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2002 Citroen Xsara VTS - another old French bird!!

180K views 616 replies 65 participants last post by  Ben_W 
#1 · (Edited)
So, here we go!

To quote something musical which I've not done for a while, Ice Cube had it right. Today was a good day (ask your dad kids :D )

With the buggy sold and the bank swelled with funds, I did the right thing and pacified the wife by buying a new dining table and promising her a posh holiday next year, on the proviso I could buy myself a new, cheap(ish) toy. Agreement was forthcoming.

I considered several cars. A white Rallye (they are the hottest ticket in Rallye world with another selling in the last two weeks for £5k but I have a Rallye already), a Clio F1 (very nice but not the cheapest) and several other more recent hot hatches. Nothing really, really took my fancy. I then bought the Xsara to break and wondered.........what if? The Citroen half of the late 90's hot hatch pairing.....wouldn't look bad on the drive, would it?

So I began looking. And looking. And looking a bit more. Crap, these are a bit thin on the ground. I found more Rallyes for sale than I did Xsaras. Hmmmmm............and then.....an advert appears on Gumtree and nowhere else, advertising a 2002 MY, 51 plate Xsara VTS, with 57k on the clock and two previous owners, in silver. 57k.......!!!!!!! How many 16 year old sports hatches have that mileage. This is the ad........



It HAD to be worth a look at that mileage and that history. Original P6000's (ditchfinders? But period correct!) Older lady owner for a long time? Deffo not been thrashed then. Decent MOT history backing up the sellers story. Trouble was, I wasn't free until Sunday. At this point, I made the mistake of sharing the link and my plans with someone. That, along with a lesson well learned, is all I'm going to say publicly.

Details being what they are, I noticed the seller had reduced the price to £300 on Sunday night. Much frantic phonecalling, which resulted in me getting a voice mail message numerous times finally paid off with the seller picking up at 21:37 on a Sunday night.

I apologised profusely for the time of my call. It had to be right then otherwise I'd have lost it. I told the seller I knew what had transpired the day before (I apologise again for the cryptic sh!t but like the walls, the internet has ears) and had a lengthy discussion with him regarding the car, offering some advice after asking some questions. The £300 was a result of what he had been told (I'll share privately for those of you I know who ask). An agreement was made that he'd get some advice by lunchtime Monday and I'd go view Monday night after work as it's 50 miles from work. I remember thinking at this point this now turning into some Lincolndanny esque press car kinda chase :D

Mid afternoon, I text the seller as I've heard nothing. He replies, confirming some info I had been after, and crucially, what someone else had offered him and that he was considering accepting. Act cool Trig, act cool.......

I left work dead on time and hightailed it to where he was. I arrived at 17:40 and immediately knew I was onto something. This was my view parking up.





Seller met me at the door and was very keen to show me the car. It was as he said. Completely original, very, very clean (some stone chips etc but very clean) and, completely bog standard.

Having satisfied myself the major component was good, I got busy looking round, especially underneath.

Just wow. This thing is clean. I mean really clean.







.

Doesn't look like it's ever seen a jack, let alone one in the wrong place. The spare even seems to have an original Michelin.....



The rest of it, whilst a little dirty in places, is honest, rust free and just in need of a clean.











A time capsule car. Went for a drive, it drove well enough. Went back, looked through a mountain of history which again, matched the MOT history. I knew at this point I had to have it. Asked what it would take to buy it. Seller said make it an offer. £850 prompted a forthcoming handshake. Deposit immediately transferred (mobile app internet banking, bloody ace!)

In truth, I think I stole it. I've picked up what has to be one of the cleanest, low mileage Xsara VTS's left. Plans are to collect Friday, giving me a whole weekend to really get into/under it. I cannot wait.

Sorry to disappoint Mr Lincoln....I did have a chance at a Ph1 in that green/yellow but had been sat 18 months and the seller wanted £1k.....
 
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#62 ·
I had my suspicions this car would turn out to be pretty clean underneath from the photos I took when I viewed it. I wasn't expecting to find what I did though....

The prelimaires.







Once I got it it jacked up front and rear, I got under it. It would have been far easier if I could have got it up on an outside ramp but that's not happening....lying on your back, under it with a scrubbing brush, trying not to get muddy water in your face is interesting! I pulled the fuel lines out of their clips to get better access and scrubbed. Once the scrubbing was done, washed down with the noodle wash mitt and then let the pressure washer loose. I wasn't expecting what I was left with.





