24 Nov 05
Although the large family car market was already showing signs of decline, not least because the cars a sector below - including Citroen's own popular Xantia - were getting ever-larger, more powerful and better-equipped, Citroen pushed ahead with the XM.
Like Fiat (Croma), Vauxhall (Senator, Carlton, Omega), Renault (Safrane) and Ford (Granada, Scorpio), Citroen was to end up abandoning the sector for a good few years after sales failed to meet expectations.
However, in line with the year-zero PSA Peugeot-Citroen philosophy then in force, the XM was to be far more conventional in its styling than the CX, both in its appearance and its technical specification. Only the hydropneumatic suspension remained to really distinguish it from the Peugeot 605, a car also discontinued without an immediate replacement.
Car magazine (May 1989) was optimistic, hailing a "radical new chassis" and focussing on the optional Hydractive set-up, which used three steel spheres per wheel rather than one, and more advanced computer-controlled self-levelling and stiffening according to throttle pressure, speed and body sway. This put XMs thus-equipped as the first production cars to have both automatically adjustable springs and dampers.
A 3.0-litre V6 engine topped the line-up, giving 170bhp and a top speed of 136mph. More refined smaller engines - and improved diesels - all supported Citroen's claims that this car marked "the comeback by Citroen in the top-line market."
It was not to be. The XM, like the CX before it, proved rather too temperamental. Car magazine ran a long-term test XM - supplied direct from Citroen - which proved to be a "duffer". It "perpetually overheated", suffered ongoing problems with its suspension, shed its all-important hydraulic suspension fluid, suffered failure of the steering and braking power-assistance and handbrake problems - all in less than a year and with Citroen's dealers unable to come up with effective solutions to many of its problems. Anecdotal evidence suggested that Car's problems were by no means unique - and buyers were suitably sceptical.
