@Trev C don't know about that trev my nk1 golf is fine, but I had a saxo when I left school and that thing was built in a wind storm by a chimp. Panel gap wider than the chunnel.
@cookieDad american cars are reliable as hell with proper maintenance. Its really only Japanese cars that you can drive for hundreds of thousands of miles with sketchy maintenance. Lots of chevy silverados 500,000+ miles
Never driven a 80s and 90s citroën have ya? These are some of the most reliable vehicles you can ever get. Colleague of mine bought a BX in 1987 brand new. He had it for a long time, and had 450.000 on the clock, only ever had to replace and alternator. Before he sold it he did a full revision of the block and it was good to go for another 450.000. These engines can get up to a million of you want. He bought a C5 after that car. But he still regrets getting rid of it. I have a Xantia myself. Best car i have ever had
@chamonix I've got a 1988 2CV! Had to replace the cylinders a while back because it had seized. Less than 500€. Needed a new clutch soon after. 300€, installed. I'm not sure how many hundreds of thousands of km are on it, the dial has rolled over at least once!
@Lord Eden before start of the war germany was least motorized country in europe so they used horses but nobody renembers that because people were forbiden to take photos of them but even during the war as germany captured lots of vechicles the horses were still used
@Jakub Rzepkowski where did you get this information from? „Least motorized country“? Germany was far ahead countries like Poland, Holland, Belgium etc when it came to mobilization. Especially Poland was/is far behind in everything that has to do with technology. Yes the Germans used a heck lot of horses that’s right, but „least motorized country in Europe“ is a completely false statement..
Pre world war 2 french industry was a powerhouse, now we are a service industry ! We could still build 2cv and traction avant but those car only sell once.
Yeah in those days. Now they build self destructing engines where the timing belt is running inside the engine and kt dissolves in oil in like 40k km. Or diesel cars where the intercooler freezes shut in winter. Or spark plugs that melt and fall into the cylinders yeah great cars! French cars the last 10 years onwards are the biggest cheapest pile of trash I have ever worked on. Yeah I’m a former Opel and now sadly PSA mechanic.
@Olmost Gudinaf oil starvation is a common problem on vehicles of the time and it's due to low oil or weak pumps, bad dipsticks. The Germans would know
Any mechanic would know that engines were failing because of lack of oil. This sabotage would not go on for very long before it was discovered sounds like an old wives tale to me.
Good catch. Esp as germans were good at technical things... Still, there may be a corn of thruth in it; somebody come with the idea and instructed to set the level mark low...(so it doesnt need to be the french, its enough with 1 someone production responsible in the factory)... After a while this was surely discovered "Citroens needs more oil than into the mark", but the myth was born.
I can confirm this I've found flawed dip sticks in heavy equipment before. Someone repaired a dipstick that wore out and didn't mark it or order a new one these peices were checked daily. With fuel consumption and and a 24hr shift for several months they would be checked 4 times a day. So they do wear out.
Yes, the damage would indicate low oil, or starvation, but WHY that happened wouldn't be so obvious. Germany was extremely short of oil, your unit could run out at times. Other parts could be at fault. It's during war, not like a peacetime motor pool. Chaos reigns. You don't know the vehicle, or who did what to it. Most importantly, perhaps, as anybody who does fleet maintenance knows, drivers NEVER check their oil.
As a teenager my grandfather worked in a Racine Wisconsin. The contract was with the French government. Remember that trucks had been around for less than 20 years. Gramp’s job was to drive the finished truck off the assembly line, take a lap of the plant and if all was OK park it for shipment. If the transmission made lots of noise he was to put a big handful of sawdust into the tranny and see if that quieted ‘er down. Then off to the front! 12 months later he was staring at France over the rail if the USS Hesperus. Probably saw some of his trucks in ditches in the following months.
remember that in the early 40s, americans didn't yet put in sulfur into their transmission oil for better performance as europeans did. So it's possible that the now more sticky oil just clinged better to the gears.
