Me again! I must agree with Rory. For example, does the lack of a Vauxhall forum like this indicate that they are tons more reliable? How many old Vauxhall Cavaliers or Novas do I see these days? Answer, not many, and I live relatively near to Luton as well. Still quite a few Astras around though, but do they not seem to attract the same sort of enthusiasm that Citroëns do.
Anyhow, on contemplation, the TRUE answer to the question 'why do we do it?' seems to me to be 'to wind up the majority of people on Honest John's forums (with notable exceptions), to whom Citroën seems to be a dirty word'.
makes you wonder why we do it...
Moderator: RichardW
Have done a very long & involved posting on this but I'm having problems sending it (too lengthy??) so it may or may not ever arrive on here, but until then can I suggest you have a read of this posting that coincidentally arrived this morning & basically really says it all.
Alan S
"Well the time has come. The new car arrives in just over a week so the BX has to go. I will miss the Citroentherapy and can safely say it's been the best designed car I've ever been acquainted with. I wish they made them still, with an HDI engine (and don't tell me that's the C5, 'cos it ain't). And far from the nightmare everyone told me it would be it's had nothing but the usual old car stuff go wrong. How I will live with spring and damper I don't know, but a higher power tells me I must and get used to airbags, aircon and abs instead (sounds like a lot of complication to me)."
Alan S
"Well the time has come. The new car arrives in just over a week so the BX has to go. I will miss the Citroentherapy and can safely say it's been the best designed car I've ever been acquainted with. I wish they made them still, with an HDI engine (and don't tell me that's the C5, 'cos it ain't). And far from the nightmare everyone told me it would be it's had nothing but the usual old car stuff go wrong. How I will live with spring and damper I don't know, but a higher power tells me I must and get used to airbags, aircon and abs instead (sounds like a lot of complication to me)."
I know why I do it (two CXs and two XMs later); it's because used big Cits provide so much metal for the money!
Most of the things that have gone wrong with mine have related to components that are not peculiar to Citroen (Phase 1 XM electrics aside), and for those items I am happy to let the local independent dodgy bloke garage do the work, if I can't do it myself <img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle>
Most of the things that have gone wrong with mine have related to components that are not peculiar to Citroen (Phase 1 XM electrics aside), and for those items I am happy to let the local independent dodgy bloke garage do the work, if I can't do it myself <img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle>
Well I suppose Its about time I made my contribution to this debate as we're currently running 2 Citroens.
All my life I've been interested in cars and have done most of my own repairs over the years. I started off driving British cars of the generation when the rear suspension was designed after a good lunch and they all ended up with leaf springs and solid rear axles. Rack and pinion steering largely evaded me until the engineers had got to work and spent years making it emulate recirculating ball systems. I was well aware of the technically advanced Citroens but at the time they didn't make the car for me- the DS was then too big as was the CX and the GS was a bit small in the engine department for what I liked.
3 years ago I relaised that I was loosing interest in something that had provided me with a great deal of fun over the years and in about 20 minutes decided to buy a cheap (very) BX DTR turbo estate which was unbelievably slow on a test run. I px'd a Renault 21 which overall provided excellent service but wasn't something I could get enthusiatic about and merely did its job.
Overall I'm very pleased with the BX although its provided me with many challenges (which to be honest is what I was looking for) and its getting very close to being somewhere near what it should be. Much to my surprise my wife loves the thing and although its coming up for 14 years old this year is happy to keep it for some time yet.
What interested me was that this was a car that was different, and obviously designed by people who knew what they were doing and didn't give up when the going got difficult. In many respects the thing is unbelievably complicated when compared to the likes of Jaguar and was of course in its day state of the art with turbo-diesel and ABS. Is the complication worth it - well yes it is - it rides well and handles well with no nasty habits and seems to be built with a remarkable lack of cynicism (by which I mean the likes of Vw Scirroco GTI's which despite a wonderful looking braking system in perfect order wouldn't stop and nearly killed me on a motorway when the back locked and I ended up hitting a barrier sideways.)
