As 2020 hasn't been awful enough yet = my £750 Citroen C6!
Discussion
Kitchski said:
B'stard Child said:
I already thought you were taking it seriously.......................
Funny enough I was following a black one of these with Mrs BC in the car
Mrs BC "what the chuff is that"
BC "Citroen C6"
Mrs BC "is that 2007" (57 Plate but she struggles with modern plate formats - the 70 ones really fugged with her head just just about worked out the last decade ones)
BC "yep"
Mrs BC "I've never seen one before"
BC "I'm actually following a thread on one on PH"
Mrs BC "No way you are buying one it's fugly - it's clearly been left in the sun look at the rear screen it's melted and sagged"
BC "same as a Citroen CX - like your cousin used to have"
Mrs BC "I like those"
BC "Just as complicated"
Mrs BC "so if you are not going to buy one and they are complicated why are you following a thread on one"
BC "it's a pain pleasure thing except I don't feel the pain"
Mrs BC "you are just weird!"
I have absolutely zero love for this but very much enjoying following your experiences because I think someone has to do it or they will all disappear
Thanks....I think!Funny enough I was following a black one of these with Mrs BC in the car
Mrs BC "what the chuff is that"
BC "Citroen C6"
Mrs BC "is that 2007" (57 Plate but she struggles with modern plate formats - the 70 ones really fugged with her head just just about worked out the last decade ones)
BC "yep"
Mrs BC "I've never seen one before"
BC "I'm actually following a thread on one on PH"
Mrs BC "No way you are buying one it's fugly - it's clearly been left in the sun look at the rear screen it's melted and sagged"
BC "same as a Citroen CX - like your cousin used to have"
Mrs BC "I like those"
BC "Just as complicated"
Mrs BC "so if you are not going to buy one and they are complicated why are you following a thread on one"
BC "it's a pain pleasure thing except I don't feel the pain"
Mrs BC "you are just weird!"
I have absolutely zero love for this but very much enjoying following your experiences because I think someone has to do it or they will all disappear
you carry on - you are doing a great job
So, having effected a 'repair' to the C6's poorly suspension (in other words, I lied to the computer to make it go away), I started driving the C6 about more. Rather than think something sensible, like "The suspension ain't right, and now it's riding too low and bottoms out everywhere, which can't be doing it any good", I decided to adopt a approach more akin to "Huzzah! Beeps be gone!"
In the brief period I was allowed to, I would pop out and drive it about. This wasn't actually all pure indulgence. I did genuinely want to know if there were any other issues I might need to add to my collection, but top of my priority list was to just enjoy it and get to know it. So, that's what I did.
The first issue I noticed (first as in first since I started using it, not including the other issues) was the active spoiler. I'd cycled this quite a few times with the laptop, not for any reason other than I wanted to watch the spoiler go up and down. It doesn't get boring, you see.
What does get boring, however, is when it sticks up in the air, like that ^^. What it's supposed to do is, starting from standstill, raise at 40mph (or 45mph - I forget which) to stage one (the above is stage two). Then, at 80-85mph, it raises to stage two. When you slow back down to 60mph, it returns to stage one, and which you go below 15mph, it closes. Unless it doesn't, of course. Sometimes it goes back to stage two as you brake, and while that does give the impression of an awfully cool air-brake, the fact it stays up once you've stopped lets the side down a bit.
This is a high-priority issue, not for safety, or economic, or aerodynamics or handling, or anything like that; It's important because - and I feel the need to really stress this point - if your car has an active rear spoiler that you can watch in the rear view mirror, it absolutely has to work. No ifs, no buts. I'll be coming back to this one.
Spoiler aside, the car was running nicely, with no other new issues. Oh, except this one:
No idea. Something brake-related. Can't be serious, right?
Anyway, some days passed and I did a bit of thinking. The logic to me, so far, suggested a sensor issue. My reasoning was that, assuming all the suspension travel sensors are potentiometers, they'll have needles and tracks, just like a fuel gauge sender or throttle positioning sensor. And, just like the latter, there is an operating window that the sensor normally sits in, causing it to wear out in a certain position. An example would be than with the TPS, you often sit with your foot resting on the throttle pedal, at around 10% opening. You only press harder to accelerate, and most people spend most of their time cruising. That causes the track to wear out at the position you use it most, giving you lumpy running and misfires, but quite often if you push harder on the throttle, it clears, because it's now operating on a cleaner piece of track.
Crap explaination, but I figured that might be happening with my suspension. On most cars these days (probably all cars, thinking about it - certainly all cars with Xenon headlamps) you'll have an axle sensor. It's normally a little positioning sensor mounted to the body, with an arm that is connected to the rear axle (either centrally, or via a wishbone) to detect any movement in the suspension. For the majority of cars, it's simply to allow the headlamps to auto-level, though some do venture into using it to aid the traction control & ESP systems.
The C6 (being a C6) takes this to the extreme: It uses a sensor on each wheel (via wishbone/suspension arm), so that the car can continuously monitor the perceived height of the car. C6 suspension is quite complex, as you might imagine. In fact, watching this video first might help you make better sense of my ramblings:
How C6 suspension works...simplified
Sorry, I should really have conducted that lesson over Teams, or something! Anyway, you've got a bit of background info now, so it should be a little easier to follow my wittering.
With a system that constantly needs to know how high the car is off the deck, me fudging the numbers probably wasn't the right thing to do. The good news is that in doing so, I may have discovered I have a faulty sensor, because now the car is sitting slightly lower, the sensor's 'rest' position is in a slightly different place, meaning the sensor track may be less warn there, and the resistance figures are more along the lines of what the ECU expects to see. Or something....it was my earliest guess, anyway! Gone are the days where you just adjust the clamp position on a little link rod between anti-roll bar and height corrector valve on a BX!
So, with a view to actually giving the computer a fighting chance of controlling the suspension of a near-1900kg whale in a manner somewhat resembling the engineer's original design, I bought what looked like an Ikea kid's table in minature, and found it fitted the wheel hubs perfectly when pressed onto the wheel bolt heads.
