Citroen XM Forum

Thanks for the pic, I only hope one day mine looks as good as that!

Well.... Today it went off to get its fluids changed and give it a once over.... Whilst it was up in the air I had a chance to look underneath at the sills

The rear isn't so good either

Ouch, I feel for ya.

Sympathy my friend. My front sills were much like yours. Open Citroen surgery ensued. Now all welded up and wonderful. Lots of underseal anf cavity wax applied.

The spheres are the worst I have seen but the proof is on the inside!

See the thread on sphere removal tools plus a good lump hammer!

Have faith.

Rob

This has got me awake at silly o'clock cxprestigeauto many thanks for the words of encouragement, I was worried that this car was too far gone, if yours were similar and you manged to sort it out then by all means please keep the advice coming
I think dropping the rear subframe is the way forward, is it overly complicated? I'd like to send it off to be cleaned up and powder coated, and treat underneath where it sits.
I bought a sphere removal tool earlier this week, looks pretty substantial and it has 2 bolts to tighten onto the spheres. But the spheres are the least of my worries for now.

Let's get this rot sorted

Have a look through the threads by "dave the rave","citroen xm" and "dean".
You will find subframe rebuild among daves pictures.
Paul and Dean cover underbody weld repairs.
If you can weld yourself and have the spare time fine.
If you have to pay someone else try to get a fixed quote before you set things going.
Time to next MOT may be a critical issue so it may be important to you to concentrate on the things needed for this.
Stripping and rebuilding a subframe is a lot of work, requires space and organisation.
When Dave initially prepared his rear subframe for rebuild he found considerable welding needed.
In the end he drove across the country and collected a better subframe from me.
This was the one he sent for powder coating.
The last I heard he had moved on and was offering the car and treated subframe as a project.

The advice we give on here is based on the information we get from you and our individual quite varied experience.
Only you can decide the way forward for your car.
Only you know your skill levels in respect of the work needed.
If you want a professional assessment I suggest you ask Malcolm at Savoy.
He is "op north" and well experienced with XM repair including welding.

John

Ray.. Sadly this is now a common issue with xm .. Ive done a few now and expect all xm i now buy to be in this state.. The K reg Sd i got was like this and had all four corners done..

Subframe is not too hard to remove if the car is not that far up off the ground you can lower it with the pipe attached.. But it cant to too high.. Exhaust off.. Height selector rod off and there is just four bolts to lower it...

That subframe is OK, just needs a cleanup and paint. The front double skinned corner pieces are fairly common areas to need welding, but obviously it needs some surgery before things get out of control.
The back end, under the boot floor looks OK.

Did this car not have MOT when purchased?

Many thanks for all the comments. The car was MOT'd in December, and has only covered 150 miles or so since then. Here is a link to the ad http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C633982#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; can't quite understand what's gone wrong in that time. But look, I know how rare these cars are, I WANT to keep the car and restore as much as possible, most of the work is beyond my capabilities but I have friends who can help. I remember seeing the post about the subframe, I wonder if he still has it and wants to sell? I have somewhere dry to store the car, if the MOT expires then it's not the end of the world, I'll just take my time getting it right.

Once again, thanks for all your comments, it's really appreciated.

Ray.