Since the Germans were critically short of oil all the time, they put the minimum amount in to begin with, so this was way more effective than if they had actually filled crankcase properly
@Jan Tschierschky why do you keep insisting that your modern German military experience tells you what protocol was for the Nazis in WW2? That sounds like a policy they would implement AFTER seeing this problem occur.
@Wolacouskahow about common sense?? Or a very basic understanding of automobile engines. Wouldn't that be enough?? This literally makes no sense. Any mechanic understands the risk of under lubricating an engine and all of the extra work that results from it.
@danduntz2539 From Websters dictionary lemon 1 of 2 noun lem·on 1 a : an acid fruit that is botanically a many-seeded pale yellow oblong berry produced by a small thorny citrus tree (Citrus limon) and that has a rind from which an aromatic oil is extracted b : a tree that bears lemons 2 : something (such as an automobile) that is unsatisfactory or defective. Literally a Lemon In many states, for a car to qualify as a lemon, the car must have a significant defect. It also must have occurred within a specified period, either in time or miles
If this is true. It’s really cool. It’s like the French Railway engineers putting small coins into the OIL DRIP FEEDS TO THE main Crank Pistons and Shafts. Sadly the Germans caught on to this and many many French railway men were shot them for sabotage a capital crime. A small 5 centime coin could disable a 120tn. Locomotive within a few miles. There’s a black / white film with Kirk Douglas as the Railway Manager trying to cover up but still sabotage the French trains. Never forget Kirk Douglas other film set in WW1. About the First World War French soldiers being shot for cowardice etc er. Great movies.
The other one were one movie was either passed to Gloria or paths of glory. There was one great shot right before they first went over the top when he's walking down the trench and he's got his back turn to where the pyros are going off and a dirt clod from one when he's got the whistle in his mouth bounces off his head and hits the camera lens. It was just such a fantastic shot to make you feel immersed into what's going on. Stanley Kubrick film also
We don't have a design flaw ... it's a German deterrent device... we did it on purpose. No, there is no recall and we are not covering it under your warranty
@Timberrr The French were making good money out of this and did everything to not blow up this deal... after war they simply restricted access to any historical documentation to only Ferench historians plus any book about WW2 was censored before it was allowed to be printed... first book that was not censored and published was a quarter of a century after the war... and that book also did not reveal anything that the French did not want to reveal!
Oh they are no worse than any other cars really. I've dailied a 2000 Peugeot for the past four years and other than wear items and some accident damage I haven't had to repair much on it.
One little alteration by the manufacturer. With the Oil Dipstick made these trucks break down very quickly. That is very enginious and certainly worked. 💪🏻🙏🏻✨
The same thing happened on the pacific side, the Japanese had invaded Korea, a gentleman by the name of Chung Ju-yung, open an automotive repair and the Japanese brought to him their service work, he made certain his clients were to return time and again by lengthening the dip sticks…he later started a much larger business know as Hyundai heavy industries…the largest ship builder, steel fabrication and automotive builder in all of Asia and worldwide!
@R Burrows this joke still existing in 2023, you need to grew up kid and paid some respect to dead people from this war. Remember if allies continued the figth and win, it's because french men died at dunkirk for saved british army and british spirit to figth.
My grandfather was in Danish resistance during WWII. He worked as a ships carpenter at the Royal (naval) Shipyard, occupied by the Germans. They were forced to build wooden propellers for the Luftwaffe. So they built them out of balance. Weight was even in all ends, so the Germans couldn't measure any deviations. But the angles of different propeller blades were different. Not enough to notice, but enough to have impact on the performance. One day my grandfather and others were invited to watch flight tests at an airport. One planes, a two seater, doing acrobatics did some very difficult maneuver and suddenly seemed to not being able to follow up on the pilots intentions. Anyway it resulted in a full speed nose-dvie crash into the ground, then an explosion. The crash left a crater 10 metres deep. From my late grandfather I have a small fragment from that airplane. 🤔 I wonder what wnt wrong with that plane?
