New here, but got old with my blanc Xm., Salut to All Ye Auld Members!

[hairytail]

I'm overjoyed to find this 'club' on the web, and feel honoured to become a part of it.
I'm located at the East end of the World, Japan archipelago, that is; more specifically about 50 miles south of now-infamous Fukushima nuke power plant ( not close enough to take an immediate action, nor far enough to feel safe and sound).
Away from a gloomy topic, I owned my first Xm in '97 after a long love-at-the-first-sight since 1991 (previously I'd had a British look-alike Rover-Honda 827 Vitesse). Three years with that British racing green Rover revealed that it's lovely to look at but was really an Edsel-alike; and I finaly turned to my true love and found her at the sole importer's showroom in Tokyo. She was in white(BBQ: blanc banquise, not Barbeque), again I was instantly caught in love.
Within the following two and a half years we'd been through almost 50,000 miles together; and then it was the year 2K when she underwent the last reform, so I followed her and that's my second and present Xm (in white again for camou from my wife's keen eyes).
Since then "we've lived happily ever after".... it should end like this, had they-- that greedy Ci****n japon-- not intervened and destroyed the parts supply and the good old circles of the French car's expert mechanics who had supported the lives of the minority French cars in Japan since right after the end of WWII-- that's more than half a century, and they tampered it by withdrawing the dealership forciblly from the old and skilled shops just because they didn't meet the inexperienced headquarter's unrealistic sales target figures in the small Japanese market for French voiture. The newly established local headquarters suddenly thought they were Mercedes or BMers.. that was the opening of the tragic comedy im Frank Style.
Believe it or not, with the beginning of the new century Japanese owners have been experiencing a dark age in the maintenance of the old models of Citroen.
Of course, majority(I believe) of the old citroen lovers do not give consent to the way they do their business here. Consequently, at present, the company has disappeared in the dark abyss of the Pacific Ocean. But succeeding PSA does not seem to change their attitude--- we are still having hard time in getting genuine parts at reasonal price.
I wrote this because I want you to know how things go in the Far East and would like to have suggestions as to what measures to take to get necessary parts supply ... literally 'ever after'.
My apologies for the long story and your time to read it through. Thank you for your cooperation in advance as well.

This post has been edited by hairytail on May 08, 2011 07:15 am

[noz]

Hi Hairytail,

You are very welcome at Club-XM. We have members all over the world including a few in Japan. You will find some other members in Hiroshima and elsewhere. You will find all the support you need here. Club-XM has some of the most friendly and helpful members in the world who are always eager to help other XM owners.

Access to parts is probably the single largest problem XM owners face in keeping their XMs on the road. We are not too bad here in the UK. Many of the consumables are still made by third party vendors and we still have Citroen franchises. However, as the 10 year rule approaches, the parts become hideously expensive to prohibit you from taking the last few from the shelves and forcing Citroen to remanufacture or break that rule.

I'm sure if you are stuck for a part and it is available here then some kind member would purchase it locally and post it to you.

Please feel free to use the search function for common ailments and also browse through the Self-Help section where members have created their own mini-manuals for specific maintenance procedures.

Cheers

noz

[hairytail]

Hi, Noz.

Many thanks for your kind advice; I'm very much assured and feel relieved.
Meanwhile, I went through the past log and found your name everywhere thus coming to know you are one of the most active and leading members here.
I also read an entry from a member in Hiroshima (probably he is the one you mentioned); it's always good to know that you are not alone, though Hiroshima is a little bit quite a distance (500 miles?) away.

According to the mechanic who's taken care of my Xm for the past nine years,
rear door assy is no longer available from the authorized dealers in Japan; as a consequense there is a customer he knows who gave up his XM recently.

My Xm also was about to go to scrapyard last winter when the automatic transmission got stuck and nothing seemed to be done to fix it. It's a new system similar to the one on the C5 series; the engine and the transmission recognize each other with their specific CPUs making it impossible to use a rebuilt parts from junkyards. Eventually I got in touch with the former dealer where my Xm came from, who contacted the ZF Japan Branch and found they'd take care of the transmission overhaule. It costed me about ￥800,000 but I'm happy now to have my car back alive.
You can see how it's like to take care of this beauty out here.
So far and so forth now, thank you again for your attention.

This post has been edited by hairytail on May 19, 2011 03:48 pm