Citroen XM Forum

Andrew has a good point about the AA towing the car home.

We used the RAC to transport a CX Familiale that we just bought from Norfolk to Central Scotland, becuase the throttle cable to carb linkage got broke some how...

If you are a member of the AA or another breakdown service then I would do this:

Take the current belt off the car and drive it a few miles from the sellers place.

Stop and put the belt back on.

Phone the AA and tell them that there is smoke coming from under the bonnet and around this pulley in particular.

Then they should recover it home.

David.

Key thing here for what it's really worth from what's been found wanting on the car, it does have
an MOT so the AA cannot refuse to get you and it back to your home address: they won't refuse
relay for a legitimate legal car on the day cover is purchased, after all that's the
point of them offering their service and they all sell breakdown/relay cover at services stations
along the motorway network for the express purpose of getting folk home who've had a problem
and aren't a member = even with a newly purchased car bought in good faith and no previous
experience of it's failings!!

Andrew

andmcit wrote:Key thing here for what it's really worth from what's been found wanting on the car, it does have
an MOT so the AA cannot refuse to get you and it back to your home address: they won't refuse
relay for a legitimate legal car on the day cover is purchased,

Unless they have read this thread....

I'd be tempted to slip the belt off, withdraw the compressor as far as possible and either use a shorter belt or a couple of pairs of tights tied round the pulleys.

I wouldn't recommend the tights method for long distance.

I tried this method to temporarily repair a piece of farm machinery, it worked great until the tights slipped every so slightly off the pulley and got wrapped around the shaft.

If you stop every now and again to keep an eye on it then you might be ok though.

David.

Hi all

Thanks ALL here for helping with this!!

Seller contacted me earlier and it seems I *could* be able to pick up car next weekend -trip not good this weekend due to sever conditions announced, and they've not looked into the problem yet-.

I'm very keen on the seller putting the "short" belt on, *not only* as a temp fix to be able to drive home, but to be able to use the car straight away, not caring about broken compressor. If I had to deal with fixing the compressor first to get normal operation, then I would think twice about buying this XM.

I hope that we might be lucky and one of the "short" non-aircon belts will fit without fouling with the roller present on aircon'd car; otherwise, just get rid of the roller as Dean says. Compressor is way down away so won't interfere.

Does this makes sense to everybody? Are we missing any other technical difficulty?

I've already advised seller of the details of the idea, but wouldn't want him to waste his time.

Thanks
George

Hi George

All sounds sensible to me, the alternator is in the same place on both a/c and non a/c cars, as is the crank pulley, the a/c compressor is well out of the way of the original alternator setup so like you say is not a problem, all you need to do is get the right small belt, which depends on the width of the pulleys and number of ribs and its job done, the roller is easy to get off with just one bolt and good access so it should be no trouble at all.

D

Hi Dean, thanks for confirming, sounds good.

Andrew's post reminded me that I have the parts catalogue , so, I see 2 part numbers for the "short" belt of a non-aircon 2lt 8v:

K5-LE 710MM (CLASS 8-9-12)
and
LON 700 (CLASS 7).

One of these 2 will fit and it's not going to do any harm to have a redundant belt!

cheers
George

Here we go again , round what was it on E-BAY .
Also the seller AKA 'Brett' couldn't even to be bothered to tidy up the write-up with the A/C pump bearing findings after the belt renewal and has just left it with the old date (Nov 8th) listed when he supposedly noticed the problem

Yes, I left him feedback yesterday.

From all his actions I suppose he doesn't really care much about this sale, can't explain it otherwise, it doesn't make sense. That, or just that he's below the intellect level we'd call "average".

I'm not sure though, why somebody would want to make his life SO difficult? The next buyer that goes there to pick up, will find a car that can't go anywhere because the compressor is completely seized, not "starting to seize".

Wouldn't any sensible person just admit what the car has, and having a happy buyer, for the right price, rather than a stream of buyers that will visit Stratford-Upon-Avon and feel the unhapiness of discovering a car with plenty of problems that also can't move as is now?

Only thing I can hypothesize is he hopes somebody with lots of £££ will go there with a flatbed and take it no matter, or, that somebody adventurous will take it away driving on 3 batteries. But still he doesn't give a clue towards this!!!

From seeing his "new" advert, I'm inclined to the "low intellect" senario...

cheers
G