BX Breakdowns

[csg100]

How often does everyone elses BXs breakdown (if at all).

Mine broke again today - driving along happily and all of a sudden notice the steering wheel has a few cms of play up and down. Thought the steering column was about to collapse!! Traversed a few roundabouts very carefully and pulled into a supermarker. Luckily I had my set of Torx bits so whipped the lower column cover off to try and see what was happening. Lots of play in the column, but noticed a littl bush thing poking at the end of the round tube the column goes through. With a little bit of wiggly I managed to get it back up in the tube, and all was well again. I was cursing for a few minutes prior to that though!

Last week the clutch cable somehow went out of adjustment in the middle of Bristol and I couldnt get any gears. Managed to force it into first and drove a few hundred metres back to my hotel in the town centre at about 5000rpm! The next morning when I went to try and get it home the coolant light came on too.

About a month ago the gear linkage came off at work, leaving me stranded.

A few months ago the HP belt snapped, meaning I had to nurse the car a few miles home with no power steering, the suspension collapsing and with my hand on the handbrake in case the brakes went!

When I bought it it was leaking LHM everywhere (and there's still a leak now).

Not to mention all the niggly faults like the leaking sunroof, gauges not working etc etc.

Do other people have similar tales of woe, or am I just unlucky? Never had a car with so many issues, it's even worse than my old 205 which I thought was bad!!

Our old 19DTR just kept going and going. The only time it let me down was at 2am in the morning as I was leaving for woork when it deposited all the LHm over our driveway!!

The joys of BX ownership. Still love it though

[docchevron1472]

Guess I'm lucky then!
I've had a few things happen to both cars but always got them home without breakdown recovery!

The clutch cable has broken twice on the diesel (once about 7 miles from home and once in London) drove the car home.

I blew the second diesel engine up, it still got me home on two cylinders.

I've had the car written off three times (all three times I drove it home!)

The valver has (thus far, touch wood and wearing rabbits foot!) never let me down! and I've put nearly 4000miles on it in 3 weeks!

Luck of the draw I guess... It'll probably break down tomorrow now!

Cheers
Chris G

[AlanS]

I reckon most would be too scared to answer this one in case it comes back to haunt them, but in reality, I have always been of the opinion that you have a car that begs to be 'driven' and in most cases this is what happens, as a result, many parts are constantly put under strain. If you were driving say a n/a 19 diesel, it wouldn't be getting driven anywhere near as hard, also compare any road car to a similar track car. A road car will do several thousand miles with no hassles, whereas if a track car goes a couple of hundred with little or no hassles it's considered reliable.
The other point is that too many repairers charge a fortune to do any work on them and charge out at top rates, yet do second class work but then blame the car. My car had a clutch cable, a speedo cable and steering pinion seals all go due to a dodgy specialist not replacing the heat shields just above the steering rack; all were heat damaged. We repaired all these parts and then replaced all the heat shields and it has been right ever since (4 - 5 years). An account from another specialist was for $550 for "testing ABS" which was declared irrepairable but turned out to be a sensor wire broken and was found and fixed by us in 10 minutes.
The moral of the story is, if anything breaks, don't just repair the faulty part, but look to see what caused it and start around where somebody else has already worked and you usually don't go far wrong.
A specialist I know in Melbourne ( a good one) has a brother with a 16V and last I heard it had done over 400,000 klms of "the most trouble free klms I've ever seen" so if serviced correctly, they can be ultra reliable, it's just that you might have to get rid of someone elses dodgy work practices before it all happens.


Alan S

[ed_straker]

2 breakdowns with my current valver. Last time it wouldnt start it was brought to the garage (insurance paid for this). They fixed the CAS.

Actually went through MOT yesterday with one minor failure:
No Water for the windscreen washer

[Anonymous]

I own my bx now for 1 year and twice it wouldn't start due to a bad battery. For the rest no complaints.....yet

During this year i did a lot of maintanance on it, this probably helps too

[Kitch]

Don't get me started

[csg100]

Must be something about the Southampton air Kitch!

[Toddman]

Only a couple of major issues tat I can remember -
1. Cutch -I knew it was slipping and car was booked in for the Tuesday but it went on the Thursday before, had to keep driving as work was too busy to have tim eoff.
2. Dizzy cap - car failed to start after work at 7pm due to carbon brush disintegratimng so had to get recovered home

Had a few other recoveries but they were all due to a duff rotor arm fitted bu a local garage

Cheers
Luke

[tim leech]

Ive had 12 bxs. some have had flat batterys (normally my fault) but once theyve been started they have never broken down!

[Kitch]

Well in truth mines never broken down as such. Had to be recovered once because a gear linkage came off, but it was dark and I couldn't see to fix it.
But so many things have gone wrong with it its unreal. I think its just at that age where its worn out.

[tim leech]

And possibly that you drive it like your michael schumacher kitch

[robin hughes]

right where do i start!

ign coil failure
snapped cambelt
alternator faliour
numerous electrical faults
overheating
burst coolant hose
startermotor failure
big end bearings give up

its come home on the back of an aa truck more times than i care to remember

[tim leech]

[thanuttiscotsman]

hi,
i just got my cat running again! it was the ign coil again. thats the 4th one thats gone in a year and a half. still dont know why. had to shell out another £32. pain in the azz.

rossco

[ollie]

Oddly enough whilst I have to fix the 16v virtually weekly, It usually makes it home!

Clutch cable went on someone else, and its been towed unneccesarily "Cos of overheating mate" by the AA which turned out to be afualty over temp loght....HE HE , always lend them out when somethings dodgy.......

Again the TZD's managed quite well, yet a regularly serviced TXD i once owned has everything bX like fail allmost weekly, with some serious abuse of the AA card, the owners just kept sending it back to me and collecting a spare.

Olie