Admiral51 Citroen Adventures

Tell us your ongoing tales and experiences with your French car here. Post pictures of your car here as well.
admiral51
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Unread post by admiral51 »

Oddly enough i do but im not 100% sure why :oops:

My daily drive is the 2.1td and it is superb performance wise,pretty effortless to drive,good on fuel and does get up and go when you give it some beans :D :D

The VSX has the leather interior,is quite good on fuel (£20 for 160 miles town driving) and has lots of get up and go :lol: :lol:

But i still hanker for my old 1.9D LX, a MK1 1996 that never gave me any real problems in the 2 and 1/2 years i had it.I can honestly say its the only car i have ever owned that was "up together/sorted".
Trying to run 2 cars as daily drivers with me and SWMBO both working has its own pitfalls and once both cars are sorted i reckon i would plump for the MK2 only because of the 2.1 lomp,but external looks wise i still favour the MK1.

So i suppose the real answer is yes and no :? :?

Colin
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CitroJim
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Unread post by CitroJim »

admiral51 wrote: So i suppose the real answer is yes and no :? :?
Unlike me then. I have a very definite preference for the MK1 variety. Not just in Xantias either, all Citroens...
Jim

Runner, cyclist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
XantiaDaveEire
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Unread post by XantiaDaveEire »

:lol: I know what you mean,Theres certain things i prefer about the Mk1...mainly the sinkers and the chevrons on the bonnet 8-) a real Citroen
1998 Xantia 1.9 TD 186k
2008 C4 grand Picasso exclusive 105k #-o
admiral51
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Unread post by admiral51 »

Just a very quick update as this week has been manic,more to follow when my head clears :lol:

The VSX has now been on the road for 12 months and its MOT time tomorrow at 11am so we shall see.....

Lots of work done pre MOT so fingers crossed :wink: :wink:

Colin
admiral51
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Unread post by admiral51 »

Had a really hectic week will be glad to get back to work for a rest :lol:

SWMBO and the boy went to stay with MIL and my to do list was a tad optamistic :)

Kitchen has now been cleaned/tiled/painted and new floor tiles put down.
Living room has also had the summer clean and a new lick of paint and a new laminate floor (63 sq m) :twisted:
Decided that before any interior work was carried out a clean up of the shed and garden had to be tackled which resulted in 5 trips to the tip( i sympathise with you Jim :wink: ) although i can now lay my hands on all my Xantia spares without emptying the shed first 8-)

The VSX had a days TLC at my favourite garage before her MOT and between us we managed to do oil/filter/air filter/LHM filter clean and change/ front pads/rear abs sensor(o/s)/cambelt/waterpump/aux belt :) :)

Left the car there for its MOT on friday and the ruddy thing failed :evil: :evil:

Although the good news is that i forgot to replace the o/s wiper blade :oops: :oops: and that has now been done and the VSX has another 12 months ticket \:D/

Taxed for 6 months today and the VSX is finally up together :D
SWMBO has returned to ruin my weekend by claiming sole rights to the TV remote and the Speedway World Cup has been postponed till Sunday 2pm and i think its "accessories" shopping tomorrow as now the walls are different colours things dont match................etc etc :-({|=

Colin
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CitroJim
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Unread post by CitroJim »

Good stuff on the MOT Colin :D

Sounds like you've been doing the same as I, giving the house a good going over. I've done part one (the sort out and clear out) and week after next, on my second week off, I get the paint brushes out.

Junior SWMBO's are going to come an help decorate. That should be interesting. Can they paint whist simultaneously nattering on Facebook, sending texts and watching one of the TV music channels?

We'll see :wink:
Jim

Runner, cyclist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
admiral51
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Unread post by admiral51 »

As we all know SWMBO's of any vintage can multitask so i suggest you give them 1 room to do,equip it with TV,WiFi, then shut the door and forget about it for the week :lol:

Colin
admiral51
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Unread post by admiral51 »

Been a pretty hectic few weeks and computer time has been limited but things have quitened down so here goes.

