Following on from the "she crashed my car again" thread I thought I'd post up my new workhorse in case anyone was interested how it turned out. Car in question is a 1999 Citroen Xantia HDI Exclusive Estate (110bhp). 135k Previously registered Cat C. Cost £888 with Tax and Test until end of July. The reason it was Cat C is pretty obvious. Rear wing somewhat mangled and also light damage to rear door... Not really hugely bothered by that unless it can be fixed up cheaply or poses a problem with the MOT. Otherwise car bodywork is fine. Inside was another story however. The car was filthy inside and out and had obviously been used by the salvage yard as their temporary transport. Interesting extras/modifications included some yellow paint on one door, electric window motors/regs in the boot, lots of rubbish and some mould. Car smelt bad! On the bright side the leather although dirty was in quite good condition and had obviously been looked after until recently. Furthermore, the bum heaters and electric seats worked on both driver and passenger side.
After having a quick drive (thanks to Kitchster for picking it up from the salvage yard and bringing it to his place) I was satisfied that I had not completley wasted my money and we set to work trying to make it good.
Work proceeded like this....
1 Remove all rubbish from the car and do initial hoover
2 Perform basic service changing oil and filter, air filter, drain water from fuel filter housing and re prime system, fit new pollen filter
3 Start removing the mould, stains, grime and misc filth from the interior and feed leather. The other halves also assisted with this task and soon it started looking less horrible and the smell began to go. This task continued in small bursts throughout the weekend
4 Replace the worn out indicator stalk that had a mind of its own... Now Haynes and frenchcarforum suggested removing air bag and steering wheel. However, the car had other ideas and the torx bolts holding the airbag in place really did not want to come out. Therefore I took the decision to attempt to change the stalk with the wheel still in place. In the end my improvised method which was essentially removing the bolts from the plastic covers and working around them and the steering wheel to prize out the old stalk worked well and only took about 30 minutes to complete. Pity we wasted about 4 hours before that trying to get the airbag out....
4 Bits of carpet loose in the boot so refitted and boot cleaned out.
5 Went to fit new wipers and realised the swines at Halfords had sold me an empty box for one of the blades....
6 By this point we were basically out of time so I finished off by giving the car a quick clean on the outside and put some new halfords mats in the car.
Over the weekend we discovered an interesting list of faults, niggles and jobs to do later...
Outside door trim on both side loose. Need refitting securely
Towbar needs removing and selling. I'm not going to use it and it could be a lethal weapon if the GF decides to try reversing the car.
Radio Code needs sorting. The yard have supposedly found service history and are posting it. I'm hoping the code card will be in with that.
Heater Matrix Leaking. Bummer! Trust me to buy another Xantia with leaky matrix. I'm not prepared to attempt the heater matrix replacement myself so Forte Stopleak is going in after I've drained the coolant and put fresh stuff in.
Drivers electric window and one back window are not working.. Wonder if thats why those window parts were in the boot?? Further investigation required.
Plip not working. Suspect flat battery.
Passenger electric mirror not working. This has obviously been replaced by a standard plastic one at some point. Clearly the original colour coded one was damaged. Perhaps I should discover if they bothered to wire the replacement in when it was fitted?
Service Indicator needs resetting now I have serviced.
Alloys need cleaning properly but are actually in good condition
Tyres are rubbish (thank god i found the locking wheel nut).
Accumulator Sphere Flat. Car rides ok ish but clicks when going up and down+sinks quickly. Westroen Spheres fitting a whole new set and hopefully fresh LHM.
Airbag light on- might take it to Citroen.
Turbo Whislte noise- apparently the most likely cause is hole in exhaust, probably at manifold end.
Button missing that drops one of the rear seats.
Other than that the car is good... List of faults sounds long and annoying and well yes it is but most of it is stuff that I can DIY fix and the bigger jobs are service items that are part of the cost of running the car. I would say that ideally I would have bought a "mint" example with none of the niggles and less of the service items needing doing. However, as some of you may know these vehicles are rather rare especially in HDI Exclusive Estate form and I didn't have time to search for the perfect vehicle for months and did not want a "stop gap" car. By the time I have sorted out every niggle and serviced everything up to my spec I will probably have spent nearly as much as I could have bought a "minter" for. But then again how long would I have had to wait for that "minter"?
So all in all for an £888 derv estate with leather and bum warmers I'm pretty happy. Especially considering a rubbish LX spec Xantia estate 5 or more years older would probably still sell for £500. The old bus has cleaned up really quite nicely and I will be feeding the leather a second time and building up an extra layer of cockpit shine to glaze over some of the scatches on the plastic. The smell is going away quite nicely and the leather is soft and comfortable. Don't have any after pictures yet showing the work done but I do have for your amusement some pictures of the vehicle before we cleaned it. It may seem a bit odd but this is my third Xantia and I've always hankered after the "holy grail" which is the HDI Exclusive Estate. Now I've got one. My only real complaint- they never made the HDI Exclusive with Cruise Control Boy do I miss that...
After this I drove the car home (150 miles) and the journey went well without any drama. Today I've driven the car about 500 miles and loved it(well as much as you can love driving 500 miles over 12 hours). Engine pulls really well, box is sweet and clutch is fine. Aircon works and no further faults were discovered. I'm pretty sure many of you will be pretty horrified by the apparent condition but I think you will be pleasantly suprised when you see the "after" pictures. I'll try and take some tomorrow. Compared with the Honda I am very impressed with the fuel economy, pleased with the performance considering its DERV, delighted with the comfort of the leather interior but amused by the build quality which although generally acceptable is nothing like as good as the Hondas. What amused was the wobbly front door. They seems to actually shake when you open/shut them. My other Mk2 Xantia was like this as well, strangely my prefacelift one was not. Were they cutting corners I wonder
After having a quick drive (thanks to Kitchster for picking it up from the salvage yard and bringing it to his place) I was satisfied that I had not completley wasted my money and we set to work trying to make it good.
