Our old friend

[Dieselman]

I've heard he does blue LHM:) To explain, he's got a replacement for the well known green LHM. Don't know much more about it though.

That is a Shell hydraulic oil, iirc.

Personally, I would stick to LHM+ as it is the exact specification with added lubrication.

[Dieselman]

I've waxoyled the car every two years since 2009 and it's been in a garage since then too.

Waxoyl isn't a particularly good product as it doesn't adhere well and the rust comes through from inside the box section, so unless you spray in there you aren't getting full protection.

It's good to hear the car is fixed.

[casalingua]

I meant Dinitrol. It's been sprayed into the cavities - this involved drilling holes here and there.
An XM at my usual mechanic was up on a jack. It's underbody appeared to have been tarmacadamed. I mean it had a conspicuously thick coat of shiny, tarry stuff. It looked formidable though even that car (a series 2) had flapping, rusted wings like mine.

[casalingua]

For the last three weeks I have been scrupulously driving my 2.0 litre XM at no more than 3000 rpm (non-motorway driving). 60 mph is about 2800 rpm. I´ve noticed that the engine is nearly silent, the wind-noise is very low and the general level of vibration is below that threshold where you get tired. The downside is that it takes about 2 hours to travel to our summer home. That´s 20 minutes more than if I try to drive at 70-80 mph as much as I can. Two other results arise from driving sedately: there are nearly no insects squashed on the car´s nose and, of course, fuel consumption is now markedly better. The difference between life at 60 mph and 75 mph is so marked that it leads me to think the car was designed to be driven like this and that it was not designed to be a high-speed A-road comet. Has anyone else noticed their car has a particular tempo that suits it best? I expect the V6s are quite relaxed at 70, given the larger engine capacity. What about the diesels and the CTs?

[Rommel]

For motorway driving I find life in my 2.1TD Auto is serene between 55-65mph.
I also love 95- seems perfect on a clear open motorway. Only experienced this twice in my 10 month period of ownership- on parts of the 400 mile trip home from purchase, and a couple of days ago when I decided to see if she was still running as well as I thought!

Not keen on 70 sadly. Above or below for me!

[casalingua]

Interesting. When my car was about 30,000 miles younger I used to drive at about 90-100 from Cologne to Basel. I think I was better able to ignore the din then.