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Wobbler ZX - £SOLD - short mot, new wiper blade


dollywobbler

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The Adventure.

 

In hindsight, the troubles probably started just after Mrs DW pointed out how boring our day had been...

 

Let's start at the beginning though. Friday began with great enthusiasm, and a 2.5hr drive to Sutton Coldfield. My friend's dad gave us tea. We were grateful.

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The silver C4 became Citroen number 1 of the trip, and ferried us to a nearby train station. 

 

In further hindsight, heading to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery during our 20 break between trains wasn't very sensible.

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However, the toilets are lovely, the German Christmas market was in full swing, and it's almost become a caper tradition to have a mooch around Brum on the way.

 

We just got back in time for this blurry train. New Street is shite for hurried photography.

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At the other end of said train journey, in the town of Reading, was this cheery sight. Hmmm. Olympic blue. Welcome Citroen number 2.

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Bramz ferried us safely back to the ZX, which was seemingly abandoned in a car park. There were spots along the way.

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ZX! Complete with Iveco recovery truck. A sign? Here's Citroen number 3.

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Mrs DW grabbed essential supplies from a supermarket, while I assessed the new motor. Very clean! Not in the actual sense of polished and what not, but unmeddled with and in great condition. The interior looks practically new. I will get some photos uploaded at some point...

 

In typical tradition, I did little other than check levels (oil halfway, water a little low but above min) before driving my new £4 car out onto the M4 motorway and cruising at motorway-ish speeds. The aim was to get back home for a party, so I wasn't hanging about. It'll sit at motorway-ish speeds very nicely indeed. There was a bit of a droning noise, but I assumed it was Chinese ditchfinders at fault. It turns out, this was a mistake. I also chose to ignore a rather unpleasant noise from the engine bay. If I'm lucky, it's an alternator with tired bearings. If I'm not, it's the cambelt tensioner or water pump. I filed it away under "worry later."

 

After about 60 miles, I decided to stop for fuel. The seats were causing some discomfort - typical cheap Citroen seats. Sports ones tend to have more back support. I filled up (40 litres from just below quarter), and Mrs DW eyed up the chap next door, who was getting told off for leaving his boot up, blocking the attendants' view of what he was doing. He was unreasonably grumpy about this.

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We may have had a discussion at this point about how boring this all was. We'd spent 2.5hrs sitting the RAV, then a couple of hours sitting on trains and were now enduring four hours (that was the plan!) of sitting in a ZX. We spent 20 minutes sitting in a traffic jam to the notorious Air Balloon roundabout near Cirencester.

 

Gloucester was pretty busy, Hereford even more so. Three hours of driving (non-stop bar the fuel) was taking its toll, and I fancied a break. Sadly, things started going badly wrong. We were hurtling along the A480, when the car suddenly began to feel very unsettled. There were strange clonks, and it began to feel like the back end was steering independently of the front. This was a worrying development. To make matters worse, it started raining, at which point I discovered that the wiper blade was utterly shot. My speed dropped considerably as I mentally ran through what could be at fault. We limped to Kington in Herefordshire, where we finally had a break.

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I started wobbling each wheel to see if I could feel any play. Sure enough, the offside rear had a terrifying amount of movement in it - several mil at the rim edge. I could see that the hub was moving with the wheel, but I checked the nuts anyway. Sod this. Food was needed. While we munched food, we began to accept that we would not make the party. We have friends a few miles away, and they kindly offered us a bed for the night. We limped there, parked up and crashed out.

 

This morning, I awoke to this view. Well, once I'd actually got out of bed.

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Yes, if you're going to break down, do it near a friend who owns exactly the same car. Well, ok. His is a Series 2 turbo diesel, but you get the point. Time to assess. We jacked mine up, pulled the hub nut cover off and spotted metal filings. That's pretty conclusive. We then hurtled out in the working ZX (Citroen number 4) to see if we could find a local garage. We found one a few miles away, and they managed to get a ZX rear wheel bearing chucked on the van that was already due to come out to them. Brilliant! We headed back to my stricken ZX, with me enjoying the feeling of turbocharger for a change. These are good engines.

