Milestone!

[robert_e_smart]

Hi Folks

My XM has achieved its first major milestone after 18 years of existance tonight.

[Andmcit]

Those dials look a bit wonky; you've not been playing with the screwdriver!?

My Xantia TD estate just passed 222,222 last week, my other near identical
TD estate must be barely run in as it just passed the 160,000!
Just so as not to feel left out, my Cx GTi Turbo2 passed 130,000...

Andrew

[Ciaran]

Funny, mines a few hundred off hitting 100,000

To anyone that hasn't seen Robert's XM, it looks every bit of its low miles, seriously tidy, like it just came out of a showroom last week!

Ciarán

[robert_e_smart]

Thanks for the compliments Ciaran. The next task is ensuring that it stays that way!!

My CX will be on 110k soon, although the oddometer will read 10k

[Ciaran]

Well, you're well up for the task Robert, shouldn't be a problem

Reminds me, I must get those pics of our little road trip uploaded to the forum, they're sitting on Photobucket at the mo....

Ciarán

[Peter.N.]

I would like to have one with that mileage! My last XM was on 292k when I sold it and my CX 25DTR Safari on 262k, nearly 150 k of that was done by me. The problem is if I was fortunate enough to find a lowm mileage example, it wouldn't stay that way long.

Peter.N.

[Andmcit]

Very nice and all that and I'm sure this particular Xm is a minter - you're a fortunate man
Robert; I'm thrilled an enthusiast owns such a car; a rare timewarp example that likely
won't be seen often in the future.

BUT

In my experience, low mileage cars are a right pain the ass! They're still going to be 15-20
years old even if they're covered 10% of the distance of their counterparts having all the
same aging pains. Chances are things will all be seized up or deteriorated without having
covered the planned mileage lifespan and nothing can be trusted. Trust me, I know, I've
been here myself before.

And why the marginal mileage covered in the first place - either it was bought and simply
never used for some bizarre reason or the owner can't have found it easy to drive or was
forever blighted with problems with it where it couldn't be trusted to make the return trip!

As Peter points out, if you're afraid to rack up the mileage it's stopped being a usable car.
I understand all the arguments, and it's a lot easier if there are several cars sharing the
workload; I must cover no more than 3k miles in each/any of the cars I run and I rack up
a fair yearly mileage.

Car shows and exhibitions aren't my thing, and I can't see the point of the near paranoid
ownership of a good friend of mine with their Pug 205GTi 1.6. Enjoying owning the car is all
well and good, but to be obsessed with maintaining it in near mint or better than new
condition strikes me as a thankless task; purgatory and damnation for any normal car owner...

Will this Xm pass the 50k mile mark sometime in 2026?
Wonder if fuel will still be available then?

Andrew

This post has been edited by Andmcit on March 21, 2008 04:06 pm

[robert_e_smart]

I suspect she'll pass the 50K mark soon enough, give her 3-4 years!

I use it as my daily car.

The first owner didn't use it much as he started a new business abroad, and planned to return when it was up and running, but it never worked that way, so he wasn't in the UK much duiring its first 15 yrs, but the other 2 that had it before me, were just in it to keep it rediculously low and hardly used it.

A car is for using. As for all the age related problems, she had her fair share of them, and in the past few months I have these ironed out. (new front height corrector, ignition amplifier module, new sidelight lens, etc etc)
I'm sure more will crop up in the future.

She'll not be too hard to keep in good nick, I have no kids, no pets allowed in the car, I would rarely let anyone else drive it, and I don't live in town. I enjoy keeping her clean and tidy, but not afraid to use it either.

[Peter.N.]

To put things in perspective, the cost af maintaining an XM is a fraction of what you would spend on a relativly new car. Cars that are only five or six years old are being written off, not because they are rusty or even worn out, but because they have relatively minor electronic fault that no one can find. The greatest thing about the XM, apart from the car itself, is that you can repair it on a DIY basis, something that you cant do with the vast majority of cars made since 2000.

Peter.N.