Citroen XM Forum

Hi, hope you're all ok? Ray from Merseyside here, purchased a K reg 2.1 SED AUTO yesterday.
Boy am I glad to be alive! Driving home last night was terrifying, every time I tried to accelerate up hill on the Motorway the gearbox decided to change down, into 3rd, then 2nd, then 1st. You can imagine what happened.

Anyway, I managed to nurse it home, despite it being very reluctant to accelerate. I had a quick glance inside the engine bay and noticed the primer pump was completely flat/squashed in appearance, almost as if there was a starvation of fuel, could this be the problem? I'm told by the guy selling it that it had a fuel filter housing from a Ford Transit? Is this my problem? I'm praying it's not Auto Gearbox related. I haven't had a chance to look over the car properly yet, but is there anything in particular I should look at?

On a slightly different topic, does anybody run their diesel XM with 2 stroke in the tank?

Ray, welcome. Sounds like you have a bit of issue but probably straightforward. The car looks like an ex-members one and is pretty sorted so you should be OK.

People wiser than myself will advise you on the primer pump!

Have faith.

Rob

Hi Ray,

Welcome. You'll get some good advice on the 2.1 and its box from relevant experts soon, I'm sure. (No, we don't always pass the buck!!)

On your last point - 2T oil in diesel - I have some recent experience of this.

Adding 2T oil to diesel is apparently a means of increasing the cetane value of the fuel (and providing a little extra lubricity), according to many web articles. I tried this a year or two back on our two diesels, with differing but consistent results. Both were running good quality standard grade fuel. On the CR direct-injection RAV4, the engine showed all the same slightly improved torque (especially at low revs), quietness and mpg (1-2) that you would get from adding, say, Millers or Wynns naphthalene-based diesel additive. We ran the RAV on added 2T for maybe a dozen tankfuls, so a fair longish-term test. A decent result, but no better than the above commercial additives, less, of course, their cleaning ability.

Then tried the same on our XM 2.5. Here, a quite different result, with no discernible difference (in any respect) compared to running on good standard-grade diesel. After a couple of tankfuls, the test was abandoned.

Most of the articles do state that, if you are going to run with 2T, it must be of the mineral oil version (the cheapest "town" grade of 2T) and NOT synthetic or semi-synthetic. It does burn clean - well, it's meant to! - but can be more expensive per tankful than the commercial additives, so not much incentive there.

Since doing all this, it is interesting to find that the fuel companies have continued to considerably improve the quality of main brand diesels (eg cetane value), presumably to keep up with the increasingly higher performance demands of diesel cars. Right now, using Repsol fuel down here, on both the Toyota and the Citroen, there doesn't seem a real need to add anything to their standard grade diesel from the point of view of performance. System cleaning is another matter.

Hope helpful. Good luck with getting the other items sorted.

Welcome Ray and your XM looks like a matching pair to Russ's old car in the unusual blue/grey anthracite colour. The model and spec you have are quite desirable and sought after. Hopefully the gearbox is okay and they are usually fairly strong on diesel models provided basic maintenance has been given. It would be good to see more photos and do keep us posted. Regards, Matthew T.

Was the car competely lacking any power, like it would hardly maintain speed? if so and coupled with the gearbox changing down and the squashed primer bulb my guess is that the pickup gauze in the tank is blocked, access is under the back seat on the rivers side.

The gearbox will be fine, its just you have no power due to fuel starvation by the sounds of it and by having you foot welded to the floor the gearbox is trying to be in the lowest gear possible all the time.

Not sure why it would have a different fuel filter housing on it, maybe the old one had air ingress issues but if it does the job it will be fine.

Good luck, doesnt sound like a massive issue to me at all, just a bit of a spring clean required in the tank.

D

I agree with dean, the problem sounds like lack of power, so the gearbox changes down to compensate.

If I'm correct, this is the car from Manchester owned by Paul. If so, it is likely to have been run on veg oil and the tank strainer will be gummed up, hence the flat primer bulb.

A clean out and running it on diesel should sort it. As a test, connect a can of diesel to the primer bulb and return.

This is the one i let go as it needs the time i simply dont have to restore it to its former health

Never ran on veg so no problems there but has had the same issue from day 1 of purchase.

As above it should only need the intank filter housing and gauze cleaned out and then the filter housing replaced with the correct standard unit that i left in the boot Its common on diesel engines that sit for long times that stuff in the tank turns cruddy and blocks filters. Marine shops sell BioCide type fluids to prevent this long term. The fuel in there has been in since around november when it went for its MOT

its probably not been helped much by being sat for a while as I've not used it other than to have its MOT and welding work done locally but the car is solid enough and just has a good few annoying little niggly faults that just need time to sort

Id not worry in the slightest about a ford fuel filter house if there is a primer bulb also fitted.. The issue with the other original would of been pourus rubber in the filter house allowing air in.. I had this on my sed about 5 years ago.. It let so much air in the engine stopped..

Id also 4th the pickup in the tank. Weither veggie has been used or not its very suprising what crap gets in and can trap in the pick up gause..

If the tank filters are clean then check the plastic nibs on the bottom of the pickup stem.
If the nibs are worn away the suction can pull up the bottom of the plastic tank and shut off fuel feed by covering the inlet filter.
With this particular problem the more fuel your engine calls for the less you get.
Easy enough to check for and to fit some replacement spacing nibs if needed.

John

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, I changed the filter housing earlier, car started fine and ran for a few minutes, sounded a little agricultural, but was still refusing to rev, it eventually cut out and now won't restart. I will investigate this gauze tomorrow, and give the car a service over the weekend.

Kingp I've forgotten most of what you told me, front spheres need changing? It's not jiggly bouncy but it's certainly not wafting along as it should, will one of those 'magic' boxes being sold on eBay do the trick?

I Think it need a driveshaft too, there's a knocking noise on over-run, and maybe a few bushes etc for the MOT.