Welcome!

This site was originally dedicated to Citroën's upper middle category cars, the BX series of automobiles, from the point of view of those owners who were not afraid of tackling some maintenance and repair work on their car themselves. As years have passed, more and more pages of its larger brother, the Citroën XM were added. Although the name of the site hasn't been changed for the sake of history, many of the ideas presented in these pages, especially all the pages originally published in the Citroën Technical Guide apply to many other Citroën models, not only BXs.

Although all DIYers should have a workshop manual like the #908 published by Haynes Publishing, many questions are not answered by such books. They describe the various components, their removal, dismantling and refitting in great detail, but they are often incomplete when it comes to troubleshooting procedures and ideas. Often they suggest component renewal as the only possible cure, however, many of these parts can actually be repaired with a little patience, skill and determination.

We tried to assemble a useful collection of tips and ideas to help our fellow Citroënthusiasts to get the most out of their cars while keeping the dreaded repair costs at bay. We also provide detailed descriptions of how to retrofit some nice features available only on bigger models (eg. coolant temperature meter in the instrument panel, one-touch driver's side electric windows, front foglights, warning beeper for headlights without ignition) and even such gadgets that were never fitted to BXs (eg. washer fluid level warning). In addition, we describe some modifications to standard BX solutions (eg. modifying the dashboard digital clock illumination level, swapping the rear fog and stop lights on Break/Estate models, killing the self-cancelling feature of the turn indicator stalk).

No such collection can ever be complete: thus, please feel free to contribute to it with your ideas.

If you have just purchased a used BX or think about buying one, check out the Maintenance page.

Repairing the window lifter

A sharp popping sound and the door window slides (or falls) down. Nice surprise but it does happen as our cars age. The window lifter mechanism uses galvanized steel Bowden cables and these tend to rust over time, especially if the climate is rainy and wet, or the door gets damp inside for any reason.

What to do now? First of all, don't press the switches in this case. Allowing the motor to rotate will eventually jam the cables now loose, allowing them to jump from their proper guiding channels. This can lead to more extensive damage than just the snapped cable.

LEDs everywhere

A project I've been contemplating for quite some time now, and with the constant advances in LED technology, I thought the time had finally come: LEDs all around the car. Not in the external traffic lights, for sure (with one exception, I'll return to that) but inside, with the large collection (nearly a hundred, really!) of bulbs everywhere. Let's count: instrument panel, warning lights, LH and RH display, switches, A/C panel, ceiling and rear lights, gloveboox, boot, door sill courtesy, radio surround, ashtray, cigar lighters, sunvisor. Quite a lot.

The Circuit Diagram Project

The XM is a complicated beast when it comes to electrics and electronics: there is no denying that. It entered the executive car market with practically all the toys of the era. There are billions of components, thick harnesses, a plethora of connectors, everywhere. Finding anything without the proper diagrams is nigh impossible.

The Citroën Technical Guide

Željko Nastasić and I are proud to present the Citroën Technical Guide. This book, available in PDF format (a free reader can be downloaded from Foxit Software), describes the functioning of all systems of interest in our Citroëns, from the early days of the DS until the most recent incarnation, the C5.

It is not a service manual, thus you won't find detailed circuit diagrams or repair procedures inside. Instead, it contains schematic illustrations and detailed descriptions of the various systems. It is not a mere compilation of excerpts from various books and brochures: it is a standalone guide written from ground up.

The material of the book has already been incorporated into this site, so you can also read it online.

Switches with LEDs

The XM Series 1 was born in the era of automotive bulbs. When it came to the Series 2, LEDs were already entering the scene. New switches like those on the dashboard started to come with LED illumination but earlier switches retained (and shared with other Citroëns of the time) remained with plain old bulbs in many switches of the door windows, electric seats or some center console switches. Retrofitting LEDs to these is a simple process with huge benefits: longevity (practically, eternity) of the LED, cool operation temperatures and lower power consumption are all welcome changes.

Fine Print

As usual, every precaution was taken to ensure the correctness of any information contained in the pages of this web site. However, I cannot take any responsibility for damages or problems arising out of the use of this material. Before carrying out any repair work or modification, consider all the risks for yourself.

As you probably agree, there is a significant amount of work involved in creating and maintaining a web site like this. I don't want to imply in any way that all the ideas and data contained herein are my own. Wherever I was aware of the original source of information, I tried to give credit to it. If you happen to find what you righteously claim copyright for, please, inform me.

Similarly, my aim was to benefit the whole of the Citroën BX community. Hence, I have no intention to impose severe copyright restrictions on this material. There are, however, a few things that I would like to ask (or prescribe if you prefer it that way): first of all, do not duplicate the whole material on a different web site. The contents of this site are subject to constant modification and improvement, thus there is little point in having several, possibly contradictory sources of the same information. If you feel that the information contained in this site could benefit your users, just add a link pointing here (for your reference, the URL is https://citroen.tramontana.co.hu and the title should read: Citroën BX Do-It-Yourself [With XM Pages]).