So the question is 'would you buy another?' - Well yes - we did and now have a 94 ZX diesel which at 54K miles feels like a new car with no rattles, knocks etc. Now compared to the BX this is nearly as simple as they come but imagine my surprise when I wound it fast into a roundabout in the wet- I expected it to start slipping at the back - well no that doesn't happen because it has passive self steering back wheels. It really is a most impressive car and again obviously designed by someone who knew what they were doing and can be driven in complete comfort at ridiculous speeds over broken surfaces,
Well I suppose I've lost the plot and am some way from the reliability question. Many of the postings on these boards obviously come from people who are interested in their cars and from people who like to do work themselves. May I suggest that Citroens are more likely to appeal to these people as they do to me. The hydraulics were unfamiliar to me and I think (with much help of the web) I now have a reasonable understanding of the workings. Many of us when confronted with something that we don't understand fully or is new to us like to discuss it with a knowlegeable friend and therefore use these boards.
Is the number of postings in fact directly proportional to the quality of the vehicle itself, and the reason for the fewer postings for other makes is that people can't be bothered with them and simply dispose of them when they go wrong?
jeremy
All my life I've been interested in cars and have done most of my own repairs over the years. I started off driving British cars of the generation when the rear suspension was designed after a good lunch and they all ended up with leaf springs and solid rear axles. Rack and pinion steering largely evaded me until the engineers had got to work and spent years making it emulate recirculating ball systems. I was well aware of the technically advanced Citroens but at the time they didn't make the car for me- the DS was then too big as was the CX and the GS was a bit small in the engine department for what I liked.
3 years ago I relaised that I was loosing interest in something that had provided me with a great deal of fun over the years and in about 20 minutes decided to buy a cheap (very) BX DTR turbo estate which was unbelievably slow on a test run. I px'd a Renault 21 which overall provided excellent service but wasn't something I could get enthusiatic about and merely did its job.
Overall I'm very pleased with the BX although its provided me with many challenges (which to be honest is what I was looking for) and its getting very close to being somewhere near what it should be. Much to my surprise my wife loves the thing and although its coming up for 14 years old this year is happy to keep it for some time yet.
What interested me was that this was a car that was different, and obviously designed by people who knew what they were doing and didn't give up when the going got difficult. In many respects the thing is unbelievably complicated when compared to the likes of Jaguar and was of course in its day state of the art with turbo-diesel and ABS. Is the complication worth it - well yes it is - it rides well and handles well with no nasty habits and seems to be built with a remarkable lack of cynicism (by which I mean the likes of Vw Scirroco GTI's which despite a wonderful looking braking system in perfect order wouldn't stop and nearly killed me on a motorway when the back locked and I ended up hitting a barrier sideways.)
So the question is 'would you buy another?' - Well yes - we did and now have a 94 ZX diesel which at 54K miles feels like a new car with no rattles, knocks etc. Now compared to the BX this is nearly as simple as they come but imagine my surprise when I wound it fast into a roundabout in the wet- I expected it to start slipping at the back - well no that doesn't happen because it has passive self steering back wheels. It really is a most impressive car and again obviously designed by someone who knew what they were doing and can be driven in complete comfort at ridiculous speeds over broken surfaces,
Well I suppose I've lost the plot and am some way from the reliability question. Many of the postings on these boards obviously come from people who are interested in their cars and from people who like to do work themselves. May I suggest that Citroens are more likely to appeal to these people as they do to me. The hydraulics were unfamiliar to me and I think (with much help of the web) I now have a reasonable understanding of the workings. Many of us when confronted with something that we don't understand fully or is new to us like to discuss it with a knowlegeable friend and therefore use these boards.
Is the number of postings in fact directly proportional to the quality of the vehicle itself, and the reason for the fewer postings for other makes is that people can't be bothered with them and simply dispose of them when they go wrong?
jeremy
What makes floaty Citroens _seem_ expensive and a bind is..
a) Garages don't know what they're doing, so charge a fortune to persuade you to go somewhere else.
b) The suspension is different.
