1.6 HDi (6-spd) VTR+ 7-seat People Carrier

r******!!!!

I initially bought it because of competetive price of the car itself vs road tax and insurance group etc. The other in my sights was a Ford S-Max. I was thinking at the time whether I was being daft buying a Citroen given their poor reputation for r****** electrics. I wish I'd taken my own advice. It cost £11500 second hand, and given the mileage that wasn't bad at all. Just over 1 year and another 5000 miles or so, the gearbox collapsed and cost £3500 to replace. Unbelieveable in a car with only 25000 miles on it! Within the space of the next year we spend nearly £2000 fixing electrical bugs, broken keys (the instructions in the manual for changing the batteries and resetting the chip to the specific car are incorrect, my local Citroen garage showed me that but obviously too late), corroded wiring to the brakes, damaged suspension (which I though Citroen were good at, but maybe all the b***** speed bumps near us are just too much). All told I would never touch a Citroen again. We might have a lemon and other such cars are OK, but French cars have a reputation for a reason. DO NOT GET ONE BUY A FORD INSTEAD!!!!!

There are other niggles about this car. Such as a very poor turning circle. I used to live in America and owned a couple of American cars whose turning circles were similar (they have such wide roads that the cars are usually made with large turning circles). Such a large car is not all the maneuverable in tight spaces.

Proper bitter owner grumble alert...
It has c*** cupholders in the front that are so shallow that they don't keep tall bottles in place when you go round a bend. There is a massive gap between the front seats that could easily accommodate a storage bin (especially given there is no manual handbrake there), although it is useful to stasha handbag. You can also smell the exhaust quite strongly when stopped with the engine on, very soon after stopping (no matter which way the wind is blowing). Is the air inlet near the exhaust? The glove box doesn't fit the car documentation booklets - I know I'm sc***ing the barrel here - but to me this is a careless oversight and demonstrates that in some parts of this car, there was no thought used.

On the other hand the seats in the boot are pretty large, the boot itself is huge. There's lots of places to put stuff for the kids, and it drives effortlessly (when it works), even the lurching gearbox isn't so bad once you get used to it.

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