One day, a long time ago, I was driving along enjoying the day in my first XM when I experienced a sharp pain in my left ankle.

A rather strange experience, and not at all something one expects inside a car.

My automatic reaction was to reach down to investigate but at motorway speeds that makes life a little unpredictable.

As the car began to fill up with steam I decided I'd better stop to investigate properly as something more than just my ankle seemed to be involved.

It turned out that the heater radiator mounted in the tunnel in the centre of the car had burst and squirted it's contents over my leg.

I've never had one of those break before, but that was to become a familiar refrain during my years of XM ownership!

The other day, whilst driving my second XM and trying to identify a couple of the new rattles and bangs it was making, the windscreen began to mist up. Turning the heater controls to 'de-mist' seemed to make matters worse. Eventually I could not see out of the car, and by the time I had stopped I could hardly see as far as the windscreen as, once again, I was sitting in a Citroen XM that resembled a Turkish bath, It must have looked very amusing from the outside.

Once again I have a burst heater radiator! Nothing changes!

To get home, I managed to pull the hoses off the heater rad., bung the ends up and fasten them with a couple of hose clips.

I had needed to top up the water level a couple of times lately and was beginning to wonder where it was all going. Now I know. It's about an inch deep in the drivers footwell. Under braking and acceleration it amuses the passengers by sloshing back and forth between the drivers feet and those of the rear passenger.

Anyone know how much a heater rad costs these days?