However, with resources like this board, and others, along with the only slightly useful Haynes manual make things easier.
I ask you.. on what other car could you remove the complete suspension setup from a corner, renew the springs and shocks, and put it back together in less than an hour ( once you know what you're doing <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle> )
It's only the unknown that makes people afraid. We were all afraid to go down that big slide in the park at one time !
a) Garages don't know what they're doing, so charge a fortune to persuade you to go somewhere else.
b) The suspension is different.
However, with resources like this board, and others, along with the only slightly useful Haynes manual make things easier.
I ask you.. on what other car could you remove the complete suspension setup from a corner, renew the springs and shocks, and put it back together in less than an hour ( once you know what you're doing <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle> )
It's only the unknown that makes people afraid. We were all afraid to go down that big slide in the park at one time !
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mwj666
- Posts: 12
- Joined: 07 Feb 2003, 06:50
- Location: cheshire
- My Cars: In no particular order :-
Mk2 XM V6 Exclusive (holds the record for longest I have ever owned a car, currently 15 years and counting, and not hit 100k miles yet!)
XM 2.0 turbo
C5 2.2HDI Exclusive
6 assorted CX estates
CX25 GTI Turbo 2, God that was *FUN*
2 x BX (19 and 19GTI)
1 x Xantia 2 litre estate
3 x AX GT
2 x Saxo VTR
Pug 206 Quicksilver - nice car but whoever invented DPFs should be shot! - x 1
To add another two-penn'orth...
I've run big Citroens for over 20 years now, with one short digression to Alfa Romeo, and unreliability is NOT a word I'd associate with them!
I bought my first CX - a beat-up 2.4 estate - back in 1982 'cos I ran a mobile disco and needed something to lug well over half a ton of kit round the country in and it was a choice of a stylish CX or a totally-hideous Peugeot 504! Over a period of 15 years and running 4 CX estates (3 of which were already getting on a bit when I bought them) into the ground I NEVER missed a 'gig' because the car wouldn't go! Sure they had their minor niggles in the electrics department but in all the areas that really matter they were fautless performers. True, I always kept on top of the maintenance but I think that's all they need.
On the subject of maintenance : I once went to look at a CX estate that had been 'regularly serviced' by the owner's local 'experts' and the LHM reservoir was nearly empty - and what WAS in it looked suspiciously like 30-grade engine oil...! The one and only time a Citroen has ever let me down on the road was my last CX - a 2.5 GTi Turbo2. Yes it was electrics, but NOT Citroen's fault.. some joker had decided to replace the wiring loom connector on the inner wing with a bunch of home-crimped Lucar connectors and hadn't done the crimping right so one of the leads came adrift whilst progressing down a bumpy Scottish back-road at a goodly number of mph...!! Oh yes, and I got my last CX estate ridiculously cheaply - it wasn't very far off new - cos the radiator had rusted through thanks to the owner not bothering to put any antifreeze in it! He of course blamed the car, and I nodded agreement as I paid him half the market price for it... took me an hour to replace the radiator with an alloy one off an earlier CX that I got from the local scrap-yard for a tenner!
I've also had a BX19GT and a BX19GTI which behaved impeccably and I am currently commuting in a 1990 AXGT with 140k on the clock that I have owned for nearly 6 years and has also never let me down. The only thing I've had to do to the AX beyond routine maintenance was change the valve stem seals about 5k miles ago due to being sick of leaving a smoke-screen behind me and replace the radiator 'cos the plastic filler pipe sits about 1 inch from the exhaust and it had gone porous due to a severe case of sunstroke. So I estimate total cost of ownership over and above routine maintenance has worked out at about £16 a year...
I'm now the proud (yes really!) owner of one of the last XM 24v exclusives and I have every confidence that will prove just as reliable as the rest of them have!
If Honest John and his like are reading this: can I go off-topic and mention Rover 400s? My GF has had 2 of these with the Rover K series engine and in BOTH cases the engine's had to be stripped, skimmed and rebuilt 'cos the head and block had warped! I did the second engine myself (mad fool) and the local head shop had 2 6-foot piles of K-series heads that had cracked internally and were total scrap.... so please lets hear no more about Citroens breaking down every 5 minutes, eh?