Seems nonsense. Most of the trucks in German hands got very low mileage due to the lack of fuel. The main challenge were the roads in the east (The Soviet Union had a very few paved roads only) that made most vehicles break down. The second challenge was that most French trucks had weak motors. Together with overloading and non - existing roads the truck life was short anyway. The second point...If a motor broke down behind the front line it was repaired by maintenance units. The typical damage in case of lacking motor oil is a damage of the connecting rod bearings. It is wellknown to mechanics hat the main cause is a lack of oil pressure. The mechanics would have noticed it checked the oil pump and if working it is lacking oil. The driver would have become accused first and got a punishment. If it happen more than once most probably the cause would have become found if not.... A potential reason that it was perhaps not found out is the German soldiers habit of overlubricating. I was a technical officer in the German army of the 80ies. I regularly observed that the soldiers overfilled oil and grease (vehicles of the 50ies) until it got out of the bearings. I assume that their fathers did the same in the 40ies.
They where designed to drive around France. Not the muddy fields of Russia. No shit they broke down. All the reasons listed in the video are small components of a larger over all problem.
@Mark Zenhorst The French roads were quite well compared to other countries. For the German forces the challenge was the Soviet Union with nearly no paved roads.
Lucky that Germans know absolutly nothing about cars because otherwise any semi-inteligent mechanic would instantly discover that the broken engine lacked oil(you need to drain it before you replace any part in it->so you can see how much oil was inside...) but somehow the indicator was claiming that it is OK.
@Wayne Taylor I am a German ex soldier and driver. I know the training, maintenance, and control structure. Every vehicle is checked to be used, and oil is always min 90% . If your engine is destroyed due to lack of oil, your next assignment is the penal battalion. Also, every vehicle leaving the factory is checked because sabotage was expected. If you got court, you and your family will enjoy the hospitality of the nearest KZ. Any organisational sabotage in factories did not happen. Sabotage in later years was very subtle, missing screw etc. So that story is utter bs.
@Jan Tschierschky Thank you for the personal history. During WW2 Nazis were fantastics about MUCH. It certainly follows that vehicle maintenance would be a top priority.
Do you actually believe that? Drip oilers were still common in vehicles at that time so deivers were used to dump in liters of motor oil multiple times a day. There's no way this made the damage this short implies.
Bullshit. The mechanic didn't test and see that the oil was way to high after he put in the set amount of oil. since the mark was way low than it should be.
When they took over the factories they treated the workers like absolute garbage. They literally were starving them so the workers decided to fight back in this manner and it worked out beautifully they had no idea. They would leave bolts out forget to drill holes in certain oil passages and so on and so forth it was wonderful
I actually drove around in the first car they designed after the war and they are fairly reliable if you maintain them more than you would a normal car but i never knew this
The French Resistance used Citroen cars like tanks, using the massive fenders to have machine gunner's on them, it worked really well for Hit &Run missions. Everyday people doing unbelievably Heroic things.
You probably mean the maximum mark was lower on the dipstick, in other words it was a longer dipstick which gave the false impression there was enough oil in the engine when in fact there wasn't.
it's due to internal sabotage during made process, in a way it's a resistance act during WW2 under german occupation inside factories.....working for all planes, cars, trucks made for germany...example : NC 900 is FW 190 made in france, buildt during german occupation, so much defect that each fly was a record due to sabotage...thanks for sharing, B rgds : )
Entertainment
Someone needs to tell citroen the war is over man cause theyre still breaking down every ten miles.
Nope, that's VW.
@Trev C don't know about that trev my nk1 golf is fine, but I had a saxo when I left school and that thing was built in a wind storm by a chimp. Panel gap wider than the chunnel.
