Quote from: BXGTi16Vno, rover has the hydrospastic(lastic) citroen has hydropneumatic and hydractive - more reliable and much, much longer lasting than springs. Much lambasted by talentless backstreet mechanics who cant work their way around a simple hydraulic system.

Never had a spring go TBH on any car but my Xantia had to have all its suspension changed. Was a lovely car apart from the suspension and the high group insurance.

Your xantia had to have all its suspension changed? 6-10 spheres, at least 4 hydraulic rams (depending on setup), 40 or 50 yards of pipe, hydraulic pump, accumulator, hydractive or activa system & spheres (if fitted)

The most common cause of failure is neglect to flush the fluid at the service interval, or use of the wrong sort of fluid. Other than that failures are very rare - the xantia has the best record of all the hydraulic/air types. The very first ones produced had inferior coating on the pipes meaning they were liable to rust after 3-5 years, but all others were plastic coated

Ins groups are okish - 6+ i think - TD is around 8 - but that is prob higher than the rover

Dont know what it needed but it was quite expensive. the car bounced around and became uncontrollable. Slightest bump in the road meant it bounced and when trying to brake it was constantly setting off the ABS.

Failures arent rare. i took it to a citreon dealer who showed me a few others that needed the same thing. He told me it was quite common, had no reason to not believe him as its his business to know.

And it was insurance group was 13 which to be fair is quite high.

IG 13 - That must have been the 2.0 16V version?

Bouncing around and setting the abs off...bouncing around can only be caused by duff spheres - Ã,£30 each

ABS going off by itself is certainly a weird one - its the same system as used on just about every euro car of the time, BMW/Mercedes/etc - the only time Ive ever experienced that myself is on a Lexus.

If I went to a dealer (5 years ago) who had a few xantias in with hydraulic system failure that were regulars on their books, my conclusion would be that they didnt know what they were at, and that they didnt service the cars properly - theres a lot of them about - there is one main dealer here in NI who shall remain nameless who porports to be a hydractive expert - I went looking for activa parts and they didnt even know what activa was.