Citroen XM Forum

Hello everyone!

My name is Michael, and in December 2021, I took the considerably brave step of acquiring a grey-market Rouge Mandarin 1993 Citroën XM Turbo CT and bringing it home with me to Tampa, Florida, in the USA!






It's a LHD Spanish-market car, 5spd manual, and from what I understand, it had ONE owner its entire life in Burgos, Spain, before it came to the USA and was acquired by me. The Spanish origin also means it is a 100% rust-free chassis.

It has been an over 30-year dream of mine, ever since I was in grade school devouring information from all the car magazines I could get my hands on, to own a Citroën XM. I bought mine with 177k kms on it and now it has 186k kms on it, and so far, I've greatly enjoyed every single kilometer!

With regard to servicing it, I have a contact who can ship me parts from Europe, and I have decent mechanical aptitude, so I've thus far been able to do an oil change with an OEM PSA oil filter as well as changing out all six spheres (it's a Hydractive ABS car) with IFHS units and refilling the hydropneumatic system with genuine Total LHM Plus. It is evident that the previous owner took EXQUISITE care of the car and I'm putting forth my best effort to continue that standard of care for it.

I'm by no means new to automotive forums. I come from a Subaru background and have 20+ years of experience participating in, moderating, and even adminning Subaru forums, so rest assured I will be utilizing the search function extensively to find information you've all kindly shared with each other before asking a silly, redundant question.

But I nonetheless look forward to interacting and discussing ownership of one of my all-time favorite cars with you all!

Michael

That looks to be an excellent example of a Series 1 Xm, even the plasti-chrome bumper trims are still sparkling, Mandarin-Nacre is a lovely colour. Manuals are my preference, too. The gearbox holds 1.85 litres of oil. Don't fill it to the fill plug, it would be very over-full.

What specification is it, i.e. what interior, A/c, Sunroof? It looks like no sunroof, giving the long, flat, roof look.

For spheres, don't forget the seventh one, the Accumulator. To save on sphere replacement costs, build yourself a pressure tester and maybe a gas filling rig. Fully gassed spheres not only work better, but last a very long time.
Worth reading this thread viewtopic.php?t=10339

Is the car riding a little high at the front? It should be 144mm +10/-7mm to the flat of the front subframe, from the road. Rear should be 431mm +10/-7mm from the road to the chassis rail just behind the rearmost rear subframe mount.
Painting the vertical glazing bars back to satin black will give the full band of glass look.

Feel free to add your car details, including Rp number to your signature and/or the register.

I doubt you will be able to ask a silly, or redundant question, so fire away with whatever you want. Someone learns something from every post, even if it's just shooting the breeze.
Well done on taking the plunge, you won't regret it. I think it's exciting that US owners are importing a car never officially sold there. We now have a spread from coast to coast, and I think yours is the first petrol turbo.

A nice car indeed! Great you get it on the road in Tampa! Brings back memories as I lived there 1997-1999, but at that time this XM was not yet there

Thank you both for the warm welcome!

It's actually my ideal configuration of car... I have a very strangely particular set of preferences, at least for the current theme of my fleet.

It's a Turbo CT, so the 2.0L XU10J2TE, and 5spd manual of course. It also has the cloth interior (my preference) and no sunroof (my preference).

I currently own 3 cars (I was up to 4 until I sold one in April) and they were ALL turbocharged 4cyls with manual transmissions, cloth interiors, and no sunroofs

It does have A/C but that's a current issue with the car... someone (I think it was the dealer that imported the car, unfortunately) did a very sloppy R134A freon conversion on it, and by that I mean they apparently just installed the retrofit R134A fittings and pushed the freon in without changing the compressor oil, so the A/C currently works, but the compressor knocks. I have procured a brand-new A/C compressor for it from Europe (at great expense, lemme tell you) but I'm struggling to find someone in the Tampa area who is willing to evacuate and flush out an A/C system of a 30+ year old foreign-market car, so it's possible the responsibility to do the whole thing may fall entirely on me by default now.