Ha ha I don’t think they where sabotaging these trucks they are just shit in general and so do the new Citroen models
No, that's the American junk
@cookieDad american cars are reliable as hell with proper maintenance. Its really only Japanese cars that you can drive for hundreds of thousands of miles with sketchy maintenance. Lots of chevy silverados 500,000+ miles
Someone tell Citroen that the war is over
😂 they missed the memo 📝
Gold
Clip come from Citroën???? 😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😊
French were at it again
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
They liked it so much that they are still producing unreliable vehicles
Hahahahahahahahaaa 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Ahahaha so untrue
😂😂😂😂😂
HVAC Quality Assurance they probably still have an agreement with the Germans to sell VWs
1939 was the last time somebody used the words "Citroen" and "reliable" in the same sentence
2cv is bomb proof
Never driven a 80s and 90s citroën have ya? These are some of the most reliable vehicles you can ever get.
Colleague of mine bought a BX in 1987 brand new. He had it for a long time, and had 450.000 on the clock, only ever had to replace and alternator. Before he sold it he did a full revision of the block and it was good to go for another 450.000. These engines can get up to a million of you want.
He bought a C5 after that car. But he still regrets getting rid of it.
I have a Xantia myself. Best car i have ever had
Today "Stellantis" is the new Citroen!
@Wilhuff Tarkin yeah the 80s 90s diesel citroens are also bombproof, just rust issues really but thats most 90s cars
@chamonix I've got a 1988 2CV! Had to replace the cylinders a while back because it had seized. Less than 500€. Needed a new clutch soon after. 300€, installed.
I'm not sure how many hundreds of thousands of km are on it, the dial has rolled over at least once!
Germans used horses more than people realize.
Now tell us some thing we don't know!
@Lord Eden before start of the war germany was least motorized country in europe so they used horses but nobody renembers that because people were forbiden to take photos of them but even during the war as germany captured lots of vechicles the horses were still used
@Jakub Rzepkowski He asked for something we don't know not to explain the point we already know
@Jakub Rzepkowski where did you get this information from?
„Least motorized country“?
Germany was far ahead countries like Poland, Holland, Belgium etc when it came to mobilization.
Especially Poland was/is far behind in everything that has to do with technology.
Yes the Germans used a heck lot of horses that’s right, but „least motorized country in Europe“ is a completely false statement..
also bicycles.
same with Peugeot, which was commissioned to manufacture the V1 missiles, but had so many "problems" that deadlines were never met.
Thats something that happens with nearly any government contracted European private firm in regards to schedules and price limits… hahaha
@Sergio m no, it was intentional, the citroen owner also fled to united states before the germans realized it was a known problem
@Sergio m Peugeot directors even ask the allies to send bombers to destroy their steel foundry and factory.
and for that some of the Peugeot family was deported and the person who was in charge of the Peugeot foundry was Ferdinand Porsche
The word "Citroen" and "Reliable" are two words I never thought I'd hear in the same sentence without a "not" in the middle.
Pre world war 2 french industry was a powerhouse, now we are a service industry !
We could still build 2cv and traction avant but those car only sell once.
Except French in those years were one of the best car builders and designers.
Yeah in those days. Now they build self destructing engines where the timing belt is running inside the engine and kt dissolves in oil in like 40k km. Or diesel cars where the intercooler freezes shut in winter. Or spark plugs that melt and fall into the cylinders yeah great cars! French cars the last 10 years onwards are the biggest cheapest pile of trash I have ever worked on. Yeah I’m a former Opel and now sadly PSA mechanic.
@Discofelsi would that be the engine with timing gear designed by BMW?
Any German mechanic could tell that the vehicle is low on oil, as if reading the dipstick was their only option.
They act as if the Germans didn't have world class engineers and mechanics better than the french.
But would they know WHY it was low on oil?
@Olmost Gudinaf oil starvation is a common problem on vehicles of the time and it's due to low oil or weak pumps, bad dipsticks. The Germans would know
@Haru Yantoactually, no.
@Olmost Gudinaf because it's the first thing you check
Any mechanic would know that engines were failing because of lack of oil. This sabotage would not go on for very long before it was discovered sounds like an old wives tale to me.
Good catch. Esp as germans were good at technical things... Still, there may be a corn of thruth in it; somebody come with the idea and instructed to set the level mark low...(so it doesnt need to be the french, its enough with 1 someone production responsible in the factory)... After a while this was surely discovered "Citroens needs more oil than into the mark", but the myth was born.
