Given that the XM will undoubtedly need to be taken off the road here and there for love, and the wifes car is a Herald, and therefore likely to take itself off the road often, and finally, the Herald is a convertible, and leaks like a sieve, I thought it might be a good idea to get a backup. And, being a Citroen fan, I thought it'd better be an appropriate one!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...:MEWN:IT&ih=005

Nice car. I drove one years ago that belonged to the company. I was surprised just how fast it was for a small diesel, guess it's down to the light weight.

Steve.

It certainly looks like a good clean one, and if it lives up to the description, it should go through MOT for next to nothing, making it super cheap motoring!

Looks very smart for the money and with a diesel engine that size should do about 100mpg

Peter.N.

Picked it up today - generally very happy! It's very clean, not showing any signs of corrosion that I could see, starts readily, no smoke, and only sipped fuel on the 55 mile run home. On the downside, it's absolutely gutless, and the suspension on the drivers rear corner is noisy on bad roads, but I don't think it's gonna give me too many problems. Off for an MOT this week, and once it's through that, oil and filters, and a cambelt, and it should be good for a long long time.

Should have got an XM

You can have too much of a good thing! Cheaper tax, insurance, and even fuel on this thing, plus it's easier to get into parking spaces.

True!

It went through at a cost of £195, including the test fee. Two new tyres, a repair to the cracked rear lens, and replacement of (or repair, not sure) the handbrake actuator mechanism, which was knackered at both ends on one side. What they couldn't fix was the speedo - the cable seems to be working fine at both ends, so I might need to replace the speedo itself - could be involved, but my license is telling me that driving without one is a bad idea.....

Hi Sam

Its unusual for the instrument to pack up as the cable directly drives the disc that operates the speedo. I would check that the gearbox is actually driving the cable. It may be intact but the corners could have gone offf the squared ends allowing it to slip. If this is the problem you could possibly rectify it by putting a washer under the end of the cable with the flange (the end you can pull it out from) this will alter the position of the cable in the drive.

This is always assuming that it is a mchanical speedo and that they havn't changed the design in the 20 or 30 years since I last repaired one.

Peter.N.

or just go buy a GPS with HUD so you get the speed on the windscreen and make it the envy of other ZX owners....

(head-up display, that is) - around £39 off ebay

regards
Dave

Thanks Peter - I'll take a look. Dave - £39 sounds rather cheap! I'll also investigate that. It's an AX mind, not a ZX.......

Interesting - given the size of the thing, I think they're using their postage as a profit centre. £19.99 to post that??? So it's really £50. It's also not entirely clear whether you then need navigation software, or whether it'll work on its own.

Hi Sam,

it's around the size of a yorkie bar once out of the box, and will work alone or via bluetooth to pass data to a PC or PDA - it's just a GPS receiver. The speed calculation & display of speed and direction is independant of the Satnav unit - must be plugged into the ciggy socket for power to drive the display though. Only thing is that it won't work in tunnels etc - has to be able to 'see' satellites.

Should you get one, spend a bit of time working out where to fit so you get a good view etc - it's not infinity focussed you you do have to focus your eyes to the screen to read it. I found that the edge nearest the screen tilted higher gave a better reflection on the XM.

I find it handy as the speedo on my V6 over-reads by 20%, but then again, the motorbike cop that was catching me up the other night was probably reading it too when he got alongside Still, I'd dropped to the limit by the time he got there

regards
Dave

Dave, I've always wanted to get that Polaris HUD we discussed on XM-L a while back, the guy you got yours from on fleabay doesn't seem to do them anymore, do you know of anywhere that does?

I could always get a cheap Garmin etc, but I want a HUD display

Ciarán