That's even cleaner than i could have hoped for. Apologies there are no more pictures but it was awkward enough getting those. As soon as it's up on a ramp, I'll get some more.

Then it was onto the boot floor. I dropped the spare out of the way. Again, only one real after but I'll get more.





Again, pretty clean back here.



The passenger side was just as clean. Towards the front there is some was appears to be black underseal type stuff. Again, better pics when up in the air.

So, that's the underside complete, for now.
 
#63 ·
Next stage was to start prepping the body for machining. I might have already posted some pics but attacked it with Dragon's breath. Surprisingly (or maybe not surprising given its just been pottered about locally all its life?), there was very little fallout coming off. So washed, I cracked on with the clay. Valet Pro blue, with Sonus Clyde (smells lovely!) and apart from the lower doors with the usual tar spots, there wasn't too much coming off. Claying complete, I moved onto machining.

Being silver, it's a pig of a colour to see the night and day improvements you get with other colours and an even bigger pig to photograph which is why I didn't take any during pics.

Flex XG3401, Lake Country CCS orange cutting pad and Menzerna 2400 to correct, with a black LC pad and Menzerna 3800 to finish.

It's certainly added a lot of definition and gloss. So far, I've done the driver's side completely. Bonnet has been polished but needs refining.











Very pleased with how it's turning out so far. Cleaned all the glass on the driver's side too as they were filthy and had water marks in the inside as well as the outside. Tidied up and parked it on the drive. Couldn't resist a picture with its brother from another mother....

 
#65 ·
It's not all perfect. It needs a check strap in the driver's door. It's as noisy as you like. £20 will sort that. It has a noisy lifter. I was told it was a tapper. It's clearly not as the noise is intermittent (this is the first time I've heard it) but having sat all day today, I started it cold tonight and left it running. The lifter was noisy. Once the oil temp came up a bit, it quietened down very quickly but it's deffo there. I'll look into that. Driver seat frame i think has seen better days. Last points are i think the front suspension arms are tired and the tyres have to go! Despite the tracking being right and the tyres being blown up, it still feels heavy on the front end. P6000's aren't factory fit although period correct but they are awful and the rears are about done in terms of wear so I'll look for a set of 4 replacements.
 
#68 · (Edited)
So, one of the few things I've not shown is the passenger door. It's got a couple of dings, both of which go right through a swage line and the worse one of the two is in a place that's a pig to access.





Not an easy repair. I have however found a much better looking door on eBay (after sifting through about 3 million Xsara Picasso doors...:rolleyes: ) Only issue is it's in Dorset and the sellers won't post, which is a pain but I understand why.

Onto tonight. Rubbish day at work, partly due to a crap night's sleep last night. Came home and decided to do a bit of therapeutic detailing. It rained here last night and the car is very dusty/sandy and so needs a good wash which meant any machining was out of the question. I'd notice the boot was a bit of a state so I pulled all the crap out of it and dragged the hoover out to it.









Pretty clean other than one mark on the carpet, which feels like glue or something. Still, it came up looking pretty good so mm pleased with that. Srcubbed all the boot plastics with a brush and G101 but didn't get any pics.

Then onto the edges of the boot and around the hinges and boot shuts.











Edges of the boot look like they've had stickers on then. Same both sides.....not sure what that might be. Am out of tardis so they will have to stay for now. Then onto the driver's side door shut. This was the last bit of cleaning as the light was fading fast...





So once I'd finished messing with that, I read the manual and had a play with the multifunction display. Figured there is a button on the end of the wiper stalk which cycles through mpg, range, distance covered and one or two other things which escape me at the mo. I've reset the mpg to see what I get.





The service interval clearly hasn't been reset. Mileage at the last service I think was 37k so this would about fit with that. I know it's been serviced since but I'll do it again and reset it and go from there.
 
#74 ·
Totally agree with Danny, Ben. A good friend had a silver megane and the nearside rear door was dented badly. He bought a door from an identical silver car in a scrap yard, and fitted it. The colour was a mile out. Same paint code, same year of car. Completely different silver. Odd but hey.

Definitely get a good PDR guy on that. Did I send you the vid of the job a guy did on the Corsa Mrs Cooks dented?

N

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
#75 ·
The polishing continues.

Having had a couple of decent enough runs home from work this week, last night I wasted £35 and went to watch England play at Leicester city. Less said the better apart from I went in the Xsara and picked up a mate who loved it's retro interior and spritely performance, as like I, he owned Peugeot GTis of old (a 1.6 205 GTi and also a Saxo VTR).