I can confirm this I've found flawed dip sticks in heavy equipment before. Someone repaired a dipstick that wore out and didn't mark it or order a new one these peices were checked daily. With fuel consumption and and a 24hr shift for several months they would be checked 4 times a day. So they do wear out.
Same
agree
Yes, the damage would indicate low oil, or starvation, but WHY that happened wouldn't be so obvious. Germany was extremely short of oil, your unit could run out at times. Other parts could be at fault. It's during war, not like a peacetime motor pool. Chaos reigns. You don't know the vehicle, or who did what to it. Most importantly, perhaps, as anybody who does fleet maintenance knows, drivers NEVER check their oil.
As a teenager my grandfather worked in a Racine Wisconsin. The contract was with the French government. Remember that trucks had been around for less than 20 years. Gramp’s job was to drive the finished truck off the assembly line, take a lap of the plant and if all was OK park it for shipment. If the transmission made lots of noise he was to put a big handful of sawdust into the tranny and see if that quieted ‘er down. Then off to the front! 12 months later he was staring at France over the rail if the USS Hesperus. Probably saw some of his trucks in ditches in the following months.
Sawdust??
@Grateful Guy Yep, that’s what he told me.
@Larry Sorenson but where would it go? How does that work?
@Grateful Guy It probably thickened up the transmission fluid enough to start catching the gears
remember that in the early 40s, americans didn't yet put in sulfur into their transmission oil for better performance as europeans did. So it's possible that the now more sticky oil just clinged better to the gears.
"we do a lil trolling"
Oh A mechanic figured it out but I bet when he told what the problem was he wasn’t believed.
He was sent to the front line
Citroen and Peugeot managed to keep these reliability issues after the war up to current day.
Since the Germans were critically short of oil all the time, they put the minimum amount in to begin with, so this was way more effective than if they had actually filled crankcase properly
Nonsense, oil was always at max. Vehicles are checked before use.
@Jan Tschierschky why do you keep insisting that your modern German military experience tells you what protocol was for the Nazis in WW2?
That sounds like a policy they would implement AFTER seeing this problem occur.
@Wolacouskahow about common sense?? Or a very basic understanding of automobile engines. Wouldn't that be enough??
This literally makes no sense. Any mechanic understands the risk of under lubricating an engine and all of the extra work that results from it.
Not that kind of oil
And then the French forgot to revert that to make their cars reliable again.
They are still making reliable cars.
@_stoupa2_ says you
@BL DontMatter and a lot of other people
That's a good easy way of sabotage to destroy the engine. Makes sense and simple.
Zitroen is German for lemon. Citron is French and Danish for lemon. Dutch is citroen.
They kept breaking down because they were literally lemons.
Zitrone is german.
@john smith ah yes. Misspelled.
Literally lemons, means they were actual oblong, yellow items of fruit.
@danduntz2539
From Websters dictionary
lemon
1 of 2
noun
lem·on
1
a
: an acid fruit that is botanically a many-seeded pale yellow oblong berry produced by a small thorny citrus tree (Citrus limon) and that has a rind from which an aromatic oil is extracted
b
: a tree that bears lemons
2
: something (such as an automobile) that is unsatisfactory or defective.
Literally a Lemon
In many states, for a car to qualify as a lemon, the car must have a significant defect. It also must have occurred within a specified period, either in time or miles
A tradition still upheld by today's French automotive industry!
Someone should tell the french factories the war is over
Shelby GT350s had a higher mark on the dipstick in order to hold just a little bit more oil. A windage tray kept it from hitting the crankshaft.
so the mark is higher than regular mustangs?
Windage trays are used in all new cars
so how many quarts did it need total?
If this is true. It’s really cool. It’s like the French Railway engineers putting small coins into the OIL DRIP FEEDS TO THE main Crank Pistons and Shafts. Sadly the Germans caught on to this and many many French railway men were shot them for sabotage a capital crime. A small 5 centime coin could disable a 120tn. Locomotive within a few miles. There’s a black / white film with Kirk Douglas as the Railway Manager trying to cover up but still sabotage the French trains. Never forget Kirk Douglas other film set in WW1. About the First World War French soldiers being shot for cowardice etc er. Great movies.