And, luckily, it had a pointy bit in the middle, to act as a datum point:
That meant I was able to record the height between the centremost point of the wheel hub, and the floor. I then wrote the measurement on each wheel:
...so, if you spy a C6 driving around with random numbers daubed all over its rims, you know what the owner has been doing. And, if the number doesn't start with a '3', you also know they're doing it wrong.
This measurement is known as r1 (if it's the nearside front wheel). If it's the offside, it's r2. And for the rear? You guessed it! r3 and r4. Those with you who've dabbled with maths will have already worked out that 'r' stands for radius.
"Ah Mr Kitchski!" You all ask. "Why do you need to measure all the wheels? Surely the radius of each wheel is the same?!"
Ah...yes. The radius of each wheel would be the same, if...
The second measurement you need (and the ones I was copying from someone else's car, but having learned how these things work I realised I might have well as entered my PIN number for all the good it did) is known as 'H1M'.
Having misread somebody's post on the C6 forum, and falsely believed the second measurement needed to come from the back of the wheel hub, somewhere on the upright (which made less than zero sense to me, and for once, I was right) I managed to make more sense out of the hooky copy of DiagBox that exists on an ancient laptop I have, which is jammed in French. Cooooooooooooool.
What 'H1M' actually is, is a measurement to the ground from a machined flat surface underneath the car. This gives a precise ride height to the computer, so it knows what r1 is, and once it knows what H1M is, it can figure out how much angle there is on the lower wishbone both at the present time, and the amount required to raise/lower the car by however much it wants. And, of course, H2M is offside front, H3M N/S/R and H4M O/S/R. Simples.
This is H1M:
Now I'd never got past this stage before, because the computer had always told me it wasn't satisfied with my readings (which makes sense, in fairness, seeing as I was guessing them and telling it complete lies). However this time, with my special tools and precise numbers, computer says YES!
Giddy with the sweet, sweet feeling of success, I begin to imagine countryside wafts and cross-continental cruises in supreme comfort as I travel along th.....oh, there's another level to the programming, and I don't know what it means.
b
ks.
In the brief period I was allowed to, I would pop out and drive it about. This wasn't actually all pure indulgence. I did genuinely want to know if there were any other issues I might need to add to my collection, but top of my priority list was to just enjoy it and get to know it. So, that's what I did.
The first issue I noticed (first as in first since I started using it, not including the other issues) was the active spoiler. I'd cycled this quite a few times with the laptop, not for any reason other than I wanted to watch the spoiler go up and down. It doesn't get boring, you see.
What does get boring, however, is when it sticks up in the air, like that ^^. What it's supposed to do is, starting from standstill, raise at 40mph (or 45mph - I forget which) to stage one (the above is stage two). Then, at 80-85mph, it raises to stage two. When you slow back down to 60mph, it returns to stage one, and which you go below 15mph, it closes. Unless it doesn't, of course. Sometimes it goes back to stage two as you brake, and while that does give the impression of an awfully cool air-brake, the fact it stays up once you've stopped lets the side down a bit.
This is a high-priority issue, not for safety, or economic, or aerodynamics or handling, or anything like that; It's important because - and I feel the need to really stress this point - if your car has an active rear spoiler that you can watch in the rear view mirror, it absolutely has to work. No ifs, no buts. I'll be coming back to this one.
Spoiler aside, the car was running nicely, with no other new issues. Oh, except this one:
No idea. Something brake-related. Can't be serious, right?
Anyway, some days passed and I did a bit of thinking. The logic to me, so far, suggested a sensor issue. My reasoning was that, assuming all the suspension travel sensors are potentiometers, they'll have needles and tracks, just like a fuel gauge sender or throttle positioning sensor. And, just like the latter, there is an operating window that the sensor normally sits in, causing it to wear out in a certain position. An example would be than with the TPS, you often sit with your foot resting on the throttle pedal, at around 10% opening. You only press harder to accelerate, and most people spend most of their time cruising. That causes the track to wear out at the position you use it most, giving you lumpy running and misfires, but quite often if you push harder on the throttle, it clears, because it's now operating on a cleaner piece of track.
Crap explaination, but I figured that might be happening with my suspension. On most cars these days (probably all cars, thinking about it - certainly all cars with Xenon headlamps) you'll have an axle sensor. It's normally a little positioning sensor mounted to the body, with an arm that is connected to the rear axle (either centrally, or via a wishbone) to detect any movement in the suspension. For the majority of cars, it's simply to allow the headlamps to auto-level, though some do venture into using it to aid the traction control & ESP systems.
The C6 (being a C6) takes this to the extreme: It uses a sensor on each wheel (via wishbone/suspension arm), so that the car can continuously monitor the perceived height of the car. C6 suspension is quite complex, as you might imagine. In fact, watching this video first might help you make better sense of my ramblings:
How C6 suspension works...simplified
Sorry, I should really have conducted that lesson over Teams, or something! Anyway, you've got a bit of background info now, so it should be a little easier to follow my wittering.
With a system that constantly needs to know how high the car is off the deck, me fudging the numbers probably wasn't the right thing to do. The good news is that in doing so, I may have discovered I have a faulty sensor, because now the car is sitting slightly lower, the sensor's 'rest' position is in a slightly different place, meaning the sensor track may be less warn there, and the resistance figures are more along the lines of what the ECU expects to see. Or something....it was my earliest guess, anyway! Gone are the days where you just adjust the clamp position on a little link rod between anti-roll bar and height corrector valve on a BX!
So, with a view to actually giving the computer a fighting chance of controlling the suspension of a near-1900kg whale in a manner somewhat resembling the engineer's original design, I bought what looked like an Ikea kid's table in minature, and found it fitted the wheel hubs perfectly when pressed onto the wheel bolt heads.
And, luckily, it had a pointy bit in the middle, to act as a datum point:
That meant I was able to record the height between the centremost point of the wheel hub, and the floor. I then wrote the measurement on each wheel:
...so, if you spy a C6 driving around with random numbers daubed all over its rims, you know what the owner has been doing. And, if the number doesn't start with a '3', you also know they're doing it wrong.
This measurement is known as r1 (if it's the nearside front wheel). If it's the offside, it's r2. And for the rear? You guessed it! r3 and r4. Those with you who've dabbled with maths will have already worked out that 'r' stands for radius.
