The new news 24 thread

[dollywobbler]

I had a gt which was rather splendid. I'd break my lhm ban for a nice gti or 16v .

I'm sure there was a tzi up recently all be it a manual . I can't remember seeing any bx autos at all back on the day.

 

I've owned one petrol BX - a shabby 16v. It was sheer lunacy and had to be swapped for a Rover 414 bubble before I either killed myself or lost my licence. The way the power kicks in at 4000rpm is just astonishing.

[steve_earwig]

A quick hint on BX 16 Valve driving - if you get it air bourne it will return to the ground in full ABS mode - you will have no brakes for quite a few heartbeats so it's not a good idea to do this on, say, a humpback bridge on the approach to a mini roundabout

[Bucketeer]

I've owned two BXs in the past, a GTI 16V and a 19RD Estate. If I had to pick one model to have again, it would be the N/A diesel every time.

The 16V just felt like it was trying to shake itself to bits at every opportunity and I had no confidence in it whatsoever. The ride wasn't great and it just didn't feel like a BX to me, whereas the 19RD was a paragon of comfortable, relaxed, competent smokiness where every aspect was perfectly suited to every other. Even equal, transferable qualities just felt different, the diesel seemed light and nimble, the GTI seemed flimsy.

_{I've tried explaining my feelings on this subject to people before and have never managed to make any sense or explain coherently what I mean. No change here, apologies.}

 

Also, were there many differences between the engines in the BX 16V and the ZX 16V? It was probably just that specific engine, but my ZX felt A LOT faster than the BX.

[steve_earwig]

Maybe your BX 16v had seen too much time in the air... Comfy yet rock solid, both of them, even at vastly illegal road speeds. Mind you, the cars I'm talking about were only a handful of years old.

[nacho man]

So it's the weekend. Nice relax me thinks. No gotta service the old mans van

 

 

Luckily these to me are mega easy to work on and with no under tray it takes about 73 secs to change the oil and the filters up top, That's all it got today.

 

Then I get dragged to a country show my missus wanted to go to, I don't normally mind but it was full of toffs in disco 4's literally hundreds of the things everywhere.

 

Still I saw this

 

 

I also saw the 2014 mr universe of the cattle world

 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

From 1991-1993 I had a TZi estate manual as my official company car,as I had access to lots of pool cars and demonstrators my wife used it and I only drove it to either fill it up or tow something. The thing always impressed me with its ride and refinement even when getting out of something costing up to 5X as much, it was also pretty lively- sort of hot hatch quick and could tow about 3 tons legally*. The only problems were that it took ages to warm up and defrost in winter and was forever steaming up. The throttle cable broke once and I drove it 200 miles with a bit of string through the window,with an XR4i on a big tilt bed car trailer across the Cambrian mountains in December, by the time I got home I was a little peeved, not to mention fuckin cold!

A diesel would probably have been more suitable but in those days company car user choosers just didn't want them, our fleet had about 25 Gtis a couple of TZS autos and my estate.

[cort16]

I had a gt and my house mate had a gti at the same time . We didn't buy them because we liked them they were just cheap old bangers. His gti got crushed after it shit all it's lhm on the a1 and he lost a brakes on a slip road with his whole family in the car. Only avoided disaster by sticking it some bushes at the aside of the road . I never really trusted them after that .

[Cavcraft]

I sold one of the Corsas tonight, luckily* for you lot it wasn't the metallic red one for sale on here.

[Fat_Pirate]

I had a ride to Beaulieu today, as it was the annual motorbike ride-in thing.  I park up, take off my helmet, and immediately see not 1, not 2, but 6 Chrysler Alpines!  

 

 

For a moment I wonder if I've actually crashed, and this is the afterlife.

 

 

 

It was actually a Simca club thing.  Being charged £7.50 for piss-poor sausage and chips dispelled any thoughts about being in heaven.

 

[wuvvum]

My latest fleet reduction exercise has begun, as so many of them have, with the fleet getting larger.  I picked this up this evening from down in Surrey:

 

 

Now that summer's here*, I'd found myself missing the Saab and envying people driving around with the roof down.  Idly browsing through eBay one lunchtime at work, I spotted the above beastie, put a ridiculously low bid on it, then ended up winning it for less than my bid.

 

It's a 1.8, so performance is adequate rather than fast.  It's also been lowered and has a rather silly loud exhaust on it at the moment, which might not be staying long as it's quite embarrassing.  It has a few issues - door windows don't go down, locks are temperamental, ABS light comes on after a while, much of the Milford on the boot lid has Cubicled, and the clutch is getting towards the end of its useful life.  However, crucially there's nothing that'll stop it being used straight away (the last thing I need is another project), and it has 11 1/2 months' test and 4 1/2 months' rent so no immediate expenses to worry about either.  It drives well enough - structural rigidity is vastly better than the Saab, although the roll bar means it's never going to be as elegant with the top down.  It doesn't get hot, despite me making the mistake of driving back through central London (I thought to myself that it's a Sunday evening and the football's on so there won't be any traffic - how naive  ).  And before you ask, that puddle of oil in the photo was already there.

