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The Citroen ZXs of Autoshite


D Spares & Tyres

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There doesn't seem to be much mention of xsaras on here apart from Picasso's. No love?

Not from me! I had a Xsara many years ago but didn't get on with it. Horrible interior and all character the ZX had seemed to have vanished.

 

Strangely though, Those estate van versions look mildly tempting...

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post-5612-0-30246500-1536872263_thumb.jpg

 

My old 1.4 Aura. Paid £400,bought from its first owner with 60k on the clock. Was great, really should have put a new exhaust on it and kept it but got tempted by xm ownership.

 

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My 1.9td! Loved that car, but it was shagged out by the end! Sold to Dean_numbers for £50 on my way to bubs to pick up the xantia, which saved me the train as daz came down to collect me!

 

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Didn't get to see it reach 300,000 miles. That woolard was taken on 299.something,then Dean promptly broke it for spares and cut it up and I think found it very rotten, so me getting rid was timed well! Various bits live on though!

 

Would have another like a shot! The 1.4 was fab at blezzing down the back roads to work, but revvy on the motorway at speed, but fab everywhere else and tbh almost as ace on fuel as the xud was, don't recall the figures but it was bloody economical. Xud was as we all know fab everywhere! A lot of love for the zx here!

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Here's mine, it's been a bit of an AS bike.

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It's still awaiting an MOT, because of rust:

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That's the fuel pipes at the bottom of the shpt that're in the way of me repairing the previous repair. If you look really closely to just of the right-of-centre of this next photo, you can see the water escaping in a blob from said previous repair now that I've hacked onto it with the cutting disc.

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Saturday's going to be fun.

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Infact christ (I've got the pictures out now, sorry..) this is THE first picture taken of the blue ZX

 

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1st September 2012...

 

I remember finding Autoshite after seeing this for sale and looking for info on it, so it's thanks to THIS car that I'm here! (you cant thank it now, it's probably long fragged sadly)

 

I did just go and try to find my first ever post but the search only goes back to 2014, grrr

 

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And this was probably THE most fun commute home I've ever had! It coped with everything, I was sailing past stranded mercs and bmw's and other modern tin!

 

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RIP, it had one MOT after I sold it, and they must have not changed the tyres as they were borderline when I flogged it!. The 2013 one was the one it had with me

 

 

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Hairs split. 

 

I honestly don't think so and it seems I'm not alone. As Mr D Spares points out there are differences in the front end too, these small changes can add up. Maybe owning one with a dodgy tyre combo for only a week jaded your opinion prematurely? After reading your post I've asked my mate who owns the aqua marine one in my post. He's an ex fast 306 licker and his opinion after 4K miles in a 220 quid shitter (although a looked after one mechanically) is pretty much the same. He finds the car grips better, is comfier and even goes further to say he prefers the interior/dash too. Did you get chance to hoon yours down a decent A or B road or even better a Welsh one?

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Never owned. Zx myself but my best mate and brother both had them in xud form, I was always a Xantia man.

 

My friend fiddled the fun screw on his and it went very, very well. My wife had a few 306s in 1.4, 1.6 and 2.0 Hdi flavour. Our Hdi 306 was an absolute hoot! When my brother then got his I was really impressed with the ride and handling compared to its contemporaries, very sorted.

 

Prefer the shape of the Zx, but that's mainly because it looks like a Xantia!

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Quite a lot of history with these, although I've never driven a 306.

 

My dad had a couple new - a 3 door and then an estate - which I think were both pretty decent spec.  The 3-door might even have been a Volcane, he certainly remembers it with great fondness as a sporty thing.  I don't have any photos of those.

 

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I briefly owned a 1.4 as a stop-gap after my Mk 1 BX was written off and I only ever saw it as such.  However for £100 it did me right for about six months and looking back it was quite a fun thing to drive.  At the time I was only interested in hydraulic Cits though!

 

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Oh that colour...  more than once I walked straight past it in a row of parked cars.

 

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A year or so after that my sister had one, which again she had bought for an extremely small amount of money as a runabout.  Hers was even tattier than mine and didn't, I think, have a single undented panel!

 

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Sometimes a Talbot was underneath it.

 

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I've had a Xsara too but I didn't really like it...  The ZX/306 were pretty good cars of their era but the Xsara really didn't move the game on at all.  Plus mine was a Mk 2 and they're absolutely gopping.  Nimble handling a bit blunted by the extra weight, and the interior was cheap.  Mine was not reliable, either.

 

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People certainly seem to remember them fondly in the main? Thinking about it, at one point in time I knew 5 friends who were all running derv ZX's of one shape or form all at the same time when I had my Volcane!

 

Yeah, I wish I'd been a bit kinder about mine at the time really, but I just saw it as a cheap stop-gap until I could get back into a "proper" hydraulic Citroen.  Looking at those pictures reminds me what a fun little thing it was though.

