PetrolBlog piece

[MTXM]

I am not sure if anyone has posted this before but it is quite a good read:
http://petrolblog.com/2012/07/citroen-x ... standings/
Regards, Matthew T.

[White Exec]

A great read! Particularly interesting is the comment on having to drive with sympathy . . . One tweak of the accelerator, and the suspension would switch to Sport, etc . . . Which might account for frequent comments about the ride being randomly harsh. By now having an accelerator pedal sensor disable switch, I finally realise just how serious the shortcoming of that sensor's programming is, when it comes to uneven roads, ridges and potholes. Accelerate over them and whince!

Thanks for posting, Matt.

[citsncycles]

I know I have to be very gentle on my throttle if I want to keep the suspension soft - it seems the system was programmed with those long, straight, quiet French country roads in mind rather than our busy, twisty roads, as mine settles down to a lovely soft ride on motorways etc. On the other hand, it felt almost like a conventionally sprung car on the CCC convoy ride the other day.

[Peter.N.]

My son and I are fairly regularly going from here to St Austell a journey of about 115 miles which takes a bit over two hours. My son doesn't drive hard but fairly normally. he averages about 52mpg with our 406 hdi, I take about 10 minutes longer and averaged 64.4mpg last Friday, admittedly it was very hot which always seems to improve the consumption. He drives a steady 70 mph uphill and down dale, I drive at around 65 mph, faster down hill but up hill I let the car slow down a little rather than increase the throttle opening, I also leave plenty of space between me and the car in front so I don't have to brake unnecessarily and also accelerate very gently - but then I am old.

Peter

[Rommel]

I did post this recently in another thread....it's a good and somewhat amusing article!

I feel as if we are running out of articles to post about our beloved XM...we have found many of the English language ones now.
I think there are more road test articles in existence that are not available in full online though. An interesting project would be to compile these here, scans etc.

Peter, you will probably always be the king of XM mpg and beyond!

[Rommel]

I know I have to be very gentle on my throttle if I want to keep the suspension soft - it seems the system was programmed with those long, straight, quiet French country roads in mind rather than our busy, twisty roads, as mine settles down to a lovely soft ride on motorways etc. On the other hand, it felt almost like a conventionally sprung car on the CCC convoy ride the other day.

I actually feel this is advantageous- 2 cars in 1!

[Peter.N.]

I think the 2.1 manual takes some beating, its got to be the most economical IDI engine.

Peter

[White Exec]

I know I have to be very gentle on my throttle if I want to keep the suspension soft . . .

As posted in detail in another thread, it took me a very long time to identify the source of the intermittent harsh ride - in an otherwise apparently "textbook" system - and Mike (and the Blog article) make exactly the same point: significantly open the throttle, and things go firm.

Have we, I wonder, finally nailed one of the achilles' heels of Hydractive II ? Has anyone else reached a similar conclusion?

[citsncycles]

Not in my case - I believe mine's early enough to be Hydractive, although I gather there were different versions of that.

[Ciaran]

That was a really enjoyable read, thanks Matthew

Ciarán