The movie was called The Train and it wasn't Kirk Douglas .....it was Burt Lancaster.
The other one were one movie was either passed to Gloria or paths of glory. There was one great shot right before they first went over the top when he's walking down the trench and he's got his back turn to where the pyros are going off and a dirt clod from one when he's got the whistle in his mouth bounces off his head and hits the camera lens. It was just such a fantastic shot to make you feel immersed into what's going on. Stanley Kubrick film also
@Adrian Otero one 💯 percent correct! matter of fact I saw that
movie last year....Mr Otero
Seems like Citroen never remembered to make them reliable again after the war
We don't have a design flaw ... it's a German deterrent device... we did it on purpose. No, there is no recall and we are not covering it under your warranty
The French sabotaged all trucks by building them with one missing main bearing. This would create more wear.
What else are you gonna pull out of you backside ?
@Jan Tschierschky You
@Timberrr The French were making good money out of this and did everything to not blow up this deal... after war they simply restricted access to any historical documentation to only Ferench historians plus any book about WW2 was censored before it was allowed to be printed... first book that was not censored and published was a quarter of a century after the war... and that book also did not reveal anything that the French did not want to reveal!
They were Citroën and I've yet to meet anyone who says " get a French car they are so reliable " 😂😂😂
The only thing that is reliable from the french are their cheese and women 😅
@Haru Yantoour women ? Come on, no.
Our wine yes
Oh they are no worse than any other cars really. I've dailied a 2000 Peugeot for the past four years and other than wear items and some accident damage I haven't had to repair much on it.
Small things like these can make big impacts.
This method was kept so secret during the war that it is standard in all French cars even after the war.
Til today ...😉😄
To be fair theres still a lot of 90s and 00s Peugeots on the road
My daily car is citroen Cx from 1984.
@Georgio de Grenoble Now you know why you had to fill up more oil than gas 😉
French cars were not know for their reliability. For the last 25 years they have improved a lot.
@Franz Liszt until the puretech... Shitbox
One little alteration by the manufacturer. With the Oil Dipstick made these trucks break down very quickly. That is very enginious and certainly worked. 💪🏻🙏🏻✨
The same thing happened on the pacific side, the Japanese had invaded Korea, a gentleman by the name of Chung Ju-yung, open an automotive repair and the Japanese brought to him their service work, he made certain his clients were to return time and again by lengthening the dip sticks…he later started a much larger business know as Hyundai heavy industries…the largest ship builder, steel fabrication and automotive builder in all of Asia and worldwide!
You do know they invaded korea centuries before ww2 right?
Your story sounds far fetched, you do know that, right.
I like how citron absolutely fuked up and then tryed to make it out it was a deliberate
Because they were Patriots. Even French trucks fought better than the French Army.
…The best comment I ever read in the last 45 years of existence…👍…( 🐖💨🇫🇷 )..Gott mit Uns…🇩🇪🇩🇪🇷🇺🇩🇪🇩🇪
Citroen liked that practice so much they still do it to this day
The French also built their tanks to go in reverse only
😂
Too funny and are you sure you're not speaking of the Italians.
@Clarence Ratkowiak the Italians had used French tanks drove the same lol
@R Burrows this joke still existing in 2023, you need to grew up kid and paid some respect to dead people from this war.
Remember if allies continued the figth and win, it's because french men died at dunkirk for saved british army and british spirit to figth.
Wow that explains a lot. Can someone let Citroen and Peugeot that the war is over and can they please make cars that function
My grandfather was in Danish resistance during WWII. He worked as a ships carpenter at the Royal (naval) Shipyard, occupied by the Germans. They were forced to build wooden propellers for the Luftwaffe. So they built them out of balance. Weight was even in all ends, so the Germans couldn't measure any deviations. But the angles of different propeller blades were different. Not enough to notice, but enough to have impact on the performance.