"Ah Mr Kitchski!" You all ask. "Why do you need to measure all the wheels? Surely the radius of each wheel is the same?!"
Ah...yes. The radius of each wheel would be the same, if...
- The tyres all had precisely even tread (if they did, I'd need four new tyres).
- All tyres have the same pressure (nope).
- The four corners of the car split the weight exactly 25% each, meaning a true 50/50 balance (and this car most certainly does not have this).
The second measurement you need (and the ones I was copying from someone else's car, but having learned how these things work I realised I might have well as entered my PIN number for all the good it did) is known as 'H1M'.
Having misread somebody's post on the C6 forum, and falsely believed the second measurement needed to come from the back of the wheel hub, somewhere on the upright (which made less than zero sense to me, and for once, I was right) I managed to make more sense out of the hooky copy of DiagBox that exists on an ancient laptop I have, which is jammed in French. Cooooooooooooool.
What 'H1M' actually is, is a measurement to the ground from a machined flat surface underneath the car. This gives a precise ride height to the computer, so it knows what r1 is, and once it knows what H1M is, it can figure out how much angle there is on the lower wishbone both at the present time, and the amount required to raise/lower the car by however much it wants. And, of course, H2M is offside front, H3M N/S/R and H4M O/S/R. Simples.
This is H1M:
Now I'd never got past this stage before, because the computer had always told me it wasn't satisfied with my readings (which makes sense, in fairness, seeing as I was guessing them and telling it complete lies). However this time, with my special tools and precise numbers, computer says YES!
Giddy with the sweet, sweet feeling of success, I begin to imagine countryside wafts and cross-continental cruises in supreme comfort as I travel along th.....oh, there's another level to the programming, and I don't know what it means.
b
ks. Love this.
Fellow C6 owner here. You've done amazingly cost wise. Both initial price and ongoing repairs.
Did you notice the rear discs are vented? Performance or what!
Citroen were also going for safety. Highest rated at the time. Bonnet will raise in a pedestrian accident.
Personally the one thing that annoys me is steering wheel. Looks like a complete afterthought. I feel it needs one with the fixed hub like the C5 and others. Perhaps your first "mod". Reading the comments and what you've done so far I reckon it's up your alley 😉
|https://thumbsnap.com/M3WddXv9[/url]
Fellow C6 owner here. You've done amazingly cost wise. Both initial price and ongoing repairs.
Did you notice the rear discs are vented? Performance or what!
Citroen were also going for safety. Highest rated at the time. Bonnet will raise in a pedestrian accident.
Personally the one thing that annoys me is steering wheel. Looks like a complete afterthought. I feel it needs one with the fixed hub like the C5 and others. Perhaps your first "mod". Reading the comments and what you've done so far I reckon it's up your alley 😉
|https://thumbsnap.com/M3WddXv9[/url]Kitchski said:
Unless it doesn't, of course. Sometimes it goes back to stage two as you brake, and while that does give the impression of an awfully cool air-brake, the fact it stays up once you've stopped lets the side down a bit.
+
No idea. Something brake-related. Can't be serious, right?
Do these two coincide? I seem to remember something similar on an RCZ (which has an active spoiler too) so perhaps there's a fail-safe strategy in its controls to default to a deployed position if certain data is lost/degraded (like unreliable wheelspeed). +
No idea. Something brake-related. Can't be serious, right?
bargi said:
Love this.
Fellow C6 owner here. You've done amazingly cost wise. Both initial price and ongoing repairs.
Did you notice the rear discs are vented? Performance or what!
Citroen were also going for safety. Highest rated at the time. Bonnet will raise in a pedestrian accident.
Personally the one thing that annoys me is steering wheel. Looks like a complete afterthought. I feel it needs one with the fixed hub like the C5 and others. Perhaps your first "mod". Reading the comments and what you've done so far I reckon it's up your alley ??
|https://thumbsnap.com/M3WddXv9[/url]
Cheers!Fellow C6 owner here. You've done amazingly cost wise. Both initial price and ongoing repairs.
Did you notice the rear discs are vented? Performance or what!
Citroen were also going for safety. Highest rated at the time. Bonnet will raise in a pedestrian accident.
Personally the one thing that annoys me is steering wheel. Looks like a complete afterthought. I feel it needs one with the fixed hub like the C5 and others. Perhaps your first "mod". Reading the comments and what you've done so far I reckon it's up your alley ??
|https://thumbsnap.com/M3WddXv9[/url]Yes I noticed the rear vented discs. Suspect it's more to do with weight than performance!
The active bonnet is cool, yes, though I've seen people suggest that cars can be written off once they've fired (they're like seat belt pre-tensioners) as the cost to replace them is insane.
The wheel I agree with. It's a shame it doesn't have fixed hub, but it's not something I'd be interested in retrofitting as it'd be a tonne of work and not a huge amount of pay-off. It's not 'part of the car', so to speak.
drdino said:
Do these two coincide? I seem to remember something similar on an RCZ (which has an active spoiler too) so perhaps there's a fail-safe strategy in its controls to default to a deployed position if certain data is lost/degraded (like unreliable wheelspeed).
Possibly, though the ABS issue hasn't come back, and the spoiler seems to improve with usage and lubrication. I imagine it's just sticky and dirty underneath, and needs the mechanism stripping out and cleaning to remove 155k miles' worth of crud.I don't intend to leave Project Binky-sized gaps in my updates - they just occur, so apologies for lack of update (I did rather leave that one 'hanging'). Life is pretty full-on these days, and I've now got to a point where I have to mentally push myself to do...well, anything. I don't get a lot of free time, and when I do, I fill it with crap. Motivation is at a pretty low point these days, but I guess that it will feel that way for quite a few of us too.
So, in a bid to force myself to start functioning again, I'm going to pick up where I left off with the C6. And then I might try and do the Imp. And the BX(s). And the new Citroen project car I've bought.
Anyway, so the last time I updated this, I was playing with computers and suspension. For the second time, I'd tried to input the measurements for the suspension, and this time (possibly because I'd actually measured them) the computer had accepted them as correct. However, any joy I'd mustered had quickly been vanquished when the computer then demanded I proceed to the next stage. This was a surprise, as I had no idea there was a 'next stage'.
