1992 Citroen AX Debut from UK and Ireland - Comments

I was given the car with an engine overheating fault, and no cabin heating.

Drivers seat was creaking and broken (no longer attached to the floor).

No dash/instrument/heater control lights.

Manual choke cable was missing.

I spent a day sorting out the coolant problems - the radiator was badly silted, and after reverse flushing, I kept getting airlocks in the system. Eventually bled it all, and have had no such problems since.

I took out the drivers seat, and it was welded by a local independent garage for a tenner.

The dash lights were a pain - not enough room to get your hands in to do the work, and a lot of car to take to pieces.

Choke cable was a 15 minute job, the parts were cheap, and delivered next day direct from the main dealer.

For such a small (950cc) engine, the car was surprisingly lively. Top gear allowed sensible motorway cruising speeds, without an enormous excess of noise, and only slight reduction of speed on the hills, though I never had more than 2 people in the car at any one time except around town - I dread to think what it would be like fully loaded!

The basic interior (this is the bottom end model) was actually very comfortable - the seats have no tilt adjustment at all, but were comfortable even on quite long runs.

I was also impressed by the fact that despite having owned a number of small runaround cars over the last few years, the AX was the ONLY one that would take all three of my under fives in the back, in their car seats. The Polo MK II is about 2 inches too narrow - in the AX they all just fitted in - a major bonus, as this car delivered 40mpg around town, and 50 on a long run.

I've driven my AX on long runs fully loaded (and I mean FULLY loaded! Back seat down and front passenger seat and floor space filled too), and it's surprising how well it handles - no lurching corners or bouncing suspension, just requires one or two more gear changes for hills. After all that weight it still gives great mpg, hardly noticeably different to unloaded.

I'm currently having a hell of a job getting the correct speedo cable though, two I've tried have been too short and the alternate bulkhead hole they suggest using is already fully occupied with heating pipes. This is ongoing with the Citroen dealer, though I may end up getting one from a scrap yard if they can't come up with a solution.