Anyone seen that Xantia on ebay

[cc101]

Hi all, was just browsing on ebay and came across this newly listed xantia, an unbelievable 5500 miles from new, been dry stored for 17 years, looks lovely in black! Have a look!

Chris.

[andmcit]

Yes, but who'd want to drive a gutless n/a diesel?
No wonder it was stuffed in a barn and forgotten about!
Showing as unlicensed since 1996!!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190733055017" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Mandrake]

I like the way it says stored for 17 years and the hydraulic suspension works as it should.

Umm, yeah, I'll believe that the spheres haven't completely lost their pressure sitting for 17 years.

Bet any money the suspension is as stiff as a board.

[andmcit]

What do you do with something like this:

1: use it and treat it like a normal car where it picks up little marks of life/usage along the way and don't worry about the relative newness from no use and it's not special in 3-5 year's time depending on mileages of course - you're going to knock some miles onto it straight away unless it's trailered from Scotland! Guess it's going to need trailering really with sagged tyres and flat suspension so I can't see it having a quick MOT
OR
2: do you treat it like some kind of museum piece where there's no use for it as it's original intended use as a car to use for daily travel and it becomes a curiosity and a bit of an indulgence where you may have some (undeserved?) kudos from potentially winning shows etc were it presented for competition?

[red_dwarfers]

I would buy it to do the first option. Once the usual servicing items are out the way, instead of getting a brand new bottom of the range C5, you have a brand new bottom of the range Xantia for a much cheaper price than you would have had to pay originally. It's a chance of a lifetime for someone who either wasn't old enough to buy a Xantia new or someone who couldn't afford one at the time.

The only thing I would have to ask is why it was stored after 7 months.

[andmcit]

The n/a XUD is no ball of fine so it could be an inherently frustrating car to live with as a daily driver though surel if it had been something more desirable in the first place like an early VSX 2.0 16v or TD1.9, or a later TD2.1, Activa or V6 it would be a treat to use if that was the best opportunity of experiencing a near new Xantia purchase.

Those herringbone seats aren't the nicest to be found in a Xantia either and the LX is poverty spec with manual wind up rears even! It would have limited showroom appeal if it was 1996 now.

[citronut]

if they are like the n/a diesel BX they waft along on a sniff of fuel, and my old n/a diesel BX was even better after having the head gas flowed/ported,
also they are not that slow or at least mine was fine even before the head work

[andmcit]

Thing with a Bx is it's not carting that additional flab/weight about the Xant has
- the whole rationale of the Bx was lightweight too!

[Mandrake]

A standard Xantia is around 1300Kg, (nearly 1500Kg for a V6!) isn't the BX around 1000-1050 Kg ? That's a huge difference in weight...

I still remember how my GS estate was only 980Kg.... my how cars have got fatter and heavier over the years.

[citroenxm]

A standard Xantia is around 1300Kg, (nearly 1500Kg for a V6!) isn't the BX around 1000-1050 Kg ? That's a huge difference in weight...

I still remember how my GS estate was only 980Kg.... my how cars have got fatter and heavier over the years.

This is the same for the Golf... The Mk.1 GTi was only (in 1.8 form) 8v and injection.. and boy s**t loads of fun fun fun!

The newest one needs a massive 2.o 16v and a turbo and is no more fun then the Mk.1 because its put on soooo much weight over the years.

[Citroenmad]

If this had a more appealing engine I could well be interested in that car, however a 1.9D does little for me.

I would use it as a daily driver, its never going to be worth much, being the most basic diesel engine in early LX spec. If only it was an Activa or a V6 we would no doubt have a bidding war on

Yes, the suspension will want looking at. The spheres are probably very hard now, though it will have been sat down for those years. Tyres will be original and Im not sure how much I would trust them, even if it was dark stores. Cambelt would also want replacing for the same reasons.

I wonder if it would prove to be a reliable car if pressed into a high mileage life of it its sitting about would cause non stop

Will be interesting to see what this goes for.

[Spaces]

Weird, isn't it? Not so many years ago it was the very basic Citroën model which could be easiy argued to make the most sense - CAR magazine often tried to help Ford/BMW man understand the idea that some manufacturers could come up with such a complete, competent and clever design that alchemised less into more. I remember one of their road tests of the BX - which they loved to bits - and waxed lyrical over the turbo-diesel performance which was as good as any GTi in the real world, off the race-track - yet concluded the best model in many regards was still the 14RE which showed off Citroën's steering, braking and handling prowess, maybe not as perfectly as the its pur-sang predecessor but which still was sufficiently good to stand head and shoulders above all its contemporaries no matter how stiff their anti-roll bars and large their tailpipes.

A cheap, un-thorough design of motor car will always show enormous benefits with a little excess power. There is very good reason why in the past, FordMan coveted the highest number on the bootlid with the longest line of consonants trailing it - the basic design was usually wanting. The BMW brigade adored this badge engineering in a similar if more wallet-draining fashion, while other makers such as Mercedes had customers who knew they had made an equally good choice with a 230TE as their fellow Benz driver who opted for a 300-engined model.