The other big issue I'm having is I have a random Check Engine Light that seems to appear only when the car is warm, and even then I seem to have noticed it is less likely to illuminate when the ambient temperature is cooler.

I have also gotten a Lexia system for it and have attempted to run diagnosis on it, but have gotten the fatal "No dialogue with ECU during initialisation" error message...



... and I've been searching this forum for the last hour and a half now looking for solutions to that that other members have found.

I will update with the vehicle's RP number hopefully tomorrow, and at some point I will look into your suggestions on adjusting the ride height Dieselman.

Lexia lack of connection is most likely the interface cable, but that shouldn't really be an issue on a Series 1 (Y3), car.
Have you tried a Blink Code Reader, Afaik, it should work on Motronic 3.2. The Efi system is covered in the Fuel Management thread viewtopic.php?f=13&t=10588#p126906

Member Xantia_v6 is probably our best Lexia expert.

Blink Code Reader viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7368

I like your spec preference, the Sonata velour is extremely cosy and comfortable. All Uk Xm, to 1997, were sold with a sunroof...most of us wish they weren't.
Incidentally, with an Rp of 5882, your car was built 18th December 1992, so a very late Hydractive 1 car. H2 came in from Feb 1993.

Dieselman wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 07, 2025 8:18 am

Incidentally, with an Rp of 5882, your car was built 18th December 1992, so a very late Hydractive 1 car. H2 came in from Feb 1993.

Yeah, I was reading on Wikipedia where mine is a sort of "Series 1.5" car, where it got some of the Series 2 upgrades but not all of them, and is still a pre-facelift Series 1.

So yes, mine is a Hydractive 1, and mine is a sinker, and I only have 6 spheres. I presume the 7th sphere you're referring to is the anti-sink sphere near the rear axle, which I don't have. I did change out the brake accumulator sphere near the radiator when I replaced all the spheres.

Mine is also a hisser, with presumably the flow diverter valve I read about that hisses when (if I understand correctly) the Hydractive makes minute adjustments to the ride height while the car is running and driving.

You should have 7 sphères; a main accumulator, 4 corner spheres and front and rear centre spheres.

I don't recognise the term series 1.5, Xm are either Series 1 (Y3), or Series 2 (Y4), they were being constantly altered and changed.
Some people refer the post 1992 cars as Series 1.5 because they received different interior and exterior trim colours and twin spoke steering wheel and changed the "multipole" plug in Gnd points behind the headlamps for bolt down ones. Just go by the Rp number for accurate information and parts sourcing.

As xantia_v6 said, the seventh sphere is the accumulator on the regulator, which you have referred to as the "brake sphere". Technically the brake sphere is the eighth sphere fitted to DIRAVI equipped cars only. Due to the DIRAVI system consuming so much fluid and maintaining power being essential, an additional sphere was added to act as an additional accumulator.

The FDV proportionally diverts fluid flow between the low volume, high pressure, main systems (brakes, suspension) and the lower pressure, high volume, power steering.
As the shuttle in the valve creates a very small opening the valve can hiss as the fluid passes through the minute clearance.

Hydractive doesn't make height adjustments, that is the purpose of the height correctors, which are part of the basic, mechanically controlled, hydropneumatic system.
Hydractive is the electronic control of the extra pair of spheres and valve blocks, under the car, for firm/soft/reduced roll, control.

On Xantia Activa they have active anti-roll, which is another mechanical system added on top of the even more complex Hydractive. Think two more spheres (10 in total), that can disconnect the anti-roll bars and another pair of hydraulic rams to jack the car back to level, controlled by another mechanical corrector valve. You probably do need a Xantia Activa in your life, to dispatch supercars on twisty roads.

Spend a few minutes reading and watching the information in the training information thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=10291

That's a fantastic purchase! Congratulations with having such a unique car in the states.

Best of luck with it!