 

Time to crack on with the job. 

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With the hubnut undone, we pulled the drum off, and all of these bits fell out.

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Thankfully, the remnants of bearing on the stub axle were persuaded off with a pair of grips. Drum into the turbo ZX, a quick dash to the garage, new bearing pressed in, £68 lighter (then another £7 for a wiper blade) and dash back to the house. Pictures don't follow now, but we hastily reassmembled, chucked our stuff in the car and drove away as quickly as 71bhp will let you.

 

We made it to the gig with ten minutes to spare! Which proves that 71bhp is quite quick enough really.

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After that merriment, we FINALLY got back home, a mere 23 hours later than planned.

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It must be said, I'm far from disappointed. The problem was easily overcome (thanks to my friend having all the right tools and knowing where to get bits), so we at least avoided a trip home on a recovery truck. The ZX is very pleasant to drive, despite the seats. The ride is absolutely superb - annoyingly, it's even better than BXs and the XM too. It handles really well too, though grip levels are not the best on these tyres - I did feel the front end push wide at one point (captured on the upcoming video) at quite a speed. Easy to control though, thanks to truly superb steering. Gosh the Honda is going to feel terrible next time I drive it!

 

It all ended up being a bit more of an adventure than planned, but I think even Mrs DW enjoyed it in the end. A more detailed look at the car will hopefully take place tomorrow. Thanks Brammy! My first ROFFLE collection is over.

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great story, strangely i love the seats in mine, 250 mile round trip last weekend with no problems. Considering I have spondylitis and find the expensive seat in my truck extremely uncomfortable I get on great with the seats in mine. i'll have 3 lucky dips when the time comes.

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Very good! I prefer the standard seats to volcane ones, mine hurt on the trip to Wales for sf16, although the adjustment was broken. My fat arse sorted that out after 2 years though!

 

Glad your home though. A good service and a thrash on roads your familiar with may help, when I bought my 1.4 it hadn't been used for 7 months, and before that just taken to the shops and back (a job it got replaced by with some 11 plate merc, so I bet that's dead now too). I pulled out of the vendors house on the test drive and panicked, no speed and we were on a 60mph bypass. The brakes were no better either. Took 2 weeks of me thrashing it and a tank of v power to loosen it up, then it was fine!

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Boy am I glad this turned out better in the end.

 

Yeah the super ride and almost on rails handling will be missed. They do stick a lot better with Michelin Energy (as the blue one had) but I'm sure any other brand would be just as good. 

 

I hope you enjoyed the (perhaps not as) sheddy BX too. I should have let you have a drive of that too, come to think of it.

 

I'm also going to miss the super tidy interior come to think of it, I detest messy interiors so always cleaned it when a speck of dirt appeared, although I didn't hoover it at all, partly due to me never letting anyone with muddy shoes in.

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Boy am I glad this turned out better in the end.

 

Yeah the super ride and almost on rails handling will be missed. They do stick a lot better with Michelin Energy (as the blue one had) but I'm sure any other brand would be just as good. 

 

I hope you enjoyed the (perhaps not as) sheddy BX too. I should have let you have a drive of that too, come to think of it.

 

I'm also going to miss the super tidy interior come to think of it, I detest messy interiors so always cleaned it when a speck of dirt appeared, although I didn't hoover it at all, partly due to me never letting anyone with muddy shoes in.

 

BX was nice, but the ZX feels like a BX with a better ride and interior quality. Never thought I'd prefer a ZX to a BX. Perhaps that's why I've been studiously avoiding ZXs over the years...

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I think I'd probably agree with that. I remember my 306 being leagues ahead of any other hatchback I'd ever driven. How the French managed to do comfort AND handling is something I never understood. Until I drove a Jaguar, but you'd expect that of a premium product. Quite remarkable for a family hatchback. Sadly, journos who insist on 'lairy' handling (ie no bodyroll at all) and a public that seems obsessed with unnecessarily large wheels (with shrink-wrapped rubber) mean manufacturers seem to have given up with ride comfort for the most part. 

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Their gr9 for sleeping in too!

