Paulius wrote ...

It looks great!

I would definitely:
Check for the coolant return pipe corrosion under the left front wheel arc. Actually, I would just cut it off ant replace the entire section with rubber. (mine was starting to leak)
Check for oil pressure - those engines are really terrible. There are many myths surrounding it, but one thing is for sure - it's crankshaft is really weak and so are their oil pumps which tend to not supply enough pressure (hinted by louder clarkering of the valves/compensators for a few seconds after the startup). (my engine is about to go)
Change oil every 10k kms
Change transmission oil (mine shifted quite bad until i changed the oil)
Check if the ride height is correct and if the AMVAR actuators are working correctly (possible to do with LEXIA) for best ride comfort. (my ride heigh had drifted over the years and my rear-left amvar actuator was stuck a few "steps" harder)

Paulius wrote ...

1. Well, check your oil pressure at a service then. Most of the 2.7 HDIs sound like that. Maybe the compensators are worn.. I am not myself sure on this and input from fellow owners would be helpful.

2. If the car sinks during night, after "waking it up" (unlocking, for example), itraises to it's "ignition off" height. There can be a few reasons for it to sink, but if it doesn't get very low and there are no oil puddles under your car, it should be okay. One of my front strus is leaky and therefore it sometimes drops it's "nose" a bit, but it isn't loosing too much fluid and I'll only replace it once it starts leaking worse.

A logical reason for that height 'readjustment' on waking up is that so you don't hit your doors to a curb once it lowers out of your control.

Once you turn on your ignition, it raises to it's "working" height. It changes it's height front and rear separately, just as you described. The reason for that is that while any left-right wheel pair share the same amount of fluid (therefore same ride height), it needs to be able to adjust front and rear heights independently anyways (to compensate for the load) so it just routes it's pump to the rear and then to the front. It's just easier to route everything like that.
And when it is lowering, front does indeed do it much faster than the rear, perhaps it's got something to do with the fact that fluid has to travel a longer way from the rear to the front where the reservoir is. All that longer piping adds some resistance. It uses somewhat thinner pipes for all the height changing (adding or removing fluid from front or rear), but the pipes within front/rear "closed from each other" systems are wide so that it can spring to the spheres without piping resistance.

An interesting fact is that it also readjusts it's height every time you close the doors. If someone exits the car, it raises up because of the missing weight. When close all doors, it raises up or lowers to it's predefined height. Hydropneumatic suspension has a lot more 'virtual' travel than a spring suspension therefore it is quite sensitive to height changes and needs to readjust itself after load changes. The whole height changing thing is not a gimmick, it is necessary for it to function, and ability to manually change it is just a 'bonus'.


Hopefully my insights were useful or at least interesting.

Radox wrote ...


- New steel coolant pipe under the front left wheel arch and new thermostat housing (just in case, I've heard a lot of horror stories)

MGmike wrote ...



I think you missed a very important item... the water inlet manifold will fail similar to the thermostat housing but if you're in the middle of a long run you'll get no warning until the engine is dead (unless you've fitted a low coolant alarm?).

Radox wrote ...


Can you please tell me which part number the manifold is?

C6Dave wrote ...


Part number is 1336.Y2 and is used on CITROEN / PEUGEOT C5 C6 407 607

If you look at this post - Click Here - you can see where they fail. The end that holds the seal into the engine block breaks up and you can't see it visually though you might spot coolant leaking out.