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People certainly seem to remember them fondly in the main? Thinking about it, at one point in time I knew 5 friends who were all running derv ZX's of one shape or form all at the same time when I had my Volcane!

And not one of them ever went near a filling station...

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As everyone else has:

 

28009339380_9f1f1fbaa5_b.jpg1992 Citroen ZX Avantage. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

My first ZX and my first car. I got it thanks to this forum (cheers mouseflakes) as it was posted on the eBay tat thread, it was about 2 miles from where I lived, so that was that really. To be honest, it was a smart and tidy thing, not really any marks on it. Same old boy owner for about 24 years, then some lad I got it off. Manual choke, no PAS, a tape deck that spat everything out, much to the anger of my twat of an ex. The keyfob worked though! Had a hot start issue occasionally, meaning it would crank for ages. Only sold as I bought a BX, like an idiot.

 

28766789603_f26ce42311_b.jpg1994 Citroen ZX Avantage Diesel. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

Number two, and my second car. Won off of eBay for not a lot, something like £250 with reasonable test. It began my obsession with going on trains to people I don't knows houses. Actually no, that began in the days I was on Myspace, but that's another story...

 

It drove fine for me. It did something like 4k in three months, and still started first time without fuss, no smoke ever. The seats were the same as two of my other ones, but they felt better in this one.

 

Sold to DW, (well roffle), when it then decided to try and kill him with a broken wheel bearing.

 

35139368885_2d8f03c58c_b.jpgMy 1992 Citroen ZX Aura TD. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

This thing was a laugh. Bosch pump, early non cat TurboD, and it flew. It had done silly mileage, over 200k, and was full of holes. But the seats were great. I even managed to lock the keys in it one night, in a dodgy part of Reading, and no one touched it.

My mum hated it when i let her drive it, moaning about the unlatched bonnet, heavy clutch, worn out gear linkages....there's no helping some people.

 

36746812994_a64ac79090_b.jpg1993 Citroen ZX Avantage. by Sam Osbon, on Flickr

 

And here is the fomer me, former beEP and now D Spares ZX. I went to Exeter for this. The guy selling it didn't want me to leave a deposit, he wanted the WHOLE amount to let me commit unseen. I did it (rather foolishly) but it turned out fine. Didn't really like it though. 

 

 

This reminiscing has made me decide that the next decent Volcane or Aura TD to appear for sale is mine, when I get bored of the 19. Next week then!

 

Couple of bug bears with ZXs:

 

-The gearstick gaiters always come loose

-The seats on the lower trim models are absolute rubbish

-Parcel shelf strings hang out of the boot. Constantly.

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Here's one of mine N/A 1.9D at it's regular destination moving cement mixers, gas ovens, ladders etc from by the M25 to the Iberian peninsular.

 

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Here's another, a turbot one littering the roadside in Surrey with another just nosing in behind.

 

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Not sue if I have pictures of any of the others but here's a wheel one left behind.

 

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and here's someone else’s supercharged engine

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

New acquisitionpost-19511-0-53212800-1549832237_thumb.jpg

 

So how many on here have owned this?

 

It seems mostly ok. Desperately needs a cut and polish. Rear axle seized unfortunately, but I do have a spare. No rush fixing this up, I have plenty of other things to do for now!

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The ex-Bramz and BEep ZX is still going strong, but the seats were giving me backache so it now has 405 front seats. Much better, 405 seats are the bestpost-19511-0-03766200-1549832551_thumb.jpg

 

Thought I would try to cure one of the persistent coolant leaks this car has. Most hoses have weeped at some point in my ownership but at the rear of the XUD is a plastic union where four hoses join. This was slightly cracked so as Haynes would say 'simply undo the two bolts and remove' Er, no. It still has the original hose clips which are so much fun to remove in an awkward space. Cue much cursing and butcherypost-19511-0-10733100-1549832810_thumb.jpg

 

I replaced it with a much earlier cast aluminium one off a 205. Much better.

 

Next job, replace another crumbling gearknob. Even the one I replaced it with has a crack. Not many decent 1990s PSA gearknobs left!

 

Next job, take a look at the advisories for rust at the rear...post-19511-0-23406800-1549833007_thumb.jpgpost-19511-0-83008100-1549833026_thumb.jpg

Oh dear. I'll do that another day. I can't see there being many of these left in a few years. Besides me, who on earth is going to bother welding these up?

 

To make myself feel better I treated it to new shoes. It looks so much better than the 13 inch wheels with trimspost-19511-0-95929400-1549833461_thumb.jpg

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That's the one! Although looking at his photos, it now has a different number

Ah its a good one that - I never really used for its intended purpose - that being a super economical commuter as I was using something else at the time (I forget what) and the few jobs I wanted to do which included giving the faded paint work a mop was always harboured by bad weather - then we had all that snow too....

 

Good luck with it - does it still have all the writing under the bonnet on various bits and pieces?

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