It's road manners are pretty good. A change of tyres will improve things but generally it's quick and smooth and a nice place to be and drive!

Onto tonight. I continued the polishing. Passenger side rear quarter. I've no pics which is a shame as again, I made a decent improvement, especially to a number of marks. The orange CCS pad wasn't giving the correction I wanted. A switch up to a pink CCS pad made a world of difference.

With the light starting to fade, I packed the polishing gear away and whilst rooting around in the cabin, I noticed a button on the end of the headlight stalk saying 'Auto'.........hmmm.

Press and hold out of curiosity and.....



Result. Auto lights and wipers.

As for the lights, well, some work to do in that department. They are typically turn of the century PSA items. Better off having a couple of candles in jars hanging off the front. The driver's side appears to have a particularly odd pattern. The MOT history suggests this side has been an issue before, with the be being too low which appears to be the same again at the moment. No sign of any accident damage so I'm suspecting either the bulb or the headlight unit itself. You need to be a contortionist with the hands of a 5 year old to get access to the bulb so may well look into removing the whole lamp unit. Doesn't look easy though......bring back the days of the MK3 Mondeo. Two slide pins, job done....... Anyway, more on the headlights later.

Onto more mundane, data protection related horsesh!t (yes, it's rattled my cage that much). V5 arrived today and low and behold, the previous owner section has been replaced with a data protection section. No mention of previous owner name or address, despite him having shared his address with me, met.me etc.



It gets better yet. I rang Warners Citroen of Gloucester as they were the supplying dealer from new and worked on it until approx 2009/39k. Spoke a lady on the service dept, explained I'd bought the car, they'd supplied from new and could I have the work history of the car that they had done?

No. I can't. If I want it, I have to get the owner at the time to get it.

Me: "I don't care about any other details other than the work carried out"

Her: "I can't give it you due to data protection"

Me: "So how do I find out the original owner given the DVLA have knocked the V888 service on the head, citing the same Data Protection crap?"

Her: "........................"

Me: "I'll ring Citroen Customer services. Bye". Click.

Citroen Customer services:

Me: Explain the above again to a man who couldnt have sounded more uninterested if he tried.

Him: "You need to call the dealer and speak to the service manager. You shouldn't have been told that"

Me: "So you can't tell me?"

Him: "Due to Data Pro.........click. :wall: :wall: :wall: :censored:

If you hear in the news of a Citroen dealership in Gloucester, having its front doors kicked in by a large, very irate man, driving a silver Xsara, please politely ask a mod to quickly and quietly to delete this thread whilst whistling innocently......
 
#76 ·
Indeed it is very daft!

Luckily when i bought the Avensis last month at Auction I had the foresight to, as they gave me the V5 to sign for new keeper ask for a pen, take a quick picture of the last keeper and then sign it (they won't give you it and charge £45 for processing it!!!).

When the new V5C arrived, zero details of anyone [emoji20]. Luckily I got some excellent info when I phoned him and it stopped me searching for a service history that does not exist (he did it himself). The other good thing is Toyota have an app which gives me all the details I need on the car using the VIN and also the Toyota dealer printed their complete record (including purchase costs etc) and stamped up the replacement service book for me too.

Luckily that crap was not in existence when I bought the Lexus as speaking to the previous owner was really useful, heartwarming and gave me a mission to look after it (he bought it new, and owned it until his Parkinson's and Dementia meant the DVLA revoked his licence - it meant a lot to him and I hope he is doing well).

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#77 ·
It really is absolutely crazy. Some organisations really don't have a clue as to what constitutes personal information. If the invoices do contain any personal information, as soon as they're properly anonymised, it no longer constitutes personal information.

Nuts.

Cooks

PS - Great update, buddy.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
#78 · (Edited)
Bit more on the rear tonight.

Started with the clay at on the tailgate after giving it a quick wash. Again, not much to report, the clay whilst doing its job wasn't finding too much to remove. Never a bad thing.

Some bits I struggled with:

Around the edge of the spoiler, windscreen side and the badges. Both areas are fairly mucky and stupidly inaccessible. The spoiler whilst bolted, is also bonded to the boot. I took the one from the Ph1 for someone and it was an utter pain to get off, having big lumps of a sealant of some sort of either corner so removal isn't an option.









The badges are the same. I'll try going at them with G101 and a brush but I'm not confident I'll get it as clean as I'd like. Removal of the badges is an option but if anyone has any tips, I'm all ears.

Removal of the number plates and a quick wash revealed this.



Few mins with the clay bar and...



Then out with the Flex and the pink pad.....



