BX excess, can it be a success?

[Thread Bear]

From memory the two pinstrips on the horizontal waistline are two differing colours. Red and dark grey? It has differing seats to what I remember as 'the other' seat to the TZD etc. No electric windows and simple trim level. It came with the comment that the V5 was the wrong model designation. The sunroof has a sort of swelling in the body-line to the rear. So I could believe factory fitted, but still nasty.

Chassis VF7XBER0002ER****
Engine number 270647

[Tim Leech]

The leader had the standard BX seats but with no tilt operation or map pockets, the door panels were grey vinyl.

The glass sunroof seemed to be fitted on Mk2 models, which was part of the leader extras that the standard 14E didnt have.

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[Tinkley]

But does it have a rear wash wipe?. If I remember correctly my RE definitely had one but no sunroof. It would appear that Leaders were available with the 150 engine but LHD only. By the time it got to the UK with RHD it had the TU engine. The base 14 originally had no rear wipe, bit of a pain, though I don't think it was sold in the UK.

[Tim Leech]

The leader model was available in a Mk1 and Mk2 version, all Mk1 had the 150 engine as did early Mk2 until about 1988.

The Leader was based on the 14E which is the model below the RE which had 4 wheels, and engine and not a fat lot else. You could get the BX 14 which had even less! , 4 gears, 62bhp engine, no wheel trims, 145 section tyres and I think no headrests.

[Thread Bear]

Has front head rest but no bidet - trade slang for rear wash wipe. Might be a bottom level BX14 of some sort. While it comes with wheel trims its not fitted with any. It has very little in the way of extras.

[Tim Leech]

Yes the 14E didnt have much, but the 14 had even less! rear wash wipes were only fitted to RE and above. I think the 14TE which was a facelifted "E" got the "bidet".

Some people say less is more!

[Tinkley]

Yeah, I always thought the RE was about as basic as you really wanted. It had enough to be comfortable with no excess. 5 gears with good ratios 72hp, 'bidet' and radio cassette so cheap that when it was broken into in Islington it was left behind

Odd that the Leader had sunroof but no bidet, still I remember surveys that said No 1 accessory/desire was for a sunroof. Personally I would rather the reverse, especially in our climate....
Poor old E64KLD scrapped for no money (you almost had to pay the scrappers at the time) with blown head gasket at only 175k. Nice white one too, less rusty than this poxy Athena chassis I have now.
Should have stripped loads out of it had I known. Had to get the seatbelts out though as 1st Athena failed MOT because of 2 bits of fluff on seatbelt (no holes or cuts)....one hell of a hard MOT tester because if you had loaded the webbing it would have been 99.9% of original strength at least. Have not used that place since....

[Tim Leech]

I much prefer a sunroof, I have aircon in my Golf but never use it unless its baking hot, on Sunny days I like to me in the BX (or the Xantia or Sd1 which all have sliding sunroofs)with "roof" back getting a suntan on my receeding hairline and letting fresh air in. Also I find modern cars far too dark and austere, the TZI especially with its grey velour interior and glass panel is nice and light and airy.

[Tinkley]

Agree on the interior. I find my Athena too dark, the black is just oppressive. I think with grey trim but retaining the black seats it would have been OK. Partly down to the grey/green tint glaqss too. So different to the RE, with clear glass and grey trim, it was quite bright but not overly so. Even a hybrid grey main trim with black highlights like radio cover, little things like that. Too late to do a mock up for Citroen now...

Agree to disagree on the sunroof, much rather be rid of the thing, more roof space, no leaks, never use it, maybe that's why I still have a head full of hair...

Got a suntan sailing every day in that super hot week in July 13-18th at Hayling Island. 115 boats racing outside the harbour, amazing week for weather. Highlight was rounding 2nd one race with homemade boat and finished 7th that race. It was literally T shirt every day with loads of suntan lotion or you burn. Force 2-4 all week and the beach at Wittering was packed.

[Tim Leech]

Some of the very late TGD cars had black dash, doorr panel vinyl but grey tweed seats and door card fabric which I though looked great, the australian high spec non sporting variety had a similar configuarion with grey seat fabric but the plastics themselves were black.

Being 5ft 9 theres plenty of space for me even with a roof, they do leak but rarely do my cars see rain so I dont worry....as for the receeding hairline, apparently that inherited from my grandad, and he never drove a car in his life.

[MULLEY]

I prefer a/c over a sunroof everyday of the week, less noise & you can actually get a temperature inside the car that you want.

[Tinkley]

With the leak and noise from my 'lack' of door seal, a/c wouldn't work for me...

Even in Italy it wasn't bad without a/c, as long as you cover the steering wheel when parked in the sun....

[Thread Bear]

My big bugbear with the Estate is no sunroof. You can get a nice air flow with a sunroof and rear window.

Air con is not worth the hassle and expense unless your going to be sat in traffic in this country, in my opinion.

Back to sunroofs though. They need to be a powered one or a proper opening one, like a Webasto. These window in the roof jobs are nasty, they hardly let air in and they always end up leaking. Its a cheap marketing tool or an ill judge extra. It ruins the strength of the shell and motor sport will avoid them like the plague. I was offered an absolutely stunning Maxi with no miles, tuned engine and perfect shell. The guy got really frustrated as I would only go to scrap value. The shell was useless for the rallies the car was capable of entering as it had one of these crappy sunroofs in it. He ended up taking the engine apart for some strange reason and made the car practically valueless by messing about with things. Now if it had no sunroof I had a buyer with £5,000 waiting for it. Wealthy buyers get what they want and welding the roof up will not wash. A wasted car.

So to recap. 3 BX with sunroof. 2 knackered, 1 working. It looks bad for sunroofs and longevity as all these a relatively low mile cars. Maybe the EStates are better off without?

[mat_fenwick]

I use the AC more often in the colder months bizarrely - it demists the whole car very quickly by drying out the incoming air. But I'd still like a sunroof as well for those rare days when the sun is shining and you want to pretend you have a convertible... The drawbacks do put me off, otherwise I'd have cut one in by now; as it is I'm still pondering. OK, it would devalue it but as I'm not intending to sell it's of little consequence.

[BX Bandit]

Could you drop in a standard bx one mate? The roof linings are different aren't they?