Decided to give the 2.1 another oil change way back on the 7th of august and shortly afterwards she decided to start rattling like an old transit van from around 1800 - 2200 revs but only intermittently.It would drive fine for 6 miles or so and then start the rattle for a few miles then go back to behaving :? :?
Dropped it off at my friendly garage to have a look over it but they dont have the correct equipment so a call to CitroJim made things a lot clearer :D :D

Unfortunately i have got no further in my diagnosis except to say that this week she has not made a murmer :o :o

The reason for my stalled progress was a call from SWMBO on the 11th to say her Mum( who had been hospital since 8th) had had a siezure followed by a cardiac arrest and was not responding to treatment.
That night we piled SWMBO,the boy,the dog and myself into the VSX and set off to Glasgow for the 500 mile trip in a car that had only done an 80 mile round trip before.
Unfortunately Mum failed to recover and passed away on Monday 16th quite peacefully in her sleep,as she had been since 1pm on the 11th.
The funeral was on Friday 20th and we returned home overnight on the 22nd.

The VSX did us proud effortlessly clocking up the miles,a total of 1458 miles in 11 days and returned 38 MPG which considering i was a little heavy footed on the way up i was more than happy with and not a single drop of oil,water or LHM needed to be topped up :D :D

Andrew i can only say you were right its a really sound car :D :D
And it really is a Motorway Mileage Muncher :wink:

Finally just a big thankyou to those of you i was able to communicate with whilst everything was going on, you know who you are :)

Colin
admiral51
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Unread post by admiral51 »

Well i cant believe the last update was 6 months ago but how time flies :oops:

Things have been manic at work as usual and i would love to say that the cars have been fine but :lol: :lol:

The VSX has been faultless,never misses a beat and uses no fluids at all except of course the stuff you have to pay through the nose for at the pumps :twisted: :twisted:

Over christmas i managed to replace the carpet in the VSX with a green one salvaged from Imperial21 (Mike) and also fitted the cd changer and lead aquired from the same source Cheers Mike

I did get the mk1 ready for sale and did have a buyer all lined up but as usual for me things took a drastic turn and now im running it as my daily driver :) :)

I have been working away for a few weeks now and the gaffers sons car was off the road for mot prep and i foolishly let him drive my 2.1 for a couple of weeks.
well it would have been a couple of weeks but it lasted 2 days as he ploughed it into a flood early one morning and sucked an awful lot of water into it :twisted: :twisted:

Good news is the gaffer paid me £500 for it and hes going to put it back on the road,she runs ok but idle is a bit rough to say the least,looks like head off maybe a bent valve or conrod as she smokes very little :)

Have got the alloys off it that were on my VSX and these will be going on the mk1 soon.

More pics and things to come for the mk1 soon,just giving her a shakedown as she had been sat for 5 months going nowhere but all seems to be ok apart from the heater blowing luke warm air out and not able to get engine temp above 75 deg. Guessing it maybe thermostat sticking or missing but will investigate within the next week or so :)

Colin
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Unread post by XantiaDaveEire »

It's been 3months ,where are these pictures :lol:
1998 Xantia 1.9 TD 186k
2008 C4 grand Picasso exclusive 105k #-o
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CitroJim
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Unread post by CitroJim »

XantiaDaveEire wrote:It's been 3months ,where are these pictures :lol:
Maturing, like a fine wine....
Jim

Runner, cyclist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
admiral51
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Well here goes i cant believe its been over 4 months since i last updated,not so much a blog more like a time delay novel :oops:

The MK1 has now been sold,gone to a good home so will still be tramping the byways here in Dorset :) .
3 weeks ago we picked up our new car,still a Citroen but this one has no spheres :(
MIL left SWMBO a large (for us) inheritance and the decision was made to purchase a newer car,one that would hopefully see us into our 50s (im 44 now).
It also had to be something different to what is commonly seen on the roads,and be able to act as a family car,2 adults 1 teenager(15) and a big border collie but also be frugal round town as SWMBO does all local stop/start 130 miles a week and be practical for me and SWMBO when we finally kick the son out of home ( heres wishing :lol: ).

