Interesting XM review / test

[Dieselman]

I have a W210 E class and it is generally larger than the XM both in the cabin and definitely the boot.
Later versions, W211 in particular are more cramped in the rear of the cabin, but I think the W212 has become a large enough car to accommodate a full size cabin again.

It's all to do with crash protection and sloppy packaging design.

It is worth noting that some of the rear passenger space in an XM comes at the expense of driver space, the E class seats go back A LOT further than in an XM (or any other car I can think of) and they are set lower so headroom is much better.

[captainhaddock]

I never broke down in one of them:) Room wise they were good enough, dealt with huge suitcases from the US and big, big people:) I liked the mercs but, I didn't have to pay for the fuel or especially maintenance and repairs. Especially the last one, with it's electronic dampers that failed many times and cost a fortune to fix. Not to mention suspension components, they are not made for Irish roads.

[casalingua]

My suspicion was the XM's rear passenger space required a compromise with boot space. The driver's seat goes back so far I can't reach the pedals. But that said, 460 litres is a very commendable volume.
The Aug 16, 1989 Autocar arrived. The 3.0 V6 (LHD) version was tested against a BMW 530
and Rover 800 V6. The BMW won and the XM came second though the Rover was close behind. The XM's ride got a rating almost as high as Car's estimation in its own initial test. I notice two things. The early test cars were LHD V6s with DIRAVI and the cars were versions without the side repeater
lamps (which I think were pre-production cars). All of the later UK-market cars fared worse in the assessment of the ride quality. I wonder if French V6s rode better than the UK spec ones or were the test cars somehow fettled.
Autocar considered the dashboard to be well-laid out and they did not mention the parking brake operation.
Interestingly 2 years later Car rated the XM as better than the 525i and the Rover fell far behind.

[captainhaddock]

A guy I used to know, took his Rover 800 to Ireland. It was a beautiful green car, I did like it. But it fell apart after a few years driving around here. So it met it's end, being still good to look at. It just couldn't cope with the bad roads. Suspension bent out of shape, he spent a fortune on that car to keep it going. However, the vw Passat that came after that, suffered badly to. I wonder

[casalingua]

When I visit Ireland it strikes me that the few older cars I see are Volvo 240s, Saab 900s and Mercedes W123-series cars. My dad's Volvo S70 is a rattling soggy car. Irish roads really give cars a bad time. A 2CV is ideal but for the rust.

[Dieselman]

My suspicion was the XM's rear passenger space required a compromise with boot space. The driver's seat goes back so far I can't reach the pedals. But that said, 460 litres is a very commendable volume.
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I think the Xm boot is a bit small, smaller than cars like the Mondeo, focus, Golf, Astra and a lot smaller than my E class at 530 litres...even with the fuel tank in there.

[casalingua]

The XM predates the Mondeo and Focus, remember. Cars have grown a lot in size. I'd be surprised if the 1989 Astra's boot was bigger. The current E class has a claimed 540. The current Mondeo claims 528. Focus: 312.

[russ92xmsed]

I would agree with the XM boot being smaller than normal. It is pretty much the same size as a C5. However, it does have a wide flat load area, something that not all cars can boast about.
It's clearly down to the packaging, but maybe it is a result of Citroens styling obsession with the stubby rear proportions.

Don't really know! ...but saloon cars do tend to have larger boots mainly as a result of blending in the roofline. If we o back to the XM saloon, to get it looking half right it needs to be based on the longer estate platform.

Now the Rover 800, really don't see many of those, especially the early ones. Famous for dashboards going green.

[casalingua]

I'm going to look at the 1991 Car group test which has the statistics for the XM and ten other competitors. I'm quite pleased with the capacity of my XM to carry our falderal, junk and baggage. I feel the Opel Vectra estate (last version) would be the car that would most thoroughly do everything my XM could. But unless the XM expires I don't feel I need to test this hypothesis.

[casalingua]

XM: 16.1 cubic feet
BMW 530i: 16.2 cubic feet
Rover "Sterling": 15.7 cubic feet.