The Electrics, Dashboard and Heater 20 Rear bulb warnings
40 Citroen XM Internet Reference Version 1.0
3/3/99
20 Rear bulb warnings
I have found a cure for the irritating message which pops up from time to time when indicating.
I have had my XM since May, and soon after taking it over I was receiving these erroneous messages
and followed the advice of cleaning the contacts and putting vaseline on them. It was only a matter of
weeks before i was getting the same message again, so I repeated the process. two day later
"WARNING REAR BULB FAILURE". This time I didnot touch the contacts, they were left as they were,
all I did was put one of those small bags of silica gel (found in camera bags, binocular bags etc.) in each
side between the bulb holders and the wires. Three months, and several nocturnal rain storms, latter no
bulb warning messages.
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I have had this problem on my 2 XMs. Now apart from the modifications with the negative ground wires,
one should simply change the bulbs when the light comes on again. Of course this sounds both logical
and foolish BUT it helps! In a way new bulbs can handle the 12V power better. As my garagist told me
bulbs will get worn after a few years.
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A common complaint from owners of early XMs is of the on board computer lying about the status of the
rear lamps.
The common remedy for this is to clean the rear lamp contacts and smear them with petroleum jelly.
This, I and others have found, seldom cures the problem for more than a couple of weeks. Those who
have a graphical representation of the car on their dashboard tend to live with it, whilst those who have
a dot matrix display that also beeps, tend to stick a hammer through their dashboard.
I have however found a permanent cure! Follow the common remedy and then leave the rear lamp
cluster covers in the luggage compartment open, thereby keeping the clusters well ventilated and free
from condensation (a very tiny amount of which causes the problem in the first place). Simple eh? This
has worked on at least three XMs, it looks untidy if you ever stick your head in the luggage
compartment, but if your worried about that then you really should get out more often.
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