Xantia difficult starting at or below freezing. SOLVED!!

[c.morewood]

For a number of years my Xantia has had difficulty starting when the temperature gets down to freezing.
(slow starter motor.. like a flat battery with rpm pointer flicking around the dial and all the dash lights going dim )
I have had 2 new batteries over the past 5 years and put in 0-50 Synthetic oil trying to solve the problem but the situation gradually got worse to the point where I had to stop using her last winter.
Now that my trusty C2 has gone and I'm once again left with only one car I needed to find a fix quickly before next winter.
I was thinking about starter bushes, alternator and even glow plugs....
Fortunately we have a great mechanic here in Kemnay Geordie Taylor and he was able to pinpoint the problem in just a few minutes.
It turns out that the new battery terminals are too small for the car's original terminal block fittings and the wires had been heating up over the years until they had fused together and were on the point of total failure. Geordie just cut down the car's terminal blocks so that they would tighten on the smaller terminals, replaced the bad wires, and hey presto, like a new car again.
I hope this helps someone as I'd spent many hours on this forum trying to figure out what the problem could be.