Car Hydraulics

antodeco

Hi All,
Why dont they put these in more cars? My mate has a Citreon (cant remember the model, v6 3litre) and it has automatic and manual hydraulics. When he is at a stand still, or driving on a motorway, it lowers itself automatically, for better handling and mpg. When hes driving slower, its higher up. Surely this would make sense for the motorway and bad country road driving that is here? A simply switch to set it for high, when going down potholled roads, and lowered for when you are driving on a long stretch of motorway.
Does anyone think that this would benefit cars and themselves?

Tails142

Many reasons;

a) Its just another thing (gimmick) to go horribly wrong and costly to repair

b) got a toe bar? park up in a parallel spot, come back to find some woman has parked against your hitch, and then admire as your toe bar rips their bumper off as your back end raises. What ya gonna do now? leave the scene of an accident?

c) Many cars do have variable ride height that can be manually controlled; possibly more suitable if you're bothered.

d) atari jaguar

mike65

Citroens 'gimmick' has been in production for 50 years! and its not expensive to maintain either.

As for toe-bar type incident, all you would do is put the suspension level on its lowest setting then start engine and move fowards then move the button one postion to select 'normal ride height'

Mike.

peasant

There's another neat trick that you can do with this suspension:

You can take off one of the rear wheels (it's FWD) and still drive it

(At least it worked on my old GS)


also for changing wheels, you just put it on its highest setting, slide in the jack, set the lever to "low" and watch the wheel go up

antodeco

AH peasant, are you sure it just wasnt your homemade reliant robin?

peasant

need proof?

there you go: :D:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HK2nTRvm_s

mike65

Brilliant if you get a flat and your spare is erm flat!

Mike.

Max_Damage

peasant wrote: »

need proof?

there you go: :D:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HK2nTRvm_s

I wouldn't advice that he takes a hard left turn. Let the sparks fly!

peasant

Of course you shouldn't drive like this ...but it shows the capability of the hydropneumatic suspension to keep the car level even in extreme situations quite nicely, doesn't it?

MercMad

These hydraulics are excellent when maintained properly but this appears to be outside the scope of most mechanics and outside the budget of most owners, hence your friends car, most likley a Citroen XM is probably woth the equivalent of a half decent Chinese take away !!

Traditionally folk are scared of cars that dont have stell sprung suspension, the Mercedes 300SE's of the 60's,the 450SE's of the 70's, the 560SE's of the 80's and so on up to the current S-Class, all use either Air or Air/Hyrdraulic, and the public are scared of what may go wrong !