Citroen XM Forum

Well, the XM has landed.

It's currently sitting in the container yard in the docks at Grangemouth.

Once I'm granted customs clearance and paid them the fee then I can go and collect the car. I'm a bit miffed as I was hoping to avoid customs fees as it was originally a UK car but no such luck!

The car left it's only owner since new in Melaka, Malaysia on 4th April on the back of a lorry where it was transported to the container that was waiting for it at Port Klang in Kuala Lumpur.

It was loaded into the container and strapped down ready for it's sea voyage.











It then craned onto a boat called 'Buxlink' which took it down to Singapore where it sat waiting to be collected by it's main vessel. Unfortunately there aren't any pictures of the Buxlink Vessel available.

It was then taken by 'MSC Alexandra' from Singapore to Antwerp in Belgium where it sat for 1 day after going via Valencia, Rotterdam, Felixstowe and then into Antwerp.





It was then loaded onto a feeder vessel called 'Harmony' and taken in from Antwerp to Grangemouth after stopping off in Teeside on the way.





It arrived into Grangemouth last night at around 23:50.

I am going over to collect it from the boat on Wednesday after all the paper trails have been completed. It's already booked in for an MOT on Wednesday as the first step to being re-registered on it's UK plate that it had before it left (V6 XME).

I'll get pictures of the car when it arrives back home.

David.

Interesting that they made the effort to run it onto wooden strips to keep it from bottoming out.

I'm pretty sure the blocks of wood are just there to chock the wheels.

David.

Ah, my mistake. I hadn't seen they were blocks, thought hey were strips.

Jings, shipping containers aren't wide. I had toyed with the idea of storing cars in shipping containers until such times that we had a cow free farm. Looks like I would need to push the car in!

A container is 8' wide, the same as a domestic garage. That car isn't parked correctly for easy exit.

I'm expecting the battery to be flat as it's spent over 2 months on the boat so I'm going to jump start it in the container and then get someone to hold the door on the passengers side so it doesn't hit the container wall and slide across.

There seems to be more space on the passengers side then the drivers side.

Should come out without any problems as it went in without any.

David.

A good battery won't get flat in 2 months. I've left my XM for longer than that, no problem starting, but you'd better be prepared.
I've imported Citroens from the Netherlands to Japan a few times. Twice Traction Avant, once a DS.
Straight from Rotterdam to Hiroshima in containers. About 6 weeks. I was allowed to drive the vehicles out of the containers by myself. Clearing customs was just a formality - paperwork only. No heavy handed bureaucracy.

Another time I re-imported a car I had taken to the Netherlands. That was easy too. Never any taxes levied.

Hi Jan,

Harry had told me that the battery doesn't hold a charge for much more then 4 weeks and is in need of replacement.

I got a replacement today for £60 so it's worth doing. The battery covers on them look fragile and will probably break if it's constantly being fiddled with.

David.

At 12.30 today I got a phone call from the freight forwarding agent down in Southampton who were doing the customs clearance advising me that everything was sorted and that the final fee was £250. MSC charged another £50 to move the container on the port. Total shipping costs have worked out to be around £2750.

I was a little disheartened at this point as I seem to have started collecting £50 charges from the Port authorities!

At 13:20 I got a call from Forth Ports advising that all the clearance was sorted and that I was able to start the 46 mile journey to the port to collect the car from the container.

At 14:30 we arrived at the port. We all had to have high visibility vests with us and we all needed photographic ID to gain access to the port. Once we were through security we followed the road for about a mile into the Port and were pointed towards a big shed with F written on the wall.

When we pulled up outside in the Range Rover there were 3 port staff waiting there for us. They cut the seal off the container with a huge pair of bolt cutters. I picked up the seal and kept a hole of it to. The port staff opened one door and I opened the other. When the container was opened there was a real stench of petrol inside it. I undid the straps holding the car down. They then had to get a big hammer to move the blocks of wood from behind the wheels as the shippings team had nailed them to the floor so the car couldn't move. They really had done a great job of securing the car.

Before opening the bonnet and jump starting the car I decided to try it and see if it would start. I entered the code, turned the key and she started first time without any problems. There was a bit of a misfire for the first couple of seconds but that soon cleared. The port officials then turned up with a huge ramp on a forklift truck so that we could unload the car.

I reversed the car out of the container and drove it onto the trailer. I noticed at this point that the hydraulic pressure warning light was on telling me that it had low pressure and brake pressure loss warning was displayed on the screen.

I had a look around the car and was immediately blown away by the condition that it was in. You can instantly tell when looking at the car that it's been pampered from day one and has been spoilt rotten. It is stunning and is by far the best XM that I have ever seen. A true credit to it's only owner from new, Harry Boswell. The chaps at the port even commented on the condition saying it was immaculate. We then tied the car down on the trailer and left Grangemouth heading for home.

When we got home I unloaded the car from the trailer and noticed drops of LHM on the trailer floor. I thought that I'd get the car up on the ramp and have a look underneath it to see where the LHM was coming from.

I noticed that the pipe coming from the pressure regulator going to the valve block mounted on the subframe was leaking where the rubber joins the metal part of the pipe. I'm going to go to our local Citroen dealer tomorrow and get one ordered for it so that it's sealed properly again with no leaks. I also noticed a hole in the exhaust that was blowing a fine spray of water out of it whilst it was on the ramp. I presume this was just the condensation in the exhaust.

I took the exhaust off the car and cleaned up around the small hole with a wire brush. It turned into a bigger hole that needed patching. I cut a patch from a piece of steel, cleaned up the edges and had my brother weld it on to the exhaust (he's a much better welder then I am!) so it's completely sealed again now. As my hands were filthy after fabricating the patch and putting the exhaust back on the car I didn't get a picture of the exhaust after it was patched I'm afraid.

I took the car for a quick run up the country lane that we live on tonight and was totally blown away by how quiet it was, how well it drove, and how comfy it was. It's everything that the C6 should be!

As soon as I can get this pipe I'll get the car into the dealer for an MOT. The sooner I can get it MOT'd the sooner I can start the process of getting it back onto UK plates.

I've attached some of the pictures below:





















David.