The next stage began by insisting that, from this point on, I do not move the suspension or steering on the car, apart from when I'm instructed to. Straight away this posed a slight problem, as the car was parked on a four-post ramp, and anybody who's ever raised a car on a four post ramp knows that when you push the button, and the ramp moves up, the suspension bounces slightly. That's no good - the computer has already told me not to do that. In French.
So, the ramp has to stay put, which means I need to either keep it low and roll around on the floor underneath both car and ramp, or raise it higher and find an extension lead to plug in the laptop. I choose the latter, set up my rig and raise the car once more, before locking the ramp.
Once I swear on the life of my children that I will not move the suspension until it tells me to, it allows me to move on. What it now wants me to do, is to put weight on each axle of the car (not at the same time), to compress the suspension when instructed. I can't push down on it, so I end up using the subframe as a monkey bar. The computer tells me to do this, until the suspension notices, and raises back up to normal height...whatever that is.
I do as I'm told on both axles, and sure enough, the car lifts me back up. Then it tells me to input the numbers for H1M and co. again, which seems odd because I'd not long done this. I enter the numbers back in as instructed...computer says NO.
Because I'm having to use my phone to translate my way out of a French workshop guide, I'm losing odd details and elements of context. It dawned on me that it probably wants me to measure H1M again, and then pop those numbers in. Surely though, if the car has lifted me back up again, it's back at the same height?
When I opened my mind a bit more, I realised that this is exactly what it was trying to figure out! It had asked to confirm how high it was sitting from the ground, and hub centre's distance to it. Then it had asked me to make it move, and now it wants me to tell it where it is now, so it can check if it's doing it right! Effectively, the car is corner weighting itself, and setting its own ride-height. The measurements turn out to be quite different, too, which I suspect is down to the deflection of various components, like tyres, bushes and ball joints.
So, with this epiphany in check, I do as it asks and sure enough...computer says NO. There's a pattern emerging here!
Thing is, at this point I reckon I've nailed the problem, so I'm not too worried. When the computer said 'non' this time, it looked to give a reason concerning the O/S/F wheel. I dove into the software and looked for some clues, and it seemed that while all the other wheels were giving realistic readings, the O/S/F wheel seemed to think it was below ground level. Interesting.
One of the parts I'd been advised to keep tabs on was the suspension linkage brackets, which, going back to the beginning of this investigation, are what the little axle sensors connect to, via a double-ended, ball-jointed rod. Straight away, I noticed that the O/S/F had a bolt with a nut holding said bracket to the wishbone, whereas the N/S/F didn't; The bolt simply fastened into the body of the arm.
I then noticed that the bolt was M7-size. This means that whoever put it in there, works on old Citroens, because there are surely no other cars that use M7 fixings! The N/S/F was an M6 bolt, so obviously someone has been 'mending and making do'.
There were two problems with this fixing. Firstly, it wasn't tight, and secondly, even if it was, it wouldn't stay tight, because the nut wasn't a locking type, and the bore of the hole appeared to be sat on the piss.
I removed the bracket, and dug through the box of new parts I'd bought from the Citroen dealer up the road. Not the closest one, because the parts dept there sucks. The second closest one.
Anyway, when new & old were held side-by-side, the issue was clear to see:
Could the hard ride and 'SUSPENSION FAULTY' warning on a complex saloon car that people run a mile from, scared out of their wits really be caused by a £9.78 piece of tin that was bent a few mm?
I drilled out the remains of the hole in the arm so I could straighten it and allow the new bracket to sit properly. Then I tapped the thread to M8:
I fitted the bracket, fastened it with an M8 bolt, and then used a nyloc bolt on the exposed thread at the other end as a locking mechanism:
Once more, I hooked up the laptop, did all the measurements entered, put weight on the axles, measured it again, entered the numbers in, and.....computer says 'OUI!'
The suspension fault was a £9.78 bracket that, going back through the service history, had likely been bent when a garage renewed the O/S/F CV boot on it a year or two ago. They'd bent it when trying to unpop the ball joint (or possibly by not even disconnecting it), causing the fault. I have invoices from two Citroen specialists for investigating the suspension fault, and resetting the values in the ECU, but neither of them spotted the bent bracket. One of them was on the right trail, as I found the M7 bolt present in the wishbone, but they'd missed the critical bit.
So, the £750 C6 with three major issues now only has one remaining!
part two coming up shortly (I promise!)
So, in a bid to force myself to start functioning again, I'm going to pick up where I left off with the C6. And then I might try and do the Imp. And the BX(s). And the new Citroen project car I've bought.
Anyway, so the last time I updated this, I was playing with computers and suspension. For the second time, I'd tried to input the measurements for the suspension, and this time (possibly because I'd actually measured them) the computer had accepted them as correct. However, any joy I'd mustered had quickly been vanquished when the computer then demanded I proceed to the next stage. This was a surprise, as I had no idea there was a 'next stage'.
The next stage began by insisting that, from this point on, I do not move the suspension or steering on the car, apart from when I'm instructed to. Straight away this posed a slight problem, as the car was parked on a four-post ramp, and anybody who's ever raised a car on a four post ramp knows that when you push the button, and the ramp moves up, the suspension bounces slightly. That's no good - the computer has already told me not to do that. In French.
So, the ramp has to stay put, which means I need to either keep it low and roll around on the floor underneath both car and ramp, or raise it higher and find an extension lead to plug in the laptop. I choose the latter, set up my rig and raise the car once more, before locking the ramp.
Once I swear on the life of my children that I will not move the suspension until it tells me to, it allows me to move on. What it now wants me to do, is to put weight on each axle of the car (not at the same time), to compress the suspension when instructed. I can't push down on it, so I end up using the subframe as a monkey bar. The computer tells me to do this, until the suspension notices, and raises back up to normal height...whatever that is.
I do as I'm told on both axles, and sure enough, the car lifts me back up. Then it tells me to input the numbers for H1M and co. again, which seems odd because I'd not long done this. I enter the numbers back in as instructed...computer says NO.
