I was one who believed that XMs never went rusty, until I started reading some of the comments here. I still havn't had one with any serious rust, but I have taken to heart what I have read and have been pouring engine oil into suspect box sections, particularly the sills. This is what I always used to do with good effect from the '50s onwards when cars were expected to fall apart after a few years. Oil will penetrate the cracks and crevices which underseal or even Waxoil wont.

Peter.N.

mine suffers from the small circle of rust on the inside of the passenger door aswell, i keep meaning to rub it down and re-paint. no rust anywhere else but ive waxoled the whole underside and re-painted the black anti chip surface along where the jacking points are. should keep the rust at bay!

My S1 had the rust on the bottom inner side of the passenger door, but the previous owner had it repaired.

Interesting idea about treating the box sections with engine oil, Peter. Are there any places in particular which would benefit from this?
I'd like to waxoyl / otherwise treat the underside of both my cars, but am unsure of which areas require attention, where the good entry points for oil etc are...

Citroenxm, sorry, I thought it was Peter or Noz who has previously mentioned the jacking point weaknesses, hope you'll forgive the oversight!

While on the subject of rust, has anyone else got the mild surface rust on the bottom lip of the tailgate, where the plastic trim from the middle inside of the boot lid wraps around and touches the metal? Both my cars have this in very mild form. I'm guessing its from the plastic moving and rubbing very slightly, eventually wearing away the paint surface, and then bits of moisture get in when the boot is opened on rainy days. Must give it a quick clean up one of these days...

Ciarán

I was once advised by a very experienced morris minor restorer to mix waxoyl 50:50 with new engine oil to treat the sills and door bottoms etc, the oil penetrates and the waxoyl leaves behind a long lasting coating.


Regards

John

Hi Ciaran and John

As I say, I havn't so far had a problem with rust, but most that have suggest it seems to be around the jacking points, which seems logical as the front ones have collapsed on both of my cars. They obviously cant take the weight of the car directly under lug with a trolley jack. What I do now is put a length of angle iron between the jack and car along the length of the jacking point to spread the weight. I can appreciate how that could start rusting as it would pull the layers apart. I found a suitable hole in the top of the sill and squirted oil in until it ran out the bottom, you could take a screw out if you cant find one. You would probably need to do this once a year, but as long as enough water cant get in to wash it out, its amazing how oil sticks.

John - I used to mix my waxoil with diesel, makes it easier to spray and creeps better, but the problem is that once it sets the oil wont go past it and it could be sealing it out of the crevices, its good stuff to stop bolts seizing though!

Peter.N.