Citroen XM Forum

What do people think of these pictures? They are of a LHD XM V6, 1990, located in north Germany. I figure the rust to the doors is easily restorable. It's the lifting damage in a couple of places on the sills. What do people think? The galvanising is inevitably cracked and it'll rust away? Fill the sills full of waxoyl and it will be fine?

It's unusual for the doors to rust, but early cars could suffer a bit, though that looks worse than most, however it is likely to be surface rust.

The sill damage isn't an immediate problem, but the rust coming through near that R/H front jacking point could be an issue. Once the jacking points are showing signs of rust they are weakened and tend to bend over easily. That is an indication of pretty weak sills, which will need work.

hello Derek, i'd say those sills looks good. I've seen examples where the verticle jacking plates are bent over or mashed up into the sill. Those look good in comparison. However, beware; as although things can seem fine to look at, the metalwork can literally rust away underneath the underseal. This is especially the case on the cross beams/member that run inwards from the side of the front jacking plate. Things may look fine but crumble when you push hard enough. So make sure they all sound good when you tap them. Hopefully, the rust in IMG_1358.jpg is just surface rust - check. Steve

Did you notice the jacking point is bent over?

in IMG_1363.jpg, the 6" aft of the jacking point is bent - not the jacking point. I mistook IMG_1359.jpg as the other front jacking point - also clean. I missed IMG_1356.jpg which is indeed bent

The bottom of left hand door bottoms appears to be a common issue on that door.. weither its blockage of drains or what i dont know but seem quite a few rusty there..

Most of my XMs had bent jacking points, even the newer ones, I don't think they were ever designed properly to take the weight of the vehicle. I managed to straighten mine out with the aid of a big adjustable wrench but they bend again given half a chance.

Peter

Door bottoms, the sills and other parts of the XM have small pressed drain slots through the multiple sections.
Blanket application of Wax oil and underseal can block these drain slots and trap water at the lowest points.
Door bottoms rusted through on the inside skin are a classic example of long term trapped water.
You can see a drain slot in good condition centrally above the lifting point in the final photo.

John

Thank you everyone for your comments. It's a big decision to go and look at a car 550 miles away across the channel.

Hi Derek

Sorry that I did not give a condition assessment with my first reply.
As you suggest the XM doors are fairly easy to weld repair or replace.
The sills on an XM are another matter.
Visual assessment of condition is actually very difficult as XM's tend to rust from the inside.
So little can be seen with certainty from the outside unless very advanced.
Probing or prodding a car you are viewing can lead to real problems with a seller.
We place quite heavy reliance on jacking point condition because that mechanical damage gets rust a rapid foothold.
From the photos the jacking points look structurally undamaged.
Some minor distortion to sill bottom elsewhere.
There is evidence of metal rust to the bottom of the outer sill pressing.
This would concern me as I would expect the sill centre pressing to have lost more metal than the outer one.
This is based on experience of sill sectioning.
Repairable and not immediate so I would not reject an XM because of it.
I would want to view the underside of the chassis if I could.

I do not know about rusting from road conditions in N Germany but cars from Southern France might survive well.

John