 

 

Other things that happened today:  I popped into the '70s show at Wroxham Barns, had a quick look round and a chat with Trigger in a wig.  I also appear to have broken my scooter - having fitted the new spark plug, it now barely runs at all, and won't rev about 6000 even with no load.  It does feel ignition-related rather than fuel - I don't know if the coil is on its way out, or maybe I just need to gap the spark plug (although I've never known a Honda engine to be fussy about that kind of thing).  Which means that I'm going to have to press the Spacy into use to get to work tomorrow, which will be interesting.  It does seem to have managed to retain most of its oil despite the leak, although I would imagine the rate of loss will increase once the oil gets hotter and therefore runnier.  We shall see.  Also, it still has no stand, so I might have to end up leaning it against the bike shed.

[stuboy]

bored in afternoon as was raining, so artist paintbrush, some gloss black paint and voila living room has more usage

[trigger]

For the money the Golf looks surprisingly good! Well played!

[hairnet]

plz giv me all ur scooterz

[xtriple]

Decided to keep the Mazda for the mo' as I'm scared shitless of anything modern with loads of electrical shite to go wrong - the old Mazda may be new(ish) but it's proper old school with nowt to worry about apart from the rust.... It ain't got none on the body but it's quite depressing to see the front subframe is already peppered in surface corrosion, Waxoil needed before winter I think. Anyway, I wanted to get something new before renewing the insurance, I HATE giving the thieving b'stards money for changing...

 

Did the old compare the merkat thing and got fully comp for £162 and an Oleg toy!

 

Then decided that as the dogs have been to the beach three days out of the last four, I'd better clean some of the sand and shit out of the car - removed the covers off the passenger side and the seat is bloody sopping wet! The waterproof cover I'd fitted under the blankets had split and it has all leaked threw - bollox!

 

I reckon that after another few months, the thing will have 30,000 miles up and the interior will be completely shagged!

 

Got to move to somewhere with parking so I can have multiple cars again, a garage would be nice as well as the storage unit costs me £80 a month and it's  tiny and I never go there! Really want another car, something old I can play with on my good days, though they are few and far between nowadays (sob!) .

 

On a lighter note, just watched Django unchained while smoking a Cuban cigar.... decadance, got a lot going for it!

[scruff]

Several months ago I broke a exhaust stud, it pissed me off so much at the weekend I got round to fixing it.

 

 

 

 

Tickled it up with the blaster.

 

 

IN YOUR FACE, POISONOUS FUMES 

 

 

[dollywobbler]

I had a gt and my house mate had a gti at the same time . We didn't buy them because we liked them they were just cheap old bangers. His gti got crushed after it shit all it's lhm on the a1 and he lost a brakes on a slip road with his whole family in the car. Only avoided disaster by sticking it some bushes at the aside of the road . I never really trusted them after that .

 

People never think of the handbrake in these situations do they? It's very handy having it operate on the front wheels! Presumably he also completely ignored the stop warning light. As I've discovered, even with a major hydraulic leak, you can still drive several miles with care. It isn't like they go BANG and you lose all control. Steering will start to go first, but even then there should still be enough accumulator pressure to bring the car to a halt.

 

Perhaps it's just an Autoshite thing that complete loss of brakes is something we just deal with rather than a  time to panic?

[cort16]

This guy was no stranger to shite cars so he knew the score. i think he might have been trying to get off the road because the stop light of doom came on plus whats to say the handbrake on a 300 quid bx would work? I only every took my BX on one long journey (to Scarbourough) and it shat a load of it's LHM out at whitby on the way home and I had to buy all the LHM in the local autofactors and stop every 20 miles topping it up. I like BX's, I like big Citroens but it's a flawed system.

Possibly it'll be fine if looked after properly but unless they get into the hands of someone who's into them it will go wrong.  It's like the k-series. If you look after it absolutely perfectly it'll probably be okay but 99% of people don't and so with a little neglect they don't work. Other cars will just work without any kind of specialist treatment.

[dollywobbler]

Whereas my experience is one major hydraulic failure in a 300,000 mile example that produced no excitement at all. I just drove far enough from home to get around the no-homestart clause, then got it recovered to a specialist. I don't consider it a flawed system. Unlike the C4 Grand Picasso for instance...

