Story so far...

[Biggles1957]

You may have seen may earlier posts having recently acquired what may well be the lowest mileage Y4 XM in the UK. It's a 1995 VSX petrol and had 30,050 miles on the clock when I bought it a few weeks ago. It's my daily driver so I've already done just over 2,000 miles. Some of this has been fairly long trips to see some very helpful members and gather a few bits and bobs. The car is in remarkably good condition - I'm only the second owner and it has lived all it's life in a garage. It was last on the road in around 2012 (that's when the last tax disc expired!) and is remarkably rust free. There's just a tiny bit near the rear NS jacking point but this will soon be repaired and the whole car treated underneath. One or two tiny age related scratches but nothing serious at all. I drove it back from near Theydon Bois to Leicestershire and first job was to replace all the tyres. The front ones were dated 22 years old and the rears and spare were the originals fitted at the factory! The rears were so hard the tyre machine kept stalling taking them off the rims! When I collected the car I saw that there was loads of tread on all the tyres and it wasn't till I got home that I could see just how crusty they were! A lucky escape from a blowout on the way home methinks!

With the help and advice of forum members, together with practical help from nearby members/owners I'm steadily recommissioning it. The driver's window mechanism had failed (broken cable) and that was the first thing to sort. Then all the spheres were either replaced or re-gassed as necessary, cam belt changed, auxiliary belt and tensioner pulleys changed (the tensioner one was noisy), front OS fog/indicator lamp unit replaced (original was broken), and I've just refurbished the front indicators. The lenses were a bit oxidised so I've used a Ceracote headlamp kit to sort them out. I used the same on the headlamps on my C6 and it restored them to 'like new' condition. The kit comes with everything required apart from elbow grease and is excellent value I think. Next on the list is to flush the hydraulic system. Unfortunately the car only came with one key and despite new batteries the central locking doesn't work from the 'blipper'. The key is very very worn and the rubber cover on the buttons non-existent. I've got a full set of locks and keys from a breaker but will investigate a bit more to see if I can get the original working and swap the original key blade to the new fob. If I can avoid having to change all the locks and just change the remote 'brain' under the glovebox that will save a fair bit of pulling apart!

Other things I've done so far are fitting new door speakers (the old ones were rotten) and getting the radio code from an on-line site! I'm going to fit a CD changer unit (got a brand new 'old stock' one) and I need to do the usual pixel repair to the left hand LCD display. The wiper delay seems to operate at the same speed no matter where the slider control is, so I'm on the case for that too. New wiper blades have been fitted and Philips Extreme Vision headlamp bulbs just to give a bit more light output. The inner lenses in my headlights are, perhaps not surprisingly, crystal clear because they've had so little exposure to UV etc.

I'm really enjoying the car and am absolutely delighted with it! The C6 is indeed a lovely thing but it has thrown many wobblies (weird electrical gremlins) and we're not going to keep spending on it, so it will soon be going! So, my XM will in fact be my newest car - I have a 1934 Morris Oxford Sixteen-Six sliding head saloon, a 1963 Morris Traveller, and a 1973 DS23 Pallas iE that all being well will be back on the road later this year.

I must say this forum is brilliant! I found out loads before taking the plunge and buying an XM, and it is an invaluable resource in helping us keep these wonderful vehicles going. I'll update progress in due course!

Bob

[Citjon]

Hi Bob,

Great introduction and it's good to hear you're enjoying driving the XM so much. Have the new bulbs made much difference? I need to sort out my inner lenses before I look at upgrading mine.

Looking forward to the next installment.

Best wishes,
Jon

[m0rda]

Hello Bob,
Great story!
Regarding the blipper, I had issues with two of them, both for S2.
Is I read somewhere in this forum, replacing the buttons might make them work. I have resoldered mine, and it worked! I have no logical explanetion for that, apart from electric noise, which happens in the button and not handled properly by the blipper's microcontroller.
Also, CR232 batteries should be very good and fresh.

[Biggles1957]

New headlamp bulbs are deffo an improvement I would say. Fine until some pseudo off road chunk comes along with stupid bright LED's in your face!
My inner lenses are fortunately extremely clear - I understand the car has always lived in a garage so little exposure to UV. I got the original key fob circuit board out and tried it and although the LKED lit, it failed to unlock the car. I had a full set of locks and microcontroller from a breaker so swapped the black box (dead easy to get at under the glovebox) and then swapped the blade from my original key into the new fob. Quite tricky to get the pin out - the one on my original prised apart nicely but the replacement fob was well and truly seized so I had to resort to a gentle drilling and whatnot to get it out. Then used the original pin to fix it. Everything now works as it should and I got a new non-remote spare key made at my local car shop.

We're going to put hydro flush in the system tomorrow to give the system a good clean out because when we changed the rear spheres the gunge that came out of the ones that had ruptured was rather yukky! Car is running really nicely though. I've replaced the couple of dark lamps that had failed and am about to repair the left hand LCD display.