Hi,
Citroen are doing a special offer deal at the moment, cash-back and £800 trade-in, so under £8K brand new.
Would be interested in any owner comments, especially on reliability and comfort.
Regards, Ian
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HJ says the 1.4 Hdi is the best drive and warns to look out for the following
Some of the dashboard trim is a bit flimsy. Lacks rear seat legroom and headroom compared to Yaris, Jazz, Polo, Fiesta, etc. 1.4 auto not a great drive. All C3 engines, including HDIs, are belt cam, not chain cam like the Yaris. Only 83% breakdown free in 2003 Which survey. On early 16v HDIs the high pressure fuel inection pump was prone to failure. Cured by a redesign but some cars fitted with replacement pumps of same design as the first.
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We have a C3 1.4 petrol SX on 54 reg. So not the HDI. We bought it as a six month ex demo for £7,500. SX gives you climate on top of aircon and i think side airbags. Mrs mare drives it most of the time, but it is used as the family car when we go somewhere.
However, for what it's worth:
Comfort - it's OK. Nice ride, not really a car for pressing on but it can do it. I have used to go 200+ miles and felt ok.
Boot is taller than it's deep / wide, quite a big boot once you suss out how to use it to it's full
Driving position great with the seat on highest setting, with one big problem: the gear lever is too short.
The interior is a lovely place to sit, nice and airy. Some people have problems with the curved A pillar blocking the view, but you get accustomed to it.
Lovely instruments, even has the Saab blackout switch so you can just have the speedo lit at night
The trim is quite flimsy and one particularly stupid detail is that the bolt on the hinges for the rear seat base have black rubber covers, which keep falling off. Seriously if you have small kids, think carefully about how the interior will stand up to them. Very wobbly cup holder behind the handbrake which my kids love to stand on, those sort of things.
As for reliability, we had two instances of the power steering dissappeearing, both of which were solved by switching off and restarting the engine. Our local dealer excels at indifference and has perfected the Gallic shrug. Hopeless and uninterested.
I wouldn't rush to buy another one, but i'm not in a hurry to replace it for replacement's sake. It's likely to be swapped for a 6/7 seater soon, but for change of circumstances rather than being a poor car.
Hope that helps.
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Having a 1.4 HDI turbo, I agree with most of Mares comments, but it is a car built to a budget, and therefore not as comfortable in the seat department as a mid- sized saloon such as my 406, but nevertheless I have done four 250 miles plus journeys in the C3 which were quite comfortable.
To be quite picky, (mine has the 15" wheels on possibly slightly wider than some of the other model specs.....but I don't know without checking) I think that there is quite a lot of road noise at speed, but possibly no more than other cars in this class, just more than my 406, which is fairly quiet in my opinion.
The engine in mine(1.4 HDI turbo 92bhp), is I believe is now discontinued, but is excellent with good power delivery, it is very quiet and has good economy. No faults at all (yet) with the engine.
A clicking noise from the B pillars started at about a year old (after I serviced it using a trolley jack. I don't know if there is a connection or not) and this affected the car when driving on poor road surfaces. The cure was to drop the headlinig and squirt expanding foam into the said channels (confirmed by a Citroen main dealer in the Midlands) and at the cost of six pounds and two days off the road in my drive whilst I affected the repair and this cured the clicking noise. I understand that this isn't all that common, but isn't unheard of in Citroen C3 circles!
Finally, I had the dreaded roadspring snap a few months ago, but as Citroen has retro fitted large cups to the struts, no damage was done and that cost me £55 and a day off the road to fix it myself.
No other faults, and I have serviced it myself since the 600 mile service and it is now on 21000 miles, but as Mare has said, I wouldn't rush to buy another one, but will probably keep this for four or five more years as it has been very reliable (except for the two faults above and is used mainly as a town car at which it does a good job. It has nice high seating, light steering and never drops below 50 mpg with nearly all of that stop start in rush hour traffic. It did 65mpg on the long runs, and that was cruising at 75+.
Reggie
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Our 1.4 HDi 92bhp is just coming up to 4 years old and 46K miles. When we got it the central locking would ocasionally refuse to lock (cured with a "download" from the dealer). We had a misty headlight replaced under warranty last year and the air-con has just been topped up for £70. Mrs H likes the car very much; her 15 mile commute has 10 miles of dual carriageway and motorway and some town work. I think the performance and handling is entirely adequate; I would prefer a softer ride but I say that about nearly every car I drive. Economy is 50mpg +. I will finish with 2 questions from Mrs H, "How many points will I get if I get caught doing over 100?" and, last week, "When are we getting a new one?".
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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Hi,
Thanks for your opinions, will give it abit more thought before I get rid of my AX diesel!
Regards, Ian
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Give it even more thought if you regularly carry reasonable-size adults in the back - leg and headroom seemed surprisingly lacking for a car with a relatively tall stance when I road in the back of my friend's HDI a couple of weeks ago.
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hi there I had a 16v hdi one.
My opinion is:
Engine: Absolute peach, best thing about the car - loads of power, never under 58mpg and that was with thrashing it with a/c switched on
Interior: Light and airy (I had the light blue) - cheap looking but funky airvents, good stereo, and quite a few electronic gadgets (remote control for stereo etc.) which was unexpected. Fairly flimsy bits though, didn't feel like they'd last long. And that gearstick - much too short, would annoy you everytime you had to reach down to it (and I'm only 5'10")
Exterior: Nice styling, solid enough
Reliability: Turbo pipe popped off once, quick fix by dealer. Everything else perfect in my year of ownership, even cheap service.
All in all I have fond memories of my car, it was motoring at its cheapest with low purchase price, cheap fuel, low tax bracket and cheap servicing. I got ripped by the guys at work for driving such a girly car (I'm a fella) but at the end of the day it was my wallet that was laughing.
One terrible feature is the EBA (emergency brake assist) - it senses the speed at which you depress the brakes, and if it thinks you're pushing fast it applies 100% braking - often doing so when you're creeping out of a junction and you try to stop quickly - it feels as if you've hit a brick wall, and the seatbelt crushes you to death. Not nice.
Cheers! Rich
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Hello again
Further to Hawkeye's post, we have the is it or isn't it central locking. We just don't leave anything of value in the car now.
Further to RichProc's post - yeah the brakes are severe until you get used to them
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