Because I'm having to use my phone to translate my way out of a French workshop guide, I'm losing odd details and elements of context. It dawned on me that it probably wants me to measure H1M again, and then pop those numbers in. Surely though, if the car has lifted me back up again, it's back at the same height?
When I opened my mind a bit more, I realised that this is exactly what it was trying to figure out! It had asked to confirm how high it was sitting from the ground, and hub centre's distance to it. Then it had asked me to make it move, and now it wants me to tell it where it is now, so it can check if it's doing it right! Effectively, the car is corner weighting itself, and setting its own ride-height. The measurements turn out to be quite different, too, which I suspect is down to the deflection of various components, like tyres, bushes and ball joints.
So, with this epiphany in check, I do as it asks and sure enough...computer says NO. There's a pattern emerging here!
Thing is, at this point I reckon I've nailed the problem, so I'm not too worried. When the computer said 'non' this time, it looked to give a reason concerning the O/S/F wheel. I dove into the software and looked for some clues, and it seemed that while all the other wheels were giving realistic readings, the O/S/F wheel seemed to think it was below ground level. Interesting.
One of the parts I'd been advised to keep tabs on was the suspension linkage brackets, which, going back to the beginning of this investigation, are what the little axle sensors connect to, via a double-ended, ball-jointed rod. Straight away, I noticed that the O/S/F had a bolt with a nut holding said bracket to the wishbone, whereas the N/S/F didn't; The bolt simply fastened into the body of the arm.
I then noticed that the bolt was M7-size. This means that whoever put it in there, works on old Citroens, because there are surely no other cars that use M7 fixings! The N/S/F was an M6 bolt, so obviously someone has been 'mending and making do'.
There were two problems with this fixing. Firstly, it wasn't tight, and secondly, even if it was, it wouldn't stay tight, because the nut wasn't a locking type, and the bore of the hole appeared to be sat on the piss.
I removed the bracket, and dug through the box of new parts I'd bought from the Citroen dealer up the road. Not the closest one, because the parts dept there sucks. The second closest one.
Anyway, when new & old were held side-by-side, the issue was clear to see:
Could the hard ride and 'SUSPENSION FAULTY' warning on a complex saloon car that people run a mile from, scared out of their wits really be caused by a £9.78 piece of tin that was bent a few mm?
I drilled out the remains of the hole in the arm so I could straighten it and allow the new bracket to sit properly. Then I tapped the thread to M8:
I fitted the bracket, fastened it with an M8 bolt, and then used a nyloc bolt on the exposed thread at the other end as a locking mechanism:
Once more, I hooked up the laptop, did all the measurements entered, put weight on the axles, measured it again, entered the numbers in, and.....computer says 'OUI!'
The suspension fault was a £9.78 bracket that, going back through the service history, had likely been bent when a garage renewed the O/S/F CV boot on it a year or two ago. They'd bent it when trying to unpop the ball joint (or possibly by not even disconnecting it), causing the fault. I have invoices from two Citroen specialists for investigating the suspension fault, and resetting the values in the ECU, but neither of them spotted the bent bracket. One of them was on the right trail, as I found the M7 bolt present in the wishbone, but they'd missed the critical bit.
So, the £750 C6 with three major issues now only has one remaining!
part two coming up shortly (I promise!)
Edited by Kitchski on Sunday 28th February 12:22
Amazing read, and very well written !
And I thought that Alfas were quirky....( and I have owned 2 156s !!)
I have never really 'gelled' with French cars....goes back to when our family had a few Renault 4s...( which are going for daft money now ) and we had to do some repair work on them....that has determined my views and opinions of French automotive engineering !!
However, and I can hardly believe this.....I am fascinated by your thread and the way your are solving all these issues...!!
You must have a heck of a lot of patience and perseverance to do what you have done already, but once its all fettled ( if it ever will be completely !) you will have a car that you obviously really like.
So, as others on here have said, "hats off to you !"
Looking forward to further tails and fixes !
And I thought that Alfas were quirky....( and I have owned 2 156s !!)
I have never really 'gelled' with French cars....goes back to when our family had a few Renault 4s...( which are going for daft money now ) and we had to do some repair work on them....that has determined my views and opinions of French automotive engineering !!
However, and I can hardly believe this.....I am fascinated by your thread and the way your are solving all these issues...!!
You must have a heck of a lot of patience and perseverance to do what you have done already, but once its all fettled ( if it ever will be completely !) you will have a car that you obviously really like.
So, as others on here have said, "hats off to you !"
Looking forward to further tails and fixes !
I've just come across this thread and caught up on it... mega work on the fault finding. I'm ceaselessly amazed by common sense engineers that just seem to make complex problems into simple issues.
Incidentally, I have seen a petrol C6 advertised back in about 2014/5 for £7,500 - one of two RHD examples. iirc it was an example previously displayed at the Beaulieu motor museum. Hearing about the under-powered nature of the V6, however, it would've just frustrated me.
Incidentally, I have seen a petrol C6 advertised back in about 2014/5 for £7,500 - one of two RHD examples. iirc it was an example previously displayed at the Beaulieu motor museum. Hearing about the under-powered nature of the V6, however, it would've just frustrated me.
Kitchski said:
I do love the C6, but ever since reading about the 'dash-to-axle-ratio' on the barge thread, the front overhang just looks comical!
Edited by bolidemichael on Monday 1st March 00:36
Shadow R1 said:
Another Citroen project ? 
Yes. I just don't learn, but then while not quite a 'dream car', I'll be building a car I always wanted, but couldn't buy.B'stard Child said:
Bloody hell you are determined - hats off for that amount of effort and research
It's really not been that difficult. I wouldn't say I'm determined as such, I just want it to work properly 
But thanks!Paul S4 said:
Amazing read, and very well written !
And I thought that Alfas were quirky....( and I have owned 2 156s !!)
I have never really 'gelled' with French cars....goes back to when our family had a few Renault 4s...( which are going for daft money now ) and we had to do some repair work on them....that has determined my views and opinions of French automotive engineering !!
However, and I can hardly believe this.....I am fascinated by your thread and the way your are solving all these issues...!!
