These pages contain pictures of my favourite car brand: Citroën.
Also available are some nice pictures I took at the CitroMobile
expositions, a yearly recurring event in the Veemarkthallen in Utrecht,
the Netherlands.
1993: Volvo 340 "Winner"
Our very first car was a Volvo 340 "Winner" (KF-77-PH, the name
didn't quite fit the car by the way) which was a little bit of a
mistake. We did however reach the south of France with it and returned
home without any trouble (but with aching arms for the lack of power
steering).
1995: Citroën BX 1.9 TRS BREAK
Our second car was a Citroën BX 1.9 TRS BREAK (PH-30-BF). A
very nice car but with a lot, and I mean a LOT of problems. We had it
all: breaking down right in the middle of a busy crossing; loss of
hydraulic pressure just when you're in a bend leaving a highway; the car
refused to start almost weekly especially when you accidentally touched
the accelerator before starting the car; overheating in traffic jams
(making it necessary to turn up the heating system to max, especially in
the middle of summer); broken dynamo; broken water pump; loosing the
accelerator-spring from the carburettor causing the engine to rev at
maximum speed only; refusing to idle, making driving through town
especially challenging; breaking of hydraulic pipe on the front
suspension causing a very big green stain on a parking lot (it was
snowing the day after, luckily for us); breaking down linkage to the
gear box leaving only the third and fourth gears for driving; breaking
of the clutch cable which made starting the car a very delicate process;
and so on.
Most of the problems were due to the fact that the valves were worn and
the carburettor was leaking all over the place. I had the carburettor
replaced and another cylinder head fitted after which the car drove
quite well and the starting troubles were past tense. The trouble was
that the rest of the car started breaking down and when in the end I
managed to damage the side of the car quite nicely by just not missing a
wall it was time for another car.
1999: Citroën Xm 2.0i 16V SX
You probably wouldn't believe it reading our previous Citroën
experiences but somehow we got hooked to the brand. The most beautiful
car in our view was the Citroën Xm so we went on the lookout for
one.
We found one in 1999, it was a beautiful green 1994 Citroën Xm
2.0i 16V SX (JP-VT-93). This car has (almost) never let us down. And
what a space! And the quiet!
No major breakdowns, mainly regular maintenance. In fact this car was much
cheaper to run than our previous car.
We only had two strange problems with it. The first one was that at some
time the engine's cooling fans started a live of their own deciding to
switch on and off randomly. Normally not much of a problem but in the
summer when engine cooling is quite important the fans just didn't
switch on when required. In the end this was solved by opening (using a
saw) the "Bitron Video" module under the glove compartment and
resoldering it. The problem never came back. The second one was that the
car's idle speed sometimes led a live of its own. Not just the idle
speed, sometimes when driving 50 in town the car would suddenly
accelerate! Very scary! Solved by cleaning all the computer's
connections and cleaning the stepper motor. Oh I almost forgot the third
"problem", every now and then (happened four times or so in total) the
car just refused to start, solved every time by resetting the car's
computer. When I told this to my garage they said "So why is this a
problem then? Just reset the computer when it happens!" and they were
right.
2004: Citroën Xm V6 Exclusive
All in all we were very satisfied with this car. The only reason why, in
2004, we decided to look for another car was that we were afraid that
major maintenance might come some day. In 2004 the car was 10 years old
with 250,000 kilometres on the clock and we went on the lookout for
another car.
It was my wife who by sheer luck found a beautiful 1996 Xm in the
showroom of a garage here in Eindhoven. We went to look and fell in love
with it. It's a Belgium import Citroën Xm V6 Exclusive
(78-PR-DP) and we bought it trading in our beloved Xm. The V6 Exclusive
is much more luxurious than the Xm we had, it has all the options there
were in 1996. It also has DIRAVI which is something to get used to: it's
a special kind of power steering that's self-centring and that has no
direct contact between the steering wheel and the wheels. Very nice when
you're used to it but very scary when you experience it for the first
time!
It's hard to believe how much difference there is between our previous
Xm and this one. This one drives nicer, has even more grip, is much much
quiter (the engine does only about 1,100 revs per second when doing 50
kph in town), there's climate control which is very nice, everything is
electrical (and works, even!), the leather-and-alcantara seets sit
better, it's a completely different car. Oh and it's also heavier and
uses more fuel of course.
So far we're extremely satisfied with this car but it's early days of
course. We hope it's at least as trouble-free as our previous Xm,
©2023 Ernst Mulder