Citroen Relay Reverse Judder? (1 Viewer)

[Peter James]

I have seen lots of threads on the Fiat Ducato (2006 latest model onwards) reverse judder, and to a much lesser extent the Peugeot Boxer, but nothing on the Citroen Relay, and they are all suposed to be the same van with a different badge.

Has anyone had this problem with the Citroen Relay?

(I have a 2009 Citroen Relay 120 L4 H2 van, the 'Heavy' version with 16" wheels but still plated at 3.5 tonnes. Reverse gear is a bit high, so there is vibration and increased noise when reversing up a steep hill when loaded, but it would be exaggerating to call it a judder. I would have thought nothing of it if I hadn't read so much on the internet about it)

PS: I took delivery of the van in July 2009, but got a discount of around £12,000 on the retail price because it was old stock. I don't know the date of manufacture but notice the tyres and a body panel component are dated November 2008

 

[Peter James]

Another factor cropped up on another thread. Because of the longer bodies built on to them, motorhomes tend to have a greater proportion of their weight on the undriven wheels at the back, compared to the standard vans. This manifests itself as motorhomes are more likely to get stuck in the mud.
Since I have not heard of any commercial vans affected by the judder, I am wondering whether this judder has something to do with the lighter weight on the driving wheels trying to push the heavier deadweight on the back wheels, that you get with motorhomes??

 

[Peter James]

I found out a bit more from speaking to other drivers of the new Citroen Relay Van (Identical to the Fiat Ducato and Peugeot Boxer)
They all had them on lease with maintainence included in the price, so repairs and resale value seemed to be of no concern to them, which may explain why none of them had complained about the high reverse gear / reversing judder?
But none of them had any problems with it - one whitevanman with a 2 year old Citroen Relay 120, 6 speed had done 120,000 miles, all on the original clutch and gearbox, and had never heard of the reverse judder problem.

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[DESCO]

You don.t read as much about Citroen vans having trouble but this may be that they don't seem to be used by many converters. I can't see that they should be any different as they all come from the same production line.

White van man does not seem worried by the judder, but then most of them are co. owned so the drivers are not worried.



Dave :thumb:

 

[Spacerunner]

The real problem is, Fiat advertise these X2/50 based motorhome chassis as purposely designed for motorhome conversions. Patently they are not, otherwise higher loading and longer overhangs would have been taken into account and used in the design stage to eliminate any poor driving characteristics.

 

[Minxy]

As has been mentioned above, there are very few motorhomes/van conversions using the Citroen derivative, they mainly use the Fiat, with some using the Peugeot. There are definite problems with the gearbox with all of the engine capacities, but it seems to affect the smaller engined ones more - there are instances of problems with the 3 litre manual and it appears, to a lesser extent, with the 3 litre auto, but that may be due to the fact that the 3 litre manual and 3 litre auto are sold in much fewer numbers, so it is difficult to be sure of how big a problem there is with them.

The main difficulty though is that, whilst not all vehicles are affected thank goodness, no one knows until they get their new pride and joy whether there's is one of the judderers.

If you are content that your vehicle is acceptable in it's present state and that you don't feel the need for rectification work, that's great, but do be careful when it gets towards the end of the Fiat warranty period as outside of that, if you do find you need the 'cure', you may not be eligible for it.

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[lebesset]

peugot and citroen are both owned by PSA , and from what I understand peugot are rectifying so citroen will be doing so as well ...of course the citroens are mainly for the french market
frankly my worry would be what happens when you sell ? the gearbox problem is well known to dealers and others , and a motorhome without the mods is going to be worth a lot less if it hasn't had them done

so my advice is to fully load the vehicle , and try reversing up a really steep hill ; the slightest judder ...off to the citroen agent and complain ...make sure you get and keep a receipt for any work done

 

[Peter James]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I have tried again reversing up a steep hill loaded I guess close to the maximum plated 3.5 tonnes, its a bit noisy but no real problem or judder. I notice though that the plate under the bonnet shows a design weight of up to 6.5 tonnes. If this vehicle had been taken by a converter and bodywork or a towbar added taking it up to that weight, I can well imagine it having problems reversing 6.5 tonnes up a steep hill.

 

[lee52]

I did a job on a car many moons ago (XR3I) it would pull away as smooth as silk in forward gears but in reverse it juddered that bad you would think the engine was going to leap out of the bonnet (engine had actually been hitting the underside of the bonnet) checked the normal things (these cars where prone to gearbox mount failing) ran out of ideas and changed the clutch, problem sorted which to this day I dont understand as the clutch rotates in the same direction regardless of gears selected but it fixed the reverse gear judder

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