You must have a heck of a lot of patience and perseverance to do what you have done already, but once its all fettled ( if it ever will be completely !) you will have a car that you obviously really like.
So, as others on here have said, "hats off to you !"
'Quirky' is a cliché in Citroen circles! If you're writing an article, or even making a video, using that term normally means you have to put a quid in a jar And I thought that Alfas were quirky....( and I have owned 2 156s !!)
I have never really 'gelled' with French cars....goes back to when our family had a few Renault 4s...( which are going for daft money now ) and we had to do some repair work on them....that has determined my views and opinions of French automotive engineering !!
However, and I can hardly believe this.....I am fascinated by your thread and the way your are solving all these issues...!!
You must have a heck of a lot of patience and perseverance to do what you have done already, but once its all fettled ( if it ever will be completely !) you will have a car that you obviously really like.
So, as others on here have said, "hats off to you !"
Alfas are great, though. I had a 156 V6 years ago. Basing your French car views on a Renault 4 might not be the best start, though. That would be like me basing my opinions on Italian cars on a Fiat Panda Thanks for the kind words
JakeT said:
That's mega fault finding, Rich. Amazing a bracket slightly bent can throw the whole suspension system out, but I suppose when one is talking millimeters even a tiny change will make it throw a paddy.
I suppose a millimeter at that point is probably a centimeter at the wheel!lockhart flawse said:
Really well done! Hopefully you will have a cracking car at the end of all this. Great thread.
Thanks, I hope so too!croyde said:
Nice work. I had a CX, a DS and an XM. Always fancied a C6.
And I always fancied a CX, DS & XM!bolidemichael said:
I've just come across this thread and caught up on it... mega work on the fault finding. I'm ceaselessly amazed by common sense engineers that just seem to make complex problems into simple issues.
Incidentally, I have seen a petrol C6 advertised back in about 2014/5 for £7,500 - one of two RHD examples. iirc it was an example previously displayed at the Beaulieu motor museum. Hearing about the under-powered nature of the V6, however, it would've just frustrated me.
I do love the C6, but ever since reading about the 'dash-to-axle-ratio' on the barge thread, the front overhang just looks comical!
Thanks. To be fair, it was just a bent bracket. It was wrapped up in a complex car that people run scared from, but that's all it was...a bracket!Incidentally, I have seen a petrol C6 advertised back in about 2014/5 for £7,500 - one of two RHD examples. iirc it was an example previously displayed at the Beaulieu motor museum. Hearing about the under-powered nature of the V6, however, it would've just frustrated me.
I do love the C6, but ever since reading about the 'dash-to-axle-ratio' on the barge thread, the front overhang just looks comical!
I think the V6 petrol would have been the ideal C6 for refinement and waft-ability, but though it's not a gutless V6 engine by any stretch, asking it to haul a C6 around is probably too much. The diesel suits it so well, because it just gives you this effortless, linear shove when you want it. I've been pleasantly surprised at how well it goes.
A big overhang at the front have long been a Citroen trait. On some cars you notice it day-to-day (Pug 407, for example - also built on the same platform as the C6, albeit the short-wheelbase version). You don't tend to notice it as much on the C6, unless you take a photo at a certain angle, like above.
Apparently, it's like that because of packaging. With the 407, Peugeot wanted a low nose and bonnet like a normal saloon car, as opposed to all the MPVs and SUVs that were trendy at the time, but safety legislations dictated that there had to be a minimum height clearance between the bonnet and the sharp heavy stuff underneath it. PSA also wanted a good pedestrian safety-rating, but the position of the engine & transmission obviously dictated where the sharp, heavy objects had to be. By having a longer overhang, they could have a lower nose - like a typical stylish saloon car - but still meet the clearance requirements. Sadly they didn't end up with the 'stylish' saloon car design they were hoping for, as the 407 looks a bit...well, gawky. It has a large rear overhang too, which really ruins it.
The C6 is based on the same platform as the Peugeot (along with the C5 'X7', as geeks know it) but has a stretched wheelbase. That, of course, pushes the engine further forward, meaning you need to extend the overhang again, or make the bonnet line sloped like a van. Citroen were going for the sleek 'coupe' look, and obviously a van bonnet was a no-no. To compound issues, the V6 diesel engine sat higher when fully dressed than the DW & EW 4-cyl engines that the 407 et al used.
Solution? A bonnet that pops up in an impact, increasing the clearance between engine and bonnet. That meant the bonnet line could be low & sleek, the overhang - while sizable - wasn't something a Dennis Lance bus would be jealous of, and a 4-star Euro NCAP pedestrian safey rating was achieved; a record at the time.
Oh, and if you find a C6 where the bonnet has detonated, it'll probably be a write-off due to the costs to put it right!
As promised, part two!
With two out of the three major issues now sorted, I turned my attentions to cosmetics. This is rare for me, as normally I'm only really bothered about the underside.
Part of my Citroen-dealer shopping spree including a pair of new side repeaters, which feature non-removable bulbs (so if you blow one, you have to replace the lamp...logic?!) I had working repeaters myself, but they were yellowed and had lost all their reflective...ness. So, these were renewed as it's a quick easy job.
Next, I turned my attentions to the indicator lamps, or more specifically, the offside front. Again, it appeared to have yellowed and lost its reflective shine, but having removed it, I discovered it was just filthy dirty inside, due to a failed seal. However, I'd already bought a good used replacement for £30, so I opted to fit that.
While here, I planned to upgrade the DRL lights to LED (because if I'm gonna have wker lights, I might as well go all the way, right?) I also planned to install some LED indicators, mainly for the reason that if the DRL is now brighter, it might make it harder for other motorists to see the indicator flashing.
The bulbs are a weird type, which come in a plastic housing. From Citroen, they aren't available at all (it's a bulb-holder w/bulbs already fitted, or nothing, sir). However, on eBay, they are available as they're also fitted to BMWs and other such things. They're not difficult to change, so I got in two of each LED; DRL, and indicator.
Brilliantly, the DRL LED was too fat to pass through the lamp itself, so this had to be carefully 'engineered' to allow it to pass:
Having plugged in the new "CAN-BUS ready" LED indicator, I then had to remove them again as, despite the label, they flashed at double-speed. Helpful.