[beko1987]

The only LHM I lost in the XM was when the strut leakoff pipe popped off whilst the system was going up, which dribbled a bit over the wheel arch liner, oh, and the first time I changed the filter I spilt shit loads out of the tub I used to rest the filter in!

[cort16]

I think your looking at it through green tinted specticles DW. Just read all the antics on here and pretty much everyone with a BX or an XM on here has some kind of incident involving that setup.

it's rarely a mechanical or electrical issue it's usually LHM related in someway. I like Citroens don't get me wrong I just think you need to know what you're letting yourself in for.

 

Modern Citroens have got rid of the LHM, which at least had the benefit of providing something usefull and replaced it with suspect and crippling electrical systems.

[dollywobbler]

I'll concede that they did over-complicate the hydraulics. With the XM and Xantia, they just started shoving more and more suspension spheres in, needing every more plumbing (at least ten spheres on a Xantia Activa for instance). Really though, as long as you replace the front-to-rear pipes once a lifetime, there's very little to go wrong. When you've lived with one for a bit, you wonder why all cars don't self-level. Isolating Citroen hydraulics as an example of a problem people on here have had kind of ignores the fact that all old shite has its problems in one form or another!

 

For me, the benefits easily outweigh the downsides. Can't be too long before I own something else with green blood.

[wuvvum]

whats to say the handbrake on a 300 quid bx would work?

That's a very valid point, going on my experience anyway.

[dollywobbler]

All you need to do to improve a BX handbrake is press the brake pedal really hard, and possibly pull the handbrake on a couple of times. It doesn't last all that long, so just do it every few weeks. Certainly easier than trying to get a Maestro van handbrake to be any good at all.

[Junkman]

It isn't like they go BANG and you lose all control.

 

Just because this didn't happen to you yet doesn't mean it can't happen.

I was nearly killed by a CX that decided to suddenly go BANG, and the handbrake does sod all at 90+.

[dugong]

Went out with my colleague at lunch to work out why the hell the van was grinding round corners.

It wasn't a wheel bearing or a missing return spring on the brake drum - the rear wheels are from a 206 as such, completely the wrong width and offset - so under compression, the sidewall's hitting the rear beam and grinding. Tyres at the moment are 175 65 14s, and the (full size) spare is 155 65 14.

 

I didn't have clearance issues on the estate with the Rallye wheels, and I don't have the originals to hand. My route back from Chatteris was mostly straight, so it didn't show up straight away.

 

If the offset's wrong, that means the nuts are wrong, and nowhere seems to have skinny 14" Peugeot wheels.

ARGH.

[dugong]

All you need to do to improve a BX handbrake is press the brake pedal really hard, and possibly pull the handbrake on a couple of times. It doesn't last all that long, so just do it every few weeks. Certainly easier than trying to get a Maestro van handbrake to be any good at all.

Or, in the absence of actual maintenance.........crash?

[dollywobbler]

Junkman - a CX has a rather different steering system to a BX. I prefer the latter's vaguely sensible assisted rack and pinion.

 

Dugong - the thing is, I've heard of non-Citroens having brake failure too. And some of them have rubbish handbrakes. I've been around Citroens since I was 18 and haven't heard of anyone (bar the anecdotes on here) having sudden complete brake failure. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying it isn't a disaster that makes you nervous every time you want to slow down. It is a rare thing.

[vulgalour]

I need money, because reasons, so I've got a half price sale going on in my art thread: http://autoshite.com/topic/15640-vulgalour-arts-of-2014-50-off-all-new-artwork/

[barefoot]

I drove to South Wales & back on Saturday in the Scirocco of lasting joy, to buy furniture from sofa sofa, 282 miles on what looked like half a tank but in reality turned out to be 32 litres. Still, can't complain. Just over 40 mpg and we clattered along at an indicated 80 mph for most of the way - see 'should I tear up my licence' thread.

South Wales is not as pretty as mid Wales, can anyone recommend half decent camp sites for next year, devil's bridge / Aberystwyth way is my current favourite but anywhere considered.

[holbeck]

I drove to South Wales & back on Saturday in the Scirocco of lasting joy, to buy furniture from sofa sofa, 282 miles on what looked like half a tank but in reality turned out to be 32 litres. Still, can't complain. Just over 40 mpg and we clattered along at an indicated 80 mph for most of the way - see 'should I tear up my licence' thread.

South Wales is not as pretty as mid Wales, can anyone recommend half decent camp sites for next year, devil's bridge / Aberystwyth way is my current favourite but anywhere considered.

Sofa sofa, whose delivery men arrived in the dark on a filthy night, caught a glimpse of a homemade lasagne in our oven and just stared misty eyed at it for what seemed like hours until my wife gave in and cut a couple of portions to take with them.