£4k French Car

Honest John Back Room » The Back Room Archive
View Threaded
Tue 3 Apr 2001 10:53
£4k French Car - Paul Robinson
I'm interested in a French family car.

My budget is £4,000.

Is my money best spent on a Xantia / 406 / Laguna or should I consider some thing else?

Your comments would be appreciated.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 3 Apr 2001 17:52
Re: £4k French Car - honest john
Xantias are incredible value at auction at the moment. Your £4k will buy you an R or S plate. Lagunas are also cheap, but tend to go wrong more expensively. 406s are a bit dearer and also ahve their share of problems. So best value is a Xantia. I saw a bunch of 10,000 mile year old 1.8iLXs sell for £5,000 - £5,250 each a couple of weeks ago.

HJ
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 3 Apr 2001 22:57
Re: £4k French Car - david stone
Yeah, the Xantias are pretty good but very costly to fix if something goes wrong with that hydropneumatic suspension. If you can get a low mileage example with full history and miminal number of owners, I'd go for it. Otherwise, I'd go for the 406. How about a Mondeo from 1996 onwards? They're pretty good as well.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 4 Apr 2001 07:45
Re: £4k French Car - Hugh
Don't worry about the suspension reliability on Citroens-they rarely give problems on newish cars and there are specialists around who can fix things reasonably if disaster does strike - look at the thousands of old BXs still on the road with the same system!
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 4 Apr 2001 20:48
Re: £4k French Car - David Woollard
Ignore the Laguna as it can be wickedly expensive to maintain over three years old.
Buy the nicest Xantia TD you can find with a full history in a good colour and you'll have one of the best kept secrets in impressive second hand motoring. Look out for ABS warning lamps removed to disguise faults and also check for leaks from the hydraulic pump. Don't pay top money because even a bargain will still depreciate quickly. Find a specialist to maintain it, drive and enjoy.
P.S. Also join the Citroen Car Club where the monthly magazine has a Xantia column for member feedback and technical hints (www.citroencarclub.org.uk).
If you really can't cope with the thought of the hydraulic system buy a 406.
Good luck.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Thu 5 Apr 2001 19:01
Re: £4k French Car - Marcus
We used to get the choice of a Turbodiesel Xantia VSX on our company car fleet, at one point most people had them, some took them to over 120 000 miles and they never had any serious faults, although I remember once seeing an invoice for a major service for £450.00 They are very comfortable so long as you are under 6"4' the Turbo diesel is a fine engine but if you can get a HDI model, these are even better. One guy who retired recently couldn't wait to get another Xantia and bought a brand new one for £ 11 000.

We also had some citroen XMs, do not even consider one of these, they are frighteningly expensive to maintain, one of the managers who retired bought his from the company and it cost him 4 grand over two years on repairs alone.

If you can stand the thought of a non-french car the Toyota Carina E is very economical and should be availible within your price range.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link

Choosing a child seat can be a quite baffling experience – there are so many sizes, types, brands and price points available that you might not know where to start.

How to choose the right child seat