 

 

Not convinced about that. I can just about cope with the Honda, and that has seats that deliberately make a bed!

The estates are excellent beds: my ZX has provided me with more than adequate overnight accomodation on more than one occasion. I am surprised about your comments about the seats, the ZX is one of the comfiest cars I've ever driven - but then we are spectacularly different in build! The handling is indeed awesome, I rate mine above the Puma in terms of feedback, and when it comes to high-speed crosscountry stuff, the ZX beats it too - its seems to soak up bumps extremely well.
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My mums Road is full of speedbumps, my old 1.4 was better at them at coughh60cough than the volcane was, but the volcane had stiffer, and much more fucked suspension. I'd rate the ride quality of my old 1.4 as much better than the xantia, but the xantia needs some work to that side of things doing to it

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How the French managed to do comfort AND handling is something I never understood. 

 

If the body and everything inside doesn't move up and down with the irregularities of a road, the suspension can get on with dealing with the road. Simple really, but few grasp the idea.

 

Add decent dampers from the era when Peugeot made their own, reasonable geometries and good suspension travel, it's not rocket science. There's summut wrong with a BX which doesn't manage poor roads as well as a ZX, never mind the cheapo struts and rubber bushes.

 

But at slow speeds, a steel (and softly) sprung car will always feel better over sharp edges.

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I s'pose it is true that every BX I've ever owned has been fairly high mileage. Most over 140k, one over 300k. Mind you, at 112k, this ZX isn't exactly brand new. 

 

Its performance over speedhumps, even those annoying narrow ones, is nothing short of remarkable. I can't wait to hoon it across the mountain road. Hydro Cits are a pain over the severe undulations of that road - bump stops here we come.

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Only the Peugeot-era LHM Cits are crap over speed humps, ime. A decent CX, GS or DS devours even the most enormous road humps at any speed above 40mph, usually above 25. Even my fave BX would sneer at them, with its more sensibly specced rear spheres.

 

Most electronic-brained-suspension PSA Cit has a fecking fit over even a small pothole let alone a sleeping policeman - I once launched an XM into the air at some ridiculously low (sub 40mph) speed over an obstreporous hump, it felt like it was going to brake its flimsy subframes.

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Suspension parts are buttons too, I changed both sides of drop links, lower balljoints and track rod ends for about £30 and a mornings work on mine, and they were fine 18 months later. Was all llemforder stuff from ECP if I recall. (I changed a lower balljoint again to troubleshoot the stiff steering which turned out to be the steering column UJ so that doesn't count). Even the rear beam bushes are quite easy, the beam lowers down enough to get them changed. That was only a few hours tinkering too.

 

Plus being a non volcane, you can fold the rear seats up. That was possible one of the biggest pains of the volcane, the rear bench is bolted to the floor so doesnt flip up so the backrest can fold into the floor.

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Not tried a GS over my favourite hoon roads, but the CX, while great over speed humps, is far too soft for Welsh mountain roads. They do not like crests!

 

Perhaps, but you mebbe just don't like sharp suspension checks. If you're really pressing on, sorting out a massive vertical axis g-reversal very rapidly makes much more sense for stability (if not comfort) than vertical waffling like a Golf when travelling quickly.

 

But an XM is much better at less-rapid corners than a CX, with less understeer thanks to the rock-hard Hydractive and the slightly self-steering rear axle. Unless the surface is slightly worse than imperfect and speeds are indecent.

 

Hydractive was a cheapo electronic alternative to a low centre of mass, wide track and supple suspension, allowing a conventionally-proportioned (and engineered) car to handle amazingly well.

 

Btw, I forgot to mention I love ZXs, they're lovely. Peugeot-Citroen at their best, along with the 405 and Berlingo. The 1.4s and unblown diesels are particularly lovely. It's weird that 306s feel so (relatively) uncouth back-to-back, even though they're great cars in their own way.

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Just tried identifying the horrible noise in the engine bay. Not sure I can conclude anything. Looks like there may be a tensioner on the alternator belt, but it's all very tight down there (typical PSA) and it's very hard to pinpoint the noise. It is pretty bad though. I may have to investigate before piling many more miles on this car.

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