We settled for a C5 III 1.6 HDi 110 VTR+ with 51k in black.

I need to be careful but we are not impressed with parts of the buying process from a main dealer in South Wales but that is an on going issue that has been partly solved.The car has just come out of a body shop having had all 4 wheels repainted and some minor touch up work done on the boot and passenger door (ok both repainted :lol:) at the dealers cost :D :D
Should have kept their word in the first place me thinks :)

Anyhow very pleased with car,its a mid range spec and ticks all the right boxes for us and it does drive very well and even with SWMBO and her heavy right foot its returning 43.8mpg round town.

And the best thing about spending £7500 on a 3 year old car with FSH,1 years MOT and Tax is that finally,after 2 years i get to have the VSX as my daily driver \:D/ \:D/

Will pop some pics up when the weather gets a bit better............

Colin
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CitroJim
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Unread post by CitroJim »

Excellent stuff Colin :D

Pleased to see you stayed faithful to the Double Chevron :D Those series III C5s are certainly much finer lookers than the earlier C5s. It'll be interesting to see regular progress reports on her...

Big question is, which do you prefer? The VSX Xantia or the C5? Going on what you say, I feel I know the answer to that one :wink:
Jim

Runner, cyclist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
admiral51
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Unread post by admiral51 »

Hi Jim

The C5 is a superb car,it has the refinements you expect from a 3 year old car with what i believe is a proven record in engine/drivetrain reliability albeit mainly from the Peugot. The looks were what swung it for SWMBO,i loved it the minute i saw the TV advert :) but never thought we could ever afford one.
We have only had it 3 weeks but i do have 1 niggle with it,and thats the drivers seat(most important seat i guess :lol:). When you first get in it to drive its fine,feels ok etc but after a few miles i get a bit uncomfortable as if there is a lump on the front of the seat edge,between your thigh and your knee.But after a few more miles its gone and the seat is nice and comfy(wierd or just me :lol:)

I guess its the same with any car,it takes a few miles to get used to the seat/driving position.

as for my preference out of the 2 cars.....

I have had more Xantias than i thought over the last few years
1st 1.9d lx (awesome car)
2nd 1.9d (lucas pump) a shed
3rd 1.9td money pit
4th 2.0 16v VSX ( :D )
5th 2.1td MK11 (good engine wrong MK)
6th 1.9td filled a gap

Its hard for me plump for anything other than the VSX as its a car that we have nursed back to health,and touch wood has never let us down,a car that i was comfortable in leaving at home when i was working away 99% sure that when SWMBO went out to go to work it would start and it always has. She(the VSX) has not used a drop of water/oil/LHM in the 2 years shes been on the road and as such i cannot thank Andrew enough :D

And we are in the process of negotiating with the body shop that has done the work on the C5 to come up with a viable process to have the VSX repainted................


Colin
admiral51
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Unread post by admiral51 »

Im getting better,only 2 months now between updates :lol: :lol:

First off the VSX went for her MOT 3 weeks ago and passed with flying colours first time :D :D

Still in talks with SWMBO over the £ of having the VSX resprayed,reckon its gonna cost me a few weeks hard labour in and around the home to swing this one :lol:

Just returned from a weeks visit to Scotland to have a holiday and pay our respects on the first anniversary of MIL passing away.

Pleased to say that the C5 performed faultlessly (anyone can get a puncture...cant they :wink: ) and with the 3 of us and the dog it returned 57.4 mpg over 1300 miles and we even had to use the A/C at times :lol: :lol:

Need to give pair a good clean and then i can get some decent pics,and ive now had the alloys repainted for the VSX so shes looking good

Colin