Work proceeded like this....
1 Remove all rubbish from the car and do initial hoover
2 Perform basic service changing oil and filter, air filter, drain water from fuel filter housing and re prime system, fit new pollen filter
3 Start removing the mould, stains, grime and misc filth from the interior and feed leather. The other halves also assisted with this task and soon it started looking less horrible and the smell began to go. This task continued in small bursts throughout the weekend
4 Replace the worn out indicator stalk that had a mind of its own... Now Haynes and frenchcarforum suggested removing air bag and steering wheel. However, the car had other ideas and the torx bolts holding the airbag in place really did not want to come out. Therefore I took the decision to attempt to change the stalk with the wheel still in place. In the end my improvised method which was essentially removing the bolts from the plastic covers and working around them and the steering wheel to prize out the old stalk worked well and only took about 30 minutes to complete. Pity we wasted about 4 hours before that trying to get the airbag out....
4 Bits of carpet loose in the boot so refitted and boot cleaned out.
5 Went to fit new wipers and realised the swines at Halfords had sold me an empty box for one of the blades....
6 By this point we were basically out of time so I finished off by giving the car a quick clean on the outside and put some new halfords mats in the car.
Over the weekend we discovered an interesting list of faults, niggles and jobs to do later...
Outside door trim on both side loose. Need refitting securely
Towbar needs removing and selling. I'm not going to use it and it could be a lethal weapon if the GF decides to try reversing the car.
Radio Code needs sorting. The yard have supposedly found service history and are posting it. I'm hoping the code card will be in with that.
Heater Matrix Leaking. Bummer! Trust me to buy another Xantia with leaky matrix. I'm not prepared to attempt the heater matrix replacement myself so Forte Stopleak is going in after I've drained the coolant and put fresh stuff in.
Drivers electric window and one back window are not working.. Wonder if thats why those window parts were in the boot?? Further investigation required.
Plip not working. Suspect flat battery.
Passenger electric mirror not working. This has obviously been replaced by a standard plastic one at some point. Clearly the original colour coded one was damaged. Perhaps I should discover if they bothered to wire the replacement in when it was fitted?
Service Indicator needs resetting now I have serviced.
Alloys need cleaning properly but are actually in good condition
Tyres are rubbish (thank god i found the locking wheel nut).
Accumulator Sphere Flat. Car rides ok ish but clicks when going up and down+sinks quickly. Westroen Spheres fitting a whole new set and hopefully fresh LHM.
Airbag light on- might take it to Citroen.
Turbo Whislte noise- apparently the most likely cause is hole in exhaust, probably at manifold end.
Button missing that drops one of the rear seats.
Other than that the car is good... List of faults sounds long and annoying and well yes it is but most of it is stuff that I can DIY fix and the bigger jobs are service items that are part of the cost of running the car. I would say that ideally I would have bought a "mint" example with none of the niggles and less of the service items needing doing. However, as some of you may know these vehicles are rather rare especially in HDI Exclusive Estate form and I didn't have time to search for the perfect vehicle for months and did not want a "stop gap" car. By the time I have sorted out every niggle and serviced everything up to my spec I will probably have spent nearly as much as I could have bought a "minter" for. But then again how long would I have had to wait for that "minter"?
So all in all for an £888 derv estate with leather and bum warmers I'm pretty happy. Especially considering a rubbish LX spec Xantia estate 5 or more years older would probably still sell for £500. The old bus has cleaned up really quite nicely and I will be feeding the leather a second time and building up an extra layer of cockpit shine to glaze over some of the scatches on the plastic. The smell is going away quite nicely and the leather is soft and comfortable. Don't have any after pictures yet showing the work done but I do have for your amusement some pictures of the vehicle before we cleaned it. It may seem a bit odd but this is my third Xantia and I've always hankered after the "holy grail" which is the HDI Exclusive Estate. Now I've got one. My only real complaint- they never made the HDI Exclusive with Cruise Control
Boy do I miss that...
After this I drove the car home (150 miles) and the journey went well without any drama. Today I've driven the car about 500 miles and loved it(well as much as you can love driving 500 miles over 12 hours). Engine pulls really well, box is sweet and clutch is fine. Aircon works and no further faults were discovered. I'm pretty sure many of you will be pretty horrified by the apparent condition but I think you will be pleasantly suprised when you see the "after" pictures. I'll try and take some tomorrow. Compared with the Honda I am very impressed with the fuel economy, pleased with the performance considering its DERV, delighted with the comfort of the leather interior but amused by the build quality which although generally acceptable is nothing like as good as the Hondas. What amused was the wobbly front door. They seems to actually shake when you open/shut them. My other Mk2 Xantia was like this as well, strangely my prefacelift one was not. Were they cutting corners I wonder
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![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Hope you enjoy smuggly trancing faster cars with your uber fuel economy in your derv sports car. Or are you going to buy the ST220 because it sounds better?
What I shall really enjoy doing is driving my MX5 this summer. However, for work and making long trips to see the family I shall enjoy driving my comfortable, economical barge which may not impress people who only care about having new registration plates and cars they have seen in recent TV adverts but serves its purpose very well. I really don't need to take on more debt just to impress other people. (By the way I'm not actually having a pop at you, rather attempting to explain why I have bought this car).
