Faults:

Nothing major so far, the lever which adjusts the seat height recently broke, and the seats and steering wheel are showing signs of wear. The stereo was not working when I acquired the car.

General Comments:

Fantastic drive, really smooth gear changes and the driving position is very comfortable. Big boot space and a flap in the back seats for putting long items in without going through the process of putting the seats down.

Despite the excess mileage the engine is showing no signs of wear, no black smoke out of the exhaust or excess fuel consumption.

The low parking suspension is also useful for loading the roof rack!

Faults:

Remote locking fob didn't work so I obtained a new one which didn't work. I then replaced the infra-red receiver unit and that didn't work either so I decided that there was a wiring problem in that area! It didn't matter too much because the car still has a touch-pad for the immobiliser.

I also replaced the middle/rear box of the exhaust, which wasn't too expensive at £125 (thanks Formula 1)!

Drivers seat had started to wear slightly, but with 160k on the clock this is not surprising.

General Comments:

I bought this car because it was very very cheap, only £700, and I expected it to be quite unreliable, being a Citroen, but I have been pleasantly surprised. The only things to have gone wrong were the remote fob and the exhaust.

The engine on this car is superb, it's not quick and it doesn't like being revved, but it is very torquey and when I sold the car with 183k on the clock it still used very little oil.

The suspension proved to be very reliable, I experienced no problems whatsoever.

I would definitely considering buying another Xantia.

Faults:

Heater matrix and front spheres replaced by Dealer under warranty (with a £50 excess) virtually immediately (so much for Dealerships checkup)

Rear height adjuster at 90,000.

Glow plug relay at 95,000.

Heater matrix again at about 100,000.

Heater matrix about to go again at 153,000.

General Comments:

Feels solidly built, drives well and provides a good level of comfort when the heater is working.

I use it daily for commuting - about 60 miles a day and it gives me about 40mpg which is great considering the size of the car.

I believe that virtually every car has an Achilles Heel - a component that fails and costs a fortune to rectify.

With Xantia it is the heater matrix. Although the component only costs about £50 it require 7 hours labour involving removing the dashboard to replace it.

Faults:

Rear arm bearings, at a cost of around £300.

Ball joint.

Two of the three bolts holding the hydraulics pump together snapped in half!!! A new pump costs £350, and fitting cost around £80.

Since the failure of the pump, the hydraulics deteriorated significantly in quality, which no doubt would have been costly to repair.

Split water pipes.

Tracking, which caused extensive damage to the front tire's.

All of the wiring for the stereo (both electrical and speaker wires) were faulty. The stereo kept shorting out and eventually became unusable.

General Comments:

I owned this car for almost exactly a year, and I spent at least three weeks of that traveling to work in my girlfriends car.

I had no confidence in the vehicle at all. As soon as one fault had been remedied another one developed, and at no small cost.