XM as Daily Transport

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Cattle Dog

Member
Tadpole
Joined
Sep 21, 2004
Messages
25
Location
Melbourne
Is a V6 XM practical to drive to work every day, Roughly 20km round trip, or are they better as a weekend only car?
 
It's a modern car ... Just make sure it's got a towbar so it can earn it's keep.

I'd have no hesitation using one for anything.... Even if it was driving everday, towing loads or bashing down bush tracks. There designed to be used (like all big Cit's), not left sitting in a shed :D
 
Is a V6 XM practical to drive to work every day, Roughly 20km round trip, or are they better as a weekend only car?
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I m curious....why do u ask such a question.....???
Have you heard otherwise.....what is the logic/reasoning behind the question?



cheers


dino
 
Shane is right on this matter. They are meant to be used not rotting in garages.
The only issue you might have is with fuel economy the big cits aparemtly are real gas guzzlers.
I love the XM however and you still see plenty of families in France going to holidays in them. Very popular cars..:headbang:
 
Gee, 20km, could be tricky... :D Mine does the 15 km each way to work each day in light "city" traffic. Look at it this way, if you would drive a (heaven forbid) crummydore the same distance each day you would drive the XM and enjoy it far more. Judicious use of the accelerator pedal is required in the first few weeks of ownership to keep your fuel consumption lowish. Driven with care but not babying it you will get around 12l/100km

Besides, it looks better than most other cars on the road and when you need to you can fit a HUGE load in them.:headbang:
 
Only danger of driving 20 km a day is that it won't be enough and you will find yourself going the long way. No one would ask about driving a c-dore/f-can 20km a day. I doubt the economy would be different to any other large car and on that sort of distance fuel is not the main cost. Most people will tell that short trips are hard on cars as they never get to warm up properly but this is a car thing not an XM thing.

If you enjoy driving nice cars the XM is hard to beat. :D

regards
sean
 
Jeez, Cattle Dog, is that a rhetorical question?

They are a marvellous daily car. After driving one to and from work each day you will want to go on a long trip over the weeked to blow the weekday cobwebs out of it. I've had mine since August last year and in those 5 months I have done about 11,000 km. Daily drives to work (about 15km each way) and a few long trips. Mine is the V6 auto and overall fuel consumption is about 9.5l/100km. I've just put a towbar on it (thanks UFO) as I reckon it would make a brilliant tow car.

Roger
 
Send me some pics would you Roger (of the towbar fit) I still haven't fitted mine. Something to do with being too busy doing everything else. Perhaps a TowbarTechDay at Cit In???
 
UFO said:
Send me some pics would you Roger (of the towbar fit) I still haven't fitted mine. Something to do with being too busy doing everything else. Perhaps a TowbarTechDay at Cit In???
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Craig, you mean I have to come to Cit-In in the XM and not the DS19? Surely you're joking . . .

The fitting points were pretty obvious, but the job took me a whole day. It mounts with 4 bolts, none of which were there. I had 2 short bolts that fitted (12mm, grade 8.8, about 30mm long) but had to go and buy the 2 long ones. 12mm, grade 8.8, 90mm long. Then I had to make 2 tubular spacers so the long bolts would not crush the car's rear frame. The holes were already there, apart from the 2 in the boot floor which I had to drill.

You mount the side brackets first. There is plenty of room for one of them but to get the other in I had to disconnect the exhaust rubber and lever the rear muffler out of the way. The long bolts go through the boot floor. I drilled a couple of plates to put on top of the boot floor under the bolt heads to spread the load, about 150mm x 32mm x 6mm, from a piece of scrap I had on hand. The short bolts go through an angled strengthening piece towards the rear. Then you bolt the centre piece to the side pieces. Again 4 bolts, 12mm, grade 8.8.

Then you have to wire it up. A third hole in the boot floor needed to be drilled. The rear light clusters have 2 parallel electrical connectors with pins poking out. If I had time I would have tried to get a mating connector to wire to for the left hand side, but I used 4 female spade lugs and put colour coded heatshrink over them. The right hand side already had a connector in the extra slot to feed the high stop light. There was already a male spade lug ready for the right blinker wire.

