Testing time
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 11:53 am
MoT (Spanish ITV Test) here on the XM is always good fun. They don't see many of them.
No problem in passing - even the smoke test clocked a very acceptable 0.18m-1, which is about one-tenth of the acceptable limit.
The entertainment started with the front indicators. The slightly puzzled young man (fully State-qualified tester) came round to side of the car, pointed to the side repeaters, and asked if that was all the car had. I asked him to go back round the front, but he still looked lost, so I suggested he squatted a bit - and there they were! Sorted.
Amazingly, the front parking brake presented no problem ("I know about these Citroens" he said), but its braking efficiency did. No, he said, please apply the parking brake, not the foot brake. He insisted on sitting in the driver's seat, and working the fourth pedal himself. You could see he couldn't work out why the parking brake gave almost as good a reading as the main brake. Never mind, it passed. "It's an XM," I said, "That's what they do." He seemed happy with that.
I think it all made his day. In all probability he will only see one more of these each year.
No problem in passing - even the smoke test clocked a very acceptable 0.18m-1, which is about one-tenth of the acceptable limit.
The entertainment started with the front indicators. The slightly puzzled young man (fully State-qualified tester) came round to side of the car, pointed to the side repeaters, and asked if that was all the car had. I asked him to go back round the front, but he still looked lost, so I suggested he squatted a bit - and there they were! Sorted.
Amazingly, the front parking brake presented no problem ("I know about these Citroens" he said), but its braking efficiency did. No, he said, please apply the parking brake, not the foot brake. He insisted on sitting in the driver's seat, and working the fourth pedal himself. You could see he couldn't work out why the parking brake gave almost as good a reading as the main brake. Never mind, it passed. "It's an XM," I said, "That's what they do." He seemed happy with that.
I think it all made his day. In all probability he will only see one more of these each year.