres really started to get to the "these need changing" state, so wanted to check whether swapping them around would have any impact on the behaviour. She will be getting four new tyres shortly anyway due to old age which is why I never bothered swapping them a while ago to balance the wear. The rears still have plenty of tread left, but they're shot...



Uniroyal RainExpert (3 I think is the current version) will replace these shortly.

While I had the wheels off I noticed something. A while ago our local council made the genius decision to resurface some of the roads around here, basically drowning the road in tar then throwing some gravel at it. Given the ambient temperatures at the time, the road needed to be closed until it had at least mostly set. As it was they'd just scattered some travel over it, shrugged and wandered off...no signage or anything. The first any poor drivers knew of it was when they suddenly found themselves sliding through gravelly treacle. I wound up with tar and gravel stuck all over the car, including the roof. I need to try to shift this chunk at some point...



That's not just gravel... it's a solid lump of tar and gravel. Couple of new stainless steel clips on the fuel tank filler neck wouldn't go amiss either.

Up front there was nothing obviously amiss aside from spotting a small split in the nearside CV boot. Good opportunity to show off the bits which make the Activa special though.



The important bit is the smaller hydraulic ram connected between the anti-roll-bar and the bottom of the main suspension strut. It's by pushing or pulling on this ram and an identical one at the opposite corner connected to the rear suspension that the car is able to keep itself level during cornering.

While it would have been nice if the problem was entirely down to knackered tyres I knew it was a long shot. Sure enough there is absolutely zero difference apparent from the driver's seat. Having spoken to a few people who know these cars inside out it sounds like the most likely candidates for the symptoms I've got are are worn front control arm bushes. These are quite a faff to change on the Activa so the work will be farmed out to a specialist. There's probably a couple of other bushes etc which will want changing by this age and mileage so I'll probably be giving them an instruction to just sort anything they see that's amiss. May as well do it while everything is already in bits as that's where 85% of the labour charges will be incurred so it will actually save me money in the long run. MOT is up in December too, and having the car turn up with a bunch of new parts fitted always gives a good impression I think.

[Zelandeth]

Well that's maddeningly unhelpful.



Car was last running a few days ago. Battery is less than a year old.



Currently on the charger, though then I need to find out why it's flat. Really hoping the alternator isn't having issues, as having to replace that in addition to all the other work that's coming up really might be the straw that broke the camel's back. Especially as it looks like it will be a royal pain to change due to poor access.

[Zelandeth]

Alternator seems to be charging okay and so far the battery has behaved after a proper charge. I'll probably look to get it changed under warranty in the near future though as it really shouldn't have died like that and having been that deeply discharged is unlikely to ever be quite 100% again. Probably be a bit of a while until I have time to get to it though.

Today I've got it booked in to get new tyres fitted on Monday. Full set of Uniroyal RainExpert 3. Unsurprisingly they didn't have any 205/60 R15s in stock. Formula 1 are asking £83 apiece, which isn't unreasonable. The best I found online was £73 I think including fitting, and I'll happily pay a few quid more to support a local business. Not like when I was looking for tyres for the Invacar and it was like £44 online Vs £79 there...I wasn't willing to stand for that.

We'll have a look while on the ramp to see if we can do anything with the exhaust...the tailpipe is definitely past it, but can probably be bodged for the MOT, allowing me to investigate that in the near future. Likewise she could really do with a set of corner spheres...but they'll have to wait until the financial dent this next couple of weeks is making has recovered a bit first!

She's also booked into BL Autos on Thursday to have the front end sorted out.

[Zelandeth]

Xantia is now wearing a nice new set of Uniroyal RainExpert 3 tyres.



Tell you what I wasn't expecting...that changing the tyres has reduced road noise by what feels like about 70%. It's not something I was expecting at all, so took me a good few seconds to figure out what had changed.

I'm glad to be back on these tyres to be honest. Have been on others for a few years now down to availability and what cars came with...but the RainExpert has been my tyre of choice going back pretty much to the start of me driving back in 2003.

Annoyingly she will definitely be wanting rear discs for the MOT as they've only been working on a small portion of the rear of the disc - quite likely due to the usual Xantia issue of the caliper alignment being screwed up by dissimilar metal corrosion between the axle and caliper.

Deceptive this problem as the rear brakes don't do much in the Xantia unless you've a lot of weight onboard - the brakes in this one feel quite capable of stopping the rotation of the planet itself as they are.

Front discs will do a bit yet, but the pads are definitely getting towards due for a change.



Couple of weeks over two years and ~20K miles.

The exhaust has also decided to be annoying, having somehow managed to part company with the rearmost hanger.



Still not quite sure how it's managed this...though the whole system appears to have managed to get twisted somehow and this is the first day it's not rattled in several months. Will see if I can convince it to behave tomorrow.

If I can get this exhaust through the MOT I'll be happy...as I'd really rather not have to add another hundred or two onto the bill (and finding systems that actually fit well for the Xantia is a pain at the best of the time, irrespective of price). I'd like to get a stainless system made...but I could do with a chance to recover from the work about to be done before having to pay for that too!

[Zelandeth]

Well that was a waste of a morning.

Turns out the last email I sent to BL Autos never got through, vanishing into the aether somewhere...so they weren't expecting me to appear this morning as they'd never had the message from me saying I'd be there today. This meant that they had nowhere to put the car and their courtesy car was unavailable. So I was left with no option other than to drive back home and book it back in for the tenth.

Not their fault by any means...just annoying. Could have proven really awkward if I'd got pulled over on the way there for driving with no MOT too as the garage wouldn't have had any idea I was on the way. Luckily that didn't happen.

On the plus side it gives me the opportunity to clean the car up a bit before it goes in. I've removed a load of detritus from the door pockets and boot, and will be able to give it a wash to get the moss out of the window rubbers.

The exhaust was reattached to the rearmost hanger (again) and I removed the demountable tow bar having smacked my shins on it for about the 78274638th time.



Just a bit of salt on the roads today!

[Zelandeth]

Well that visit to the garage could have gone better.



They reckoned somewhere in the region of £1500 worth...even taking into account that I had some of the required parts already in the car.

I already knew about the stuffed lower control arm bush (that's the main thing it was in there to sort), the rear brakes were spotted at the end of last week when the tyres were changed, and I knew the exhaust was ropey but was kind of hoping we could scrape a couple months more out of it as I've been hoping to get a stainless system fitted, and there's always been a creak in the front end, so I was expecting a bush or two to need attention. The rest however was a complete bolt from the blue.

I'm a bit of two minds about the reported LHM leaks...those areas have been slightly damp with fluid for the two and a half years I've had the car...but in those two and a bit years and 20+K miles she's never used a drop of fluid...so it can't be leaking that much!

The rear arm bearing has me slightly puzzled... usually those failing give a load of warning years before they actually become an issue, with creaking, groaning etc...but aside from a rattle from the exhaust recently, the rear end has been totally silent...and I've never noticed it graunching or anything when dropping or raising the suspension. No abnormal tyre wear or anything like that either. Just slightly surprised that I've not seen that one coming...

Will need to do a bit of a part sourcing binge and see what I can get ticked off on my own driveway to see if I can get that bottom line down to a slightly less painful figure.

The work will be done though... despite the fact that it's probably going to still wind up exceeding the value of the car...because let's face it, what on earth would I replace it with?