One day my grandfather and others were invited to watch flight tests at an airport. One planes, a two seater, doing acrobatics did some very difficult maneuver and suddenly seemed to not being able to follow up on the pilots intentions. Anyway it resulted in a full speed nose-dvie crash into the ground, then an explosion. The crash left a crater 10 metres deep. From my late grandfather I have a small fragment from that airplane. 🤔 I wonder what wnt wrong with that plane?
The words RELIABLE and CITROËN should never be used in the same sentence
A tall story, the first oil change would give the game away.
That's the kind of excuse I give when I keep failing the exams.
American car manufacturers: "Write that down!"
I don't have a high opinion of things french..but that was a genius move!
Seems nonsense. Most of the trucks in German hands got very low mileage due to the lack of fuel. The main challenge were the roads in the east (The Soviet Union had a very few paved roads only) that made most vehicles break down. The second challenge was that most French trucks had weak motors. Together with overloading and non - existing roads the truck life was short anyway.
The second point...If a motor broke down behind the front line it was repaired by maintenance units. The typical damage in case of lacking motor oil is a damage of the connecting rod bearings. It is wellknown to mechanics hat the main cause is a lack of oil pressure. The mechanics would have noticed it checked the oil pump and if working it is lacking oil. The driver would have become accused first and got a punishment. If it happen more than once most probably the cause would have become found if not....
A potential reason that it was perhaps not found out is the German soldiers habit of overlubricating.
I was a technical officer in the German army of the 80ies. I regularly observed that the soldiers overfilled oil and grease (vehicles of the 50ies) until it got out of the bearings. I assume that their fathers did the same in the 40ies.
one of the head designers altered the dipstic so the cars were indeed running low on oil.
Pierre-Jules Boulanger
They where designed to drive around France. Not the muddy fields of Russia. No shit they broke down. All the reasons listed in the video are small components of a larger over all problem.
I know how modern day france looks like, i dont dare to think about 1930s french roads.
@Mark Zenhorst The French roads were quite well compared to other countries. For the German forces the challenge was the Soviet Union with nearly no paved roads.
@Mark Zenhorst my comment is revised
Gotta love their creativity? They used sabotage as opposed to bullets. Wonder how many German soldiers were put in jeopardy by this trick? WELL DONE!
None, because is utter bs
Lucky that Germans know absolutly nothing about cars because otherwise any semi-inteligent mechanic would instantly discover that the broken engine lacked oil(you need to drain it before you replace any part in it->so you can see how much oil was inside...) but somehow the indicator was claiming that it is OK.
@Jan Tschierschky You are certain of that? Based upon what?
@Wayne Taylor I am a German ex soldier and driver. I know the training, maintenance, and control structure. Every vehicle is checked to be used, and oil is always min 90% .
If your engine is destroyed due to lack of oil, your next assignment is the penal battalion. Also, every vehicle leaving the factory is checked because sabotage was expected. If you got court, you and your family will enjoy the hospitality of the nearest KZ.
Any organisational sabotage in factories did not happen.
Sabotage in later years was very subtle, missing screw etc.
So that story is utter bs.
@Jan Tschierschky Thank you for the personal history. During WW2 Nazis were fantastics about MUCH. It certainly follows that vehicle maintenance would be a top priority.
Effective; completely deniable except for engineers after long research; easy to carry out; 0 cost; 0 risk involved;… the perfect sabotage plan
Right and what else you believe in flat earth ?
“They were running out of oil, but no one could figure out why they were breaking down” bruh
Some say, this shortened the war with 6 years.
Ford had a dipstick recall at one time,can't remember the recall number,the reason and what year model vehicle.
And Citroen has continued this tradition right up until modern day
Some one needs to tell Citrowen about Citroen.
Master race should have figured that out
Do you actually believe that?
Drip oilers were still common in vehicles at that time so deivers were used to dump in liters of motor oil multiple times a day. There's no way this made the damage this short implies.