Yet when I first drove a Xantia which happened to be a 1.9D, it felt just like a base model Sierra - unable to work decently without accepting either lardy performance (but decent economy) or revving the thing like an idiot and cutting things rather too fine in the overtaking stakes so using more fuel than a leaky ship. It was a fine enough car, but the turbodiesel was a huge improvement, just as the 2.1TD made the 1.9 feel a little anaemic, as if the car had been designed with that amount of power and torque in mind. In complete contrast, a turbo-diesel or GTi BX enjoyed superfluous performance - which unlike many others it was able to make full use of - in the same way a basic CX was quite swift enough and the most powerful engined car had performance to rival many supercars of the day (and the future, if mine is anything to go by).

The French saw the 602cc flat-twin as slightly ott in a 2cv, the aero and chassis dynamics were perfectly matched to 18 or 21hp and the powerful new engine never made journeys any quicker unless it was up a 30 mile mountainside or the annual Paris to Perpignan pilgrimmage. Similarly a D was as satisfying (more, plenty would say) with 62hp in ID form as a DS with 130 - and rarely so much slower. They were the days when Citroëns had chassis, suspensions and bodies (not to mention controls and dashboards) which made others look and feel mediæval - and to an extent, still do.

I'm not suggesting the old-fashioned Ford approach is cynical - it is good business, I guess - but it does tend to bring out my more socialist tendencies which make me ask why a basic model shouldn't supply everything you need, with higher trim and power levels purely to indulge those with the cheap wonga to spare.

It's most certainly not all power-to-weight ratios or gearing. Much more subtle things are at play, not least the soul or essence of a product, together with the engineering prowess which just a very few manufacturers ever dared push down the lines: Lotus, Citroën, Bristol, Alfa-Romeo, Jaguar and Saab are perhaps the five post-war manufacturers who really came close to making suspension and (excepting some Jags) braking work well in the second half of the C20th.

[Spaces]

As for the practicalities of the little-used car above, it could be a whole gamut of problems on top of the immediate necessities such as rubber belts, battery, tyres, spheres and fluids which need replacing. Seals and gaskets can dry out, plastics and rubber harden and embrittle, glue properties wear off and mechanical things get used to not going round when used as little as this car has been in 19 years. The new owner will probably be lucky since Xantias are one of those designs with most problems engineered out, but I would always value a car on condition, how well it has been serviced and what is needed to put things right. With every component having been immobile for so long and the car not having been serviced in all this time (and with that mileage showing it's possible the sump has never been drained), the potential for deterioration is considerable, I would say. Added to that there may be in-built errors and fauty components which would otherwise have been rectified by the supplier foc.

Offer me one in similar condition with 125,000 miles showing which has been correctly maintained and I would pay the same price. Probably about £900 - if the engine, gearbox and clutch were sweet. With £600-900 needing spending straight away to make it useful, depending on whether you do the work yourself or not, that still makes it nearly a £2000 car, and an unknown quantity at that, unlike one which has been in everyday use. Don't forget the £200+ tax bill before it's allowed onto the roads, either.

A standard Xantia is around 1300Kg, isn't the BX around 1000-1050 Kg ? That's a huge difference in weight...

I still remember how my GS estate was only 980Kg.... my how cars have got fatter and heavier over the years.

And the GS was regarded as a little lardy next to its flimsy competitors... I thought the Xantias were hugely overweight for over a decade until I realised they're quite compact and not at all heavy by modern standards. If I drove a BX now, no doubt it would feel featherweight and narrow.

The original Golf wasn't really structurally all there - the front suspension was very loosely attached and with those awful brakes it could have done with being less than half the weight. But tas Setright often remarked with his usual sense, here is nothing more pleasing as a truly lightweight car - but it's a very rare beast today and something you will pay through the nose for what with special alloys, carbon fibre and complex construction and so dear insurance. I wonder how many more people will suffer an early grave working their way to affording today's and tomorrow's 'exotic' lightweight machines which only need the use of such materials and construction beacuse of the plethora of death-preventing gizmos sprouting from every surface within.

[citronut]

the problem with the N/A XANT it seems as its not very popular there will be even less of them in years to come

[Longyear]

Well firstly, it's an interesting thing to look at (the whole situation of a base model Xantia being stored at 7 months old, for 17 years! ... not just the car itself), I would be very wary of a car that has sat for 17 years, especially with an active suspension system. I don't think it's in anyway a positive thing that a diesel car (or probably any car) that had done only 5,500 miles has then sat for 17 years without moving. As has been said; it will need all new tyres, belts, probably some suspension work, a full service (17 year oil soaked into all of the engine components - nice!)..... I think it is destined to just remain as an 'off-road' museum piece.

I did have the 1.9D NA engine in a ZX though (a 1992 model which I owned in '95) and thought it was fine.... obviously not fast, but not awkwardly slow either, it was adequate, and I would swap the economy I got from that engine, for the 30mpg I get from my C5 2.2HDi Auto any day!

But ultimately I think as an every day or usable car, it is false economy thinking that this will be better than a well looked after, FSH, Xantia TD with 120k.

Interesting though!