Doesn't sound like a lot but it all took me a whole day. The thing did not come with any attachment point for safety chains so I will have to weld one on. It's a Towsure towbar from the UK (name under the ball mounting), so I'm stumped why it wouldn't have a safety chain attachment point.

Roger
 
Craig, you mean I have to come to Cit-In in the XM and not the DS19? Surely you're joking . . .
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Roger please all the people in the cccnsw that have 2 cars have a veritable team of drivers for their multiple cars. Cant you bring both?:party:
 
I've seen Rogers DS19 and XM... No thought required ... I'd take the DS19 every single time without fail (though my opinions may change if I had to take SWMBO or the caravan).

Rogers DS19 is an exceptionally nice looking car. It has a really nice 50's colour scheme. His XM ... is an XM ... Which much like a CX, BX, Xantia ... etc... just doesn't have the same appeal.

seeya,
Shane L.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I had the chance to drive one just before christmas but was unimpressed with the suspension, it was much the same as my XF falcon ute!!! So there were clearly problems with the V 6 XM
and I decided not to buy it, it's still for sale and the price has gone up...
My ute is a very useful car so I thought it would be practical to keep it and use the XM as my good car to enjoy driving and touring Victoria of a weekend.
 
Cattle Dog said:
Thanks for all the replies. I had the chance to drive one just before christmas but was unimpressed with the suspension, it was much the same as my XF falcon ute!!! So there were clearly problems with the V 6 XM
and I decided not to buy it, it's still for sale and the price has gone up...
My ute is a very useful car so I thought it would be practical to keep it and use the XM as my good car to enjoy driving and touring Victoria of a weekend.
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"Unimpressed with the suspension"? I bet most of the spheres are flat. Could you bounce the corners of the car up and down by hand? I thought not. Mine rides heaps better since I replaced the four flat ones on it with some mostly charged ones that Shane had lying around. Sure, they are not a DS19 but they should be a lot better than an XF ute. By all means keep the ute, they are indeed practical, but get an XM too. You might need to wait for a better one.

Roger
 
Certainly sounds like flat spheres to me, and the optimist has INCREASED the price :rolleyes: :confused:

Roger, we will have both the XM and D Spec at Cit In. Partly because we will have so much stuff to take with us for Cit In stuff (including a laser printer would you believe?) Besides, the D has never been to Dubbo and I want to see the reaction from my nieces and nephews:joker:
 
How are the cit-in arrangements coming along, how many have booked?
As you might guess, I'm getting restless! john s
 
Cattle Dog said:
Thanks for all the replies. I had the chance to drive one just before christmas but was unimpressed with the suspension, it was much the same as my XF falcon ute!!! So there were clearly problems with the V 6 XM
and I decided not to buy it, it's still for sale and the price has gone up...
Click to expand...

If you need a ute, you need a ute, and an XM isn't a ute. But it is a large and comfortable car with decent load carrying space.

Is that the car at South Yarra? Saw they now want around $20K for it - was around $15 K when first advertised and you were looking at it, if I remember correctly. The price hike could suggest it's had some major work over Christmas. Looks like it may be a similar vehicle to UFO's. http://www.carsales.com.au/pls/carsales/!cs_content.member_dealer_vehicle?vehicle_id=2659648&current_rec=1&total_rec=1&sort_type=&make_id=53&model_id=2798&state_id=-1&search_distance=25&alert_id=41226&hash_id=704120385

Just to make sure it's said three times (this ensures that it's true), a few hundred dollars of new spheres (or regas the existing if possible) and it would probably feel completely different. I thought my XM's ride was good, but with new spheres it's improved significantly. The hydractive won't soak up every little bump at low speed, but try it on patchy tar and corrugated corners at moderate speed and it's a revelation (and a lot of fun). The speed humps in Legoland (aka Beacon Cove) can be safety and enjoyably ignored.
 
This is the 24V XM, the fast one. No headlight washers so not a UK import. If I didn't have an XM then this would be the one to get.

Cattle dog if you would like some things to look at on this car drop me a PM.

regards
sean
 
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