1993 Citroen ZX Avantage review from UK and Ireland

Auxiliary serpentine belt snapped at 87,000 miles.

Front offside caliper seized at 80,000 miles.

Have uprated standard brake pads because under hard braking, the standard pads burn and give off a lot of smoke and smell unpleasant.

Many problems with the standard Citroen radio code resulting in the code being reset and finally replacing the radio.

Interior bulbs in heating controls and clock have blown. The lock bulb is easy to replace but the heating controls required me to take the dash apart.

Speedometer no longer returns to zero, but stays at about 3 Mph when the car is at rest.

The ZX Avantage Diesel is a great car with reasonable top speed (I have seen 112 Mph on the clock) and excellent fuel economy. 45 mpg is easily achievable when driving sensibly.

The colour scheme for the interior has a nice slate gray and red theme and seems to be holding up well after 89,000 hard miles.

The auxiliary belt failure was a surprise as I suddenly just lost all power steering and was lucky not to be traveling at high speed. Make sure when you buy that all belts are in good working order and not cracked or perished. They can be expected to last about 30,000 miles before you encounter problems.

Make sure you have good tires on this car! It is quite heavy and the soft French suspension doesn't help whilst cornering at speed. I recommend either Michelin Classic's or Yokohama A539's in size: 175/60 R13. Whichever tires you decide upon make sure they are at least 'T' rated, 112 Mph/180 Kph.