Newbie From Romania

Hi folks,

I`ve been a citroen fan for a few years now, but I got my first XM 2 days ago. It is a 2.0i autobox 1991 (i think) model, with 100.000 km. At this moment the car is undergoing a complete check-up just to be sure.
The first impression is that the car is fine, the only urgent need was a autobox oil change, which will be done this weekend, but please tell me what oil should I put in the autobox. Also it seems that the ABS system has a fault, due to the fact that from time to time the light comes on, especially on rainy days, so I will check / replace the sensor connectors first, then see what happens.

The first impression is of a smoother ride, and more elegant ride than the CX, which I previously drove, and a lot smoother that the Citroen Axel, which was my first love .
I wanted to buy a petrol turbo, but unfortunately could not find one in romania, so my only choices were this one, a 2.1td also with autobox from 1992, and a couple of V6 from 91 and 93, but those were excluded due to the really big taxex.

I bought this car on auction and paid about 1500eur for it, which in Romania is ok, due to the fact that this is kind of a rare car (the 2.1td was about 2500 eur, and v6 were about 2000eur).

An now a few pictures:
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8650/imgp2805rs4.jpg
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/7387/imgp2806im4.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/4251/imgp2800ib9.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/4294/imgp2799uq4.jpg
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/2692/imgp2801pd9.jpg
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5356/imgp2802ey1.jpg
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/4088/imgp2798ke9.jpg
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/1350/imgp2797kw7.jpg
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/1324/imgp2803zt7.jpg

And also a movie with the Citroen Axel (Oltcit Club) witch I love:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2tTUbqJDqR4
hope you will enjoy it too

Hi and welcome.
Judging from the photos your XM is a neat tidy well-maintained car with few km on the clock.
The recommended AT fluid is Dexron II. I would advise against using anything else as this ZF 4 HP 18 transmission is very fussy

Hi Iwa, welcome to Club XM. That looks like a nice car with a smart set of wheels. At 60,000km it's barely run in!

Follow Jan-hendrik's advice on oil for the autobox, a drain and refill every 20,000km is recommended but as you only drain about half the gearbox contents (the rest is trapped in the torque converter) some people recommend doing it when you change the engine oil.

Never, never, never put Dexron 3 in your box, it will kill it in short order.

Derek

Hi Iwa.

On another tack from the gearbox issues; I'd have a close examination of the front strut
mounting bracket which holds the front suspension sphere onto the wheelarch - the one
just visible at the timing belt end of the engine; it looks a bit rusty in the picture.

Andrew

60,000 km Uhh, 60,000 miles

It's an age thing! But it's still barely run in.

This post has been edited by DerekW on January 29, 2009 11:39 pm

Thanks for the advice guys I was in doubt about Dexron II or Dexron III.
As for the front strut mounting bracket i have noticed it too, fortunatly it`s only at the surface, so I will clean the rust, treat the metal with some anti-rust solution (a friend recommended after using himself) and then respray it to look ok.

Also unfortunately the car didn`t came with those wheels, the ex owner wanted about 300eur for the wheels so I said no. Next month I want to buy some alloy wheels, but was wandering if it would be ok to buy 17" ones instead of 15". Did any of you tried this ?

Uh-uh
Mine is still far from being run-in at 48.000 km
Just had to say it

today I changed the front strut mounting brackets, got 2 new ones so now I can relax . Also went to talk to some guys about an LPG kit, a xenon kit, and some LED "thingies" to replace the rear break lights and all signal light.

I have noticed something strange: the rear goes down almost at any stop light, and also pretty soon after I stop. I believe it`s the rear brake distributor. do you think it might be anything else ?

Hi IWA and a belated welcome to the forum-

I can't help you with the suspension problem other than suggesting that you dissmantle and clean the insides of the rear height corrector, but i can recommend the HID kit, it will make the headlights perform the way they were meant to

Best wishes, Colin.P

There are I think three possible causes for your rear end droop (if you'll excuse the expression ): The brake valve as you suggested, the height controller, or worst case scenario one of the rear suspension units leaking internally.

One way to check is to pull off the return pipe of each in turn, either at the item or the reservoir, to check for a fairly heavy return flow. Of course one of the return pipes at the reservoir will be carrying the return flow from the pump. Don't go under the car unless it's on ramps or over a pit.

Derek

Today I had the first surprise... firstly I didn't start, at first I checked the spark plugs, and discovered I had no spark, and so started to move some cables around, after i touched the plug on top of the admission (I think it has something to do with the injection) every thing worked ok so I will clean it up later. After this the ABS sign went on, and off, and on... this happened at every puddle, so I will search around to see how to check with connector is faulty (hopefully it`s one from the front wheels).

So the adventure begins