97 Citroen Xantia estate - Worth saving or end of the road?

[BMBCreative]

Hi Folks,

A small conundrum here. I bought a 2010 Citroen C5 estate 2.0 in 2020 as my beloved '97 Xantia Estate 1.9 TD Desire was getting a little temperamental for daily usage. A friend who has a farm was kind enough to let me store my Xantia there until I decided what I wanted to do with her but cue the Pandemic, life, business and two years flying by, my friend is now building new sheds and I need to decide what I'm doing. I'm torn between restoration and finding a place to store her or letting her go to someone who would enjoy doing same.

I went out today and I have to say I did smile when I saw her. I connected the battery after over a year, checked the fluid, water and oil, sat in, turned the key and she started and rose first time. It was so lovely hearing that 1.9 TD engine come to life. The paint is peeling a little, the clutch needs replacing and a couple of spheres might need a little gas but other than that she's in fairly good shape. I don't want to scrap her as she's come this far (26 years old now), but being realistic I'm just tight on time and I don't have a space to store her. I would have to have a mechanic do most of the work as that's not my forte so I'm probably looking at €3k+ for the bits and pieces (new clutch/ respray and a leak in the boot etc). Car was originally imported from the UK. Is it worth spending that kind of money on restoration of a 97 Xantia Estate? While my heart says yes, my wallet mightn't agree. I'm kind of thinking it might be a great car for someone who can do a lot of that work themselves but I don't know anyone around here who is into Citroens like that.

I'm based in Limerick in the south west of Ireland, just wondering if anyone has any advice?

Cheers in advance.

[CitroJim]

If she's fundamentally sound and not rusty in the usual places then definitely worth saving, especially being an estate... The number of estates are dwindling...

Re-importing into the UK nowadays is fraught with a lot of difficulty otherwise I'm sure she would have readily found a buyer here...

The main factor determining if she's worth doing will always be structural rust and sadly, the estate often suffers worse than the hatch in this respect...

I hope she can live on...

[xantia_v6]

I agree that this sounds like it is worth saving, as the number of viable Xantias has dropped dramatically.
It would be ideal if you could find.a way to get it fixed up for your own pleasure, as you obviously fell some attachment to it.

[Jay-Bruce]

Scrapping it is simply not an option.

You say it's a "bit temperamental for daily use", and that your "heart says yes" to the option of getting someone to od the restoration, but your "wallet might not agree". Joining those dots it strikes me that the obvious solution is to treat the car as a rolling restoration, get a garage to do the clutch and then do the Irish equivalent of an MOT on it. [By getting the clutch done BEFORE the MOT, you're committing to the car, and it's harder to fall into the trap of a garage owner sucking through the teeth, rolling up the price to the ridiculous and talking you out of it.] You'll then have a stage two to it's rolling restoration, putting it back on the road.

Once it's back on the road, enjoy it, and note the foibles, then plan to address the mechanical foibles, meaning it becomes a reliable car that can be counted on day in day out. Now you'll enjoy it even more, and will want to complete the restoration by painting it. And as this process will take time, your wallet will get to tackle these gated stages in smaller, more manageable chunks, it's going to be less "painful". It will also have the benefit of seeing your car continue to become rarer, as other Xantias sadly come to the end of their journeys, your's will be getting rejuvenated, making it one of the nicest Xantias in existence, and surely an appreciating classic? Making your passion project somewhat, prudent... I mean there's a CX on eBay for £14,000 & I'm sure y'all remember when they were just "old cars".