With one side done, it was time for a quick comparison:
One of the reasons for doing this, other than making it brighter so it's more easily seen, is that the standard DRL's look like fog lamps. I can handle looking a bit rough, or unfashionable, or un-cool, but I cannot handle people thinking I'm the sort to run around with their fog lamps on.
Work wrapped up that night, and I spent the subsequent days and weeks just using it, and registering any issues or faults it might have. (Remoaner plates now fitted front and rear - we hadn't left at this point, and I was clinging on for dear life! )
(I still haven't washed it...)
Christmas came and went, and before we knew it we were back into Lockdown again, so driving time was limited to the times I actually needed to go out. This wasn't a huge issue (well, it is, but not for the C6) as the gearbox fault itself only really becomes known once the oil warms up. On a 5 mile trip to work, it's fine, so the short journeys each day are happy and relaxed, especially when you go sunset hunting on the way home...
...or go looking for huge flames coming out the top of an oil refinery a few miles away:
With the kids having to do learning at home, there were patches where I wasn't at work at all, so the C6 wasn't being used. In the idle cold winter weeks, I discovered the battery is either on its last legs, or the car has a power drain. The battery itself is located in the boot, so visually it looks brand new (what you can see of it, anyway!) There are no visible date markings, but I'm going to assume it's not fresh. Being that I only do 5 miles to work, and that recently those 5 miles have been irregular, with all the heating elements on (including the rear seats, which the kids never remember to switch off), and the grunt it takes to churn the thing over in the first place...oh, and the fact that the suspension pumps up when you unlocking the car and open the door; I suspect the battery probably doesn't get much of a chance to recover what it loses.
This came to a one morning where, rather than churn over slowly and struggle into life, it did its first fail-to-proceed. The C6 suffered the ignominy of being jump started by an S-Max, and limped to work where it spent the day plugged in like a Tesla:
Having spent the day on trickle charge, the huge battery in the boot was still not at its best by the end of the day, so after work I opted to run the car up the motorway to Petersfield and back in an attempt to force some electrons back into the acid box like a RyanAir passenger desperately trying to force shut an overpacked suitcase by sitting on it prior to pulling the zip....or something. It seemed more sensible than potentially suffering another FTP in the Cul-de-Sac at home, and sure enough, by the end of the 30min trip, the starter was buzzing over at twice the speed, and has continued to do so since.
During this mini-trip, I was able to sample a C6 in its prime, as it was the first occasion I'd used the car on the motorway with fault-free suspension. It was only brief, but I discovered that the gearbox issue isn't phased by motorway slogs, and that the issue itself arises when the box is being asked to change gear a lot. 15mins in a town will give it issues, but an hour on the motorway and it'll be fine, especially seeing as the gear that misbehaves the most is third, which the car is not using above 30mph.
I didn't take too much stock of how the car performed at the task, as I was concentrating on any problems that might arise, but it gave me more confidence in the car.
The downside is that the more time you spend in it, the more warm and comfy you get, and then when you arrive home, you don't want to get out!
The fact that the car is so nice to be in, allied to the impression that it was perfectly happy sitting on the motorway meant that I opted to use it for a 200 mile round-trip to High Wycombe a couple of days ago (yes - I'm actually up to date!) I needed to buy some parts for the Imp, and that couldn't move without them, and it was blocking the workshop due to my poor-planning! Posting wasn't an option, as I needed to inspect the parts first, so a direct to & from trip took place in the C6.
Until this time, the furthest I'd driven it was, well, Petersfield as above! This time I'd thrown £40 of Esso's finest grease in it, and once I'd got past the seemingly endless roadworks round here, I hit the A3 (opted to avoid the M3 until I was confident the car would be fine), set the cruise to 69mph and settled in to see what's what.
Two things came to mind. Firstly, that I am wasting the C6 by restricting it to local commuter shuffling on 30mph roads just as much as you'd be wasting a Lotus Exige by only using it on motorways and never once taking it near a B-road, or a circuit. It's like buying an Intercity 125, and then using it on a branch line. Actually, the TGV would be more apt.
And, speaking of trains, the second thought I had was that, at 70mph, the C6 is, quite frankly ridiculous. I've never been in anything which laughs at a long(ish) journey the way this car does. At that speed, it is more like sitting in First Class on the Eurostar than being in a car. You cannot hear the engine, and though you witness other cars moving vertically as they traverse bumps and undulations, the C6 barely notices. At 70mph, it's doing 1900rpm, and averaging about 45mpg. Wind-noise is exceptionally quiet, given that it has frameless-doors, and only the tyre noise on my car lets the side down (relatively speaking - it's still quieter than most). It needs new rubber, so I'm not going to be holding that against it.
Pit stop at Beaconsfield Services on Saturday
I have never, ever, travelled in a car where the 'fun' part of the journey was the motorway. Normally on a return, I'm itching to peel off the motorways and use the A-roads & twisty backlanes. Motorways are dull and monotonous, afterall, but with the C6, they're the party trick. They're actually what you look forward to! Sure, it's probably a novelty that'll wear off, but I've honestly never driven a car on a journey where I got out at the other end completely obvious to the hours I'd just been sat down. It doesn't eat miles, it deletes them.
Stopped by at a location I'd been to once before with one of my other double-chevron'd gasbag motors...
2021:
2011:
I'm looking forward to many roadtrips when all this COVID crap is done with.
With two out of the three major issues now sorted, I turned my attentions to cosmetics. This is rare for me, as normally I'm only really bothered about the underside.
Part of my Citroen-dealer shopping spree including a pair of new side repeaters, which feature non-removable bulbs (so if you blow one, you have to replace the lamp...logic?!) I had working repeaters myself, but they were yellowed and had lost all their reflective...ness. So, these were renewed as it's a quick easy job.
Next, I turned my attentions to the indicator lamps, or more specifically, the offside front. Again, it appeared to have yellowed and lost its reflective shine, but having removed it, I discovered it was just filthy dirty inside, due to a failed seal. However, I'd already bought a good used replacement for £30, so I opted to fit that.