Moral of the story is build your own equipment in war.
French: "we might lose the war, but we tamper with the dipstick, now they are in the deep shit"
French auto manufacturers still employ this trick, legend has it theres an electronic version of it as well.
To this day they keep up the tradition!!!
Kia and Hyundai engineers lean forward in their seats and replay this video while taking notes
No it’s just French quality, they came up with that story post war 😂
Last time Citroen was known as reliable the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was still kicking it
citroen: the car is still reliable to this day
people: it still breaks down every ten miles
citroen: it is still reliable
I can’t stand these AI voices that can’t pronounce names correctly, Citroen, not Cit-ro-en.
wait they gave them a longer dip stick . I love it.
And then after the war they went "Wait a minute, we can do this to the customers too"
“Why did the reliable trucks consistently break down” are they reliable or do they constantly break down bozo?
They were reliable, but the new ones the Germans orders were not. The narrator isn't very good with phrasing.
Seriously, though, you understood it, right?
It was explained pretty well in the video. You did watch the video, right?
Man if you pronounce citroen like this one more time im going to lose it lol
It was okay, Ford and GM were supplying the Germans with plenty of trucks that worked.
Bullshit. The mechanic didn't test and see that the oil was way to high after he put in the set amount of oil. since the mark was way low than it should be.
And Citroën never stopped fighting
A great example of why you shouldn’t have your enemy making your products
…Nevertheless the “ Wehrmacht Marschiert in Paris the Summer of 1940 Gott mit Uns “…
in this case ya gotta love the engineer's.
When they took over the factories they treated the workers like absolute garbage. They literally were starving them so the workers decided to fight back in this manner and it worked out beautifully they had no idea. They would leave bolts out forget to drill holes in certain oil passages and so on and so forth it was wonderful
One could assume the French really lowered the sabotage bar.
Citroen: that's my secret, cap. I'm always unreliable.
The french car manufacturers are still at war with their customers 😂
1,000 IQ move right there
How the French fought without fighting? They employed myths.
When a whole country hates you, that happened.
"The french created this problem" 😂 yeah right
Now I know that if I ever end up with a Citroen, I will never let the oil level anywhere near the minimum mark.
When trolling saved lives.
The Citroën symbol is a mark of chevron gearing. If this has been mentioned before forgive me for not searching every comment.
I honestly have never heard Citroen pronounced like that ever 😅
I actually drove around in the first car they designed after the war and they are fairly reliable if you maintain them more than you would a normal car but i never knew this
Gotta love those French men
In WWII, all the trucks used by our allies, the USSR, were built by Studebaker. They were reliable, powerful, easy to repair, and lasted.
Legend has it.. all french cars continue this tradition
As you said well, "legend"
Citroen really did not have to stick with that after the war
The French Resistance used Citroen cars like tanks, using the massive fenders to have machine gunner's on them, it worked really well for Hit &Run missions. Everyday people doing unbelievably Heroic things.
I LOVE this story! You just cannot find sneakier b@stards than the French! 😅
Citröen: creative unreliability
You probably mean the maximum mark was lower on the dipstick, in other words it was a longer dipstick which gave the false impression there was enough oil in the engine when in fact there wasn't.
The "full" line was in the correct place but the "add" line was too low. At the "add" line the engine was actually two quarts low instead of one.
Tell Citroen that they could fix the dipstick...
Can someone tell Citroën that the war is over please?
Cap: u can’t be reliable and break down
This was the truck that keeps on giving headaches
Every mechanic would understand low oil mulfanction btw lol comments are great 😂
And they still didn't fix that 😅
that is classic “Sabotage” and is 101 !
The simplest and cheapest sabotage EVER !
it's due to internal sabotage during made process, in a way it's a resistance act during WW2 under german occupation inside factories.....working for all planes, cars, trucks made for germany...example : NC 900 is FW 190 made in france, buildt during german occupation, so much defect that each fly was a record due to sabotage...thanks for sharing, B rgds : )
Effing Brilliant!
They kept the tradition of making them unreliable, after that