1.6 HDi Exclusive 5dr People Carrier

Utterly disappointing

Further to the tales of woe I experienced with my Picasso previously reported, I omitted to mention the wipers. The wiper mechanism on the C3 Picasso was the subject of a recall, and cars should now be fitted with a beefed-up mechanism. Goodness knows how poor the earlier type must have been, but the second C3 Picasso I ever saw on the road apart from mine was in a service station near Tewkesbury. It had been a day of torrential rain, and here was this poor soul waiting for the AA with a car with wipers pointing in opposite directions. Even so, such was his blinkered devotion to his car, he still cited it as 'the best car he'd ever owned'. Crikey knows what the others had been then. Austin Allegros? Ford Pintos?

A month or two later I was asked to return my car to be fitted with a reinforced wiper linkage. well that was that then. except it wasn't. One of the weaknesses of the Picasso's wiper system is that in snow (and we had a lot of that for the next two winters) a wedge of compacted ice builds up between the wiper at 'park' position and the plastic cover of the plenum chamber. This eventually builds up to such an extent that the wipers cannot park correctly, but the self-park system demands that they do so, even when you turn the engine off. This results in the auto-park relay clicking quietly but angrily in an attempt to park the wipers which are blocked from doing so. The remedy for this is to turn off the engine and flick the wiper switch so the wipers park vertically, then clear the compacted ice before resetting them to their correct position. It's easily done, but I'm sure few people would bother. This could lead to a flattened battery, or failure of the wiper system... which is what happened to me during a heavy fog on Exmoor on New Year's eve. Wipers packed up gradually, finally stuttering to a halt in my line of vision. Physically dragging them across the screen got them working spasmodically, but enough to get me out of immediate danger. The helpful Citroen agent in Taunton (from whom I did not buy the car) stayed open for 20 minutes so they could inspect the car which was still under warranty and although they could not fix the problem found that the wipers could be made to work on full speed only. The advice from the Citroen service department when I took the car in to be fixed early this year suggested that in might be "wiper drag" and advised me to change the blades at a cost of some forty quid. Not likely. As was totally obvious, it was a semi burned-out motor. Caused by the system not being well enough designed for a winter maybe? Who knows or cares?

I don't. I've sold it.

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