Much better. A poorly fitted (albeit original) plate hasn't helped. Holes in the plate, very slightly wider than the holes in the tailgate, meaning the plate is very slightly bowed, meaning the ends rub....







I'll try wet sanding those marks at the weekend and see what I can improve...and then there is the lovely self tappers that attach the plate. You'd have thought that by 18th Jan 2002 we'd have known there are better ways to attach a plate than self tappers? Clearly someone hadn't evolved that far....





Again, I'm hoping some wet flatting and maybe the application of Hydrate 80, Electrox and then a rattle can may fix that.

Door check strap has been ordered, the noises the knackered one is making is akin to nails down a blackboard....

Trying to find other bits on eBay is a joy. eBay isn't clever enough to differentiate between a Citroen Xsara and a Citroen Xsara Picasso (hateful heaps) meaning I have to sift through page after page after page of picasso bits to find what I need.......
 
#82 ·
Massive thanks to Jas_racing, that's helped me cut through all the picasso rubbish!

So, today, I did some internet shopping....@ eurocarparts. I could probably have used carparts4less and got it cheaper but as they wouldn't deliver until Monday at the earliest and I wanted to get done this weekend, ECP it was. Got about 35% off anyway so not bad.

Service kit:







Full service kit. Oil, filter, sump plug washer and the correct NGK BKR3EK twin electrode plugs for this engine. In the garage I've a proper air filter element in Peugeot packaging. It should be, after tomorrow, pretty much as the PSA group intended. Only difference I think is that std PSA filters were Purflux. Also treated it to a Valeo rear wiper blade. Chose that over Bosch, purely because Valeo was OEM....

Got busy tonight with the hoover and the Wowos interior finisher. Really pleased with how clean this car is, inside as well as out.




Planned on doing some more paintwork but rain stopped play...

There's always tomorrow.....
 
#83 ·
Bit of early morning ebaying......

The wing mirror covers on mine are done......paint has failed spectacularly. Generally, I seem to remember the covers being an absolute pain to get off without breaking the clips and I'm not trying to paint them on the mirror units so, £20 later and I have a genuine Citroen pair!






Just to decide how to paint them. Might have a go with a rattle can...
 
#84 ·
What a bargain. I painted the mirror covers on the focus panther black from a rattle can, and they worked out well, with only 5 or 6 visible runs (joke). Silver is slightly less forgiving than black, but with your ability, you’ll have have them looking perfect.

N


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
#89 ·
So, a very busy and productive day on the Xsara.

Again, not necessarily in chronological order (because if it was, it would be a pain to try and follow!).

One of todays jobs was to try and sort the dents on the edges of both doors where they have been opened into things. Both side, both clearly noticeable when the doors are shut, and both getting right on my ****! The bonnet I noticed much later on in the day but this is about dent correction so...the application of a rubber mallet and:













Whilst not completely perfect, they are much, much better.
 
#90 ·
So, with the door dents resolved, I turned my attention to the passenger side of the car and machining.

Clayed first. Nothing exceptional, usual bottom of doors tar etc.



A fair few marks...







A good polish and much better...





There wasnt much else to report on the passenger side!

Now, the roof........ooooof, the roof........







Flatter than a flat thing. No reflections, no definition, no shine. No anything really. Where to begin?

I tried polishing a corner with the pink pad and Menz 2200. It didn't touch it. Time for the really big guns. I've had a bottle of Menz Powergloss that came with my DAS6 when I bought it many, many moons ago. I've never had a cause to use it. Until now.

With nothing to loose, I have it a whirl. It feels like brick dust! Chucked on a well lubed pad, and off I went....pad temps were an issue and it smells odd but, hell, did it do a job. Did the whole.roof, then polished with an orange pad and the Menz 220, then refined with a black pad and 3800. I was really, really pleased with how far improved it was. Not perfect but some clear definition, reflection and gloss...



 
#91 · (Edited)
Spurred on by the success of the roof, it was onto the bonnet. Pretty much the same as the roof, flat, etc.

I didn't get a complete before shot. I do have this 50/50 after polishing the driver's side...again, same process, Power Gloss on a pink pad....



And the while bonnet cut and polished. It still needs refining.



Again, really really happy with results. At this point I packed up for the day. Wife is out tonight and she was leaving, I was knackered, and the light going. After a long hot shower, my daughter and I nipped to the local Morrisons as I needed dinner and cider! Took the opportunity to capture some of the car park light and our security light reflections...







I'm pretty happy with that level of correction. Pretty happy indeed.
 
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