While here, I planned to upgrade the DRL lights to LED (because if I'm gonna have w
ker lights, I might as well go all the way, right?) I also planned to install some LED indicators, mainly for the reason that if the DRL is now brighter, it might make it harder for other motorists to see the indicator flashing.The bulbs are a weird type, which come in a plastic housing. From Citroen, they aren't available at all (it's a bulb-holder w/bulbs already fitted, or nothing, sir). However, on eBay, they are available as they're also fitted to BMWs and other such things. They're not difficult to change, so I got in two of each LED; DRL, and indicator.
Brilliantly, the DRL LED was too fat to pass through the lamp itself, so this had to be carefully 'engineered' to allow it to pass:
Having plugged in the new "CAN-BUS ready" LED indicator, I then had to remove them again as, despite the label, they flashed at double-speed. Helpful.
With one side done, it was time for a quick comparison:
One of the reasons for doing this, other than making it brighter so it's more easily seen, is that the standard DRL's look like fog lamps. I can handle looking a bit rough, or unfashionable, or un-cool, but I cannot handle people thinking I'm the sort to run around with their fog lamps on.
Work wrapped up that night, and I spent the subsequent days and weeks just using it, and registering any issues or faults it might have. (Remoaner plates now fitted front and rear - we hadn't left at this point, and I was clinging on for dear life!
) (I still haven't washed it...)
Christmas came and went, and before we knew it we were back into Lockdown again, so driving time was limited to the times I actually needed to go out. This wasn't a huge issue (well, it is, but not for the C6) as the gearbox fault itself only really becomes known once the oil warms up. On a 5 mile trip to work, it's fine, so the short journeys each day are happy and relaxed, especially when you go sunset hunting on the way home...
...or go looking for huge flames coming out the top of an oil refinery a few miles away:
With the kids having to do learning at home, there were patches where I wasn't at work at all, so the C6 wasn't being used. In the idle cold winter weeks, I discovered the battery is either on its last legs, or the car has a power drain. The battery itself is located in the boot, so visually it looks brand new (what you can see of it, anyway!) There are no visible date markings, but I'm going to assume it's not fresh. Being that I only do 5 miles to work, and that recently those 5 miles have been irregular, with all the heating elements on (including the rear seats, which the kids never remember to switch off), and the grunt it takes to churn the thing over in the first place...oh, and the fact that the suspension pumps up when you unlocking the car and open the door; I suspect the battery probably doesn't get much of a chance to recover what it loses.
This came to a one morning where, rather than churn over slowly and struggle into life, it did its first fail-to-proceed. The C6 suffered the ignominy of being jump started by an S-Max, and limped to work where it spent the day plugged in like a Tesla:
Having spent the day on trickle charge, the huge battery in the boot was still not at its best by the end of the day, so after work I opted to run the car up the motorway to Petersfield and back in an attempt to force some electrons back into the acid box like a RyanAir passenger desperately trying to force shut an overpacked suitcase by sitting on it prior to pulling the zip....or something. It seemed more sensible than potentially suffering another FTP in the Cul-de-Sac at home, and sure enough, by the end of the 30min trip, the starter was buzzing over at twice the speed, and has continued to do so since.
During this mini-trip, I was able to sample a C6 in its prime, as it was the first occasion I'd used the car on the motorway with fault-free suspension. It was only brief, but I discovered that the gearbox issue isn't phased by motorway slogs, and that the issue itself arises when the box is being asked to change gear a lot. 15mins in a town will give it issues, but an hour on the motorway and it'll be fine, especially seeing as the gear that misbehaves the most is third, which the car is not using above 30mph.
I didn't take too much stock of how the car performed at the task, as I was concentrating on any problems that might arise, but it gave me more confidence in the car.
The downside is that the more time you spend in it, the more warm and comfy you get, and then when you arrive home, you don't want to get out!
The fact that the car is so nice to be in, allied to the impression that it was perfectly happy sitting on the motorway meant that I opted to use it for a 200 mile round-trip to High Wycombe a couple of days ago (yes - I'm actually up to date!) I needed to buy some parts for the Imp, and that couldn't move without them, and it was blocking the workshop due to my poor-planning! Posting wasn't an option, as I needed to inspect the parts first, so a direct to & from trip took place in the C6.
Until this time, the furthest I'd driven it was, well, Petersfield as above! This time I'd thrown £40 of Esso's finest grease in it, and once I'd got past the seemingly endless roadworks round here, I hit the A3 (opted to avoid the M3 until I was confident the car would be fine), set the cruise to 69mph and settled in to see what's what.
Two things came to mind. Firstly, that I am wasting the C6 by restricting it to local commuter shuffling on 30mph roads just as much as you'd be wasting a Lotus Exige by only using it on motorways and never once taking it near a B-road, or a circuit. It's like buying an Intercity 125, and then using it on a branch line. Actually, the TGV would be more apt.
And, speaking of trains, the second thought I had was that, at 70mph, the C6 is, quite frankly ridiculous. I've never been in anything which laughs at a long(ish) journey the way this car does. At that speed, it is more like sitting in First Class on the Eurostar than being in a car. You cannot hear the engine, and though you witness other cars moving vertically as they traverse bumps and undulations, the C6 barely notices. At 70mph, it's doing 1900rpm, and averaging about 45mpg. Wind-noise is exceptionally quiet, given that it has frameless-doors, and only the tyre noise on my car lets the side down (relatively speaking - it's still quieter than most). It needs new rubber, so I'm not going to be holding that against it.
Pit stop at Beaconsfield Services on Saturday
I have never, ever, travelled in a car where the 'fun' part of the journey was the motorway. Normally on a return, I'm itching to peel off the motorways and use the A-roads & twisty backlanes. Motorways are dull and monotonous, afterall, but with the C6, they're the party trick. They're actually what you look forward to! Sure, it's probably a novelty that'll wear off, but I've honestly never driven a car on a journey where I got out at the other end completely obvious to the hours I'd just been sat down. It doesn't eat miles, it deletes them.
Stopped by at a location I'd been to once before with one of my other double-chevron'd gasbag motors...
2021:
2011:
I'm looking forward to many roadtrips when all this COVID crap is done with.
Edited by Kitchski on Monday 1st March 10:19
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