Conclusion: Big Citroens are ludicrously cheap for what you get for your money, but only buy one if you're prepared to learn to look after it yourself - which isn't as difficult as some will tell you - or be prepared to pay to entrust it to a garage who actually knows what they're doing instead of the local cowboy who'll give it the 'Ford treatment'!
Yours,
a VERY satisfied Citroen owner
I've run big Citroens for over 20 years now, with one short digression to Alfa Romeo, and unreliability is NOT a word I'd associate with them!
I bought my first CX - a beat-up 2.4 estate - back in 1982 'cos I ran a mobile disco and needed something to lug well over half a ton of kit round the country in and it was a choice of a stylish CX or a totally-hideous Peugeot 504! Over a period of 15 years and running 4 CX estates (3 of which were already getting on a bit when I bought them) into the ground I NEVER missed a 'gig' because the car wouldn't go! Sure they had their minor niggles in the electrics department but in all the areas that really matter they were fautless performers. True, I always kept on top of the maintenance but I think that's all they need.
On the subject of maintenance : I once went to look at a CX estate that had been 'regularly serviced' by the owner's local 'experts' and the LHM reservoir was nearly empty - and what WAS in it looked suspiciously like 30-grade engine oil...! The one and only time a Citroen has ever let me down on the road was my last CX - a 2.5 GTi Turbo2. Yes it was electrics, but NOT Citroen's fault.. some joker had decided to replace the wiring loom connector on the inner wing with a bunch of home-crimped Lucar connectors and hadn't done the crimping right so one of the leads came adrift whilst progressing down a bumpy Scottish back-road at a goodly number of mph...!! Oh yes, and I got my last CX estate ridiculously cheaply - it wasn't very far off new - cos the radiator had rusted through thanks to the owner not bothering to put any antifreeze in it! He of course blamed the car, and I nodded agreement as I paid him half the market price for it... took me an hour to replace the radiator with an alloy one off an earlier CX that I got from the local scrap-yard for a tenner!
I've also had a BX19GT and a BX19GTI which behaved impeccably and I am currently commuting in a 1990 AXGT with 140k on the clock that I have owned for nearly 6 years and has also never let me down. The only thing I've had to do to the AX beyond routine maintenance was change the valve stem seals about 5k miles ago due to being sick of leaving a smoke-screen behind me and replace the radiator 'cos the plastic filler pipe sits about 1 inch from the exhaust and it had gone porous due to a severe case of sunstroke. So I estimate total cost of ownership over and above routine maintenance has worked out at about £16 a year...
I'm now the proud (yes really!) owner of one of the last XM 24v exclusives and I have every confidence that will prove just as reliable as the rest of them have!
If Honest John and his like are reading this: can I go off-topic and mention Rover 400s? My GF has had 2 of these with the Rover K series engine and in BOTH cases the engine's had to be stripped, skimmed and rebuilt 'cos the head and block had warped! I did the second engine myself (mad fool) and the local head shop had 2 6-foot piles of K-series heads that had cracked internally and were total scrap.... so please lets hear no more about Citroens breaking down every 5 minutes, eh?
Conclusion: Big Citroens are ludicrously cheap for what you get for your money, but only buy one if you're prepared to learn to look after it yourself - which isn't as difficult as some will tell you - or be prepared to pay to entrust it to a garage who actually knows what they're doing instead of the local cowboy who'll give it the 'Ford treatment'!
Yours,
a VERY satisfied Citroen owner
<font face="Comic Sans MS"></font id="Comic Sans MS"><font size="2"></font id="size2"><font color="purple"></font id="purple"><i></i>
Well now we have my old mate Anders on board, I thought this would be a great opportunity to see if I could bait him into telling us his story as this topic was very interesting and I would reckon his story could be quite fascinating [:D][:D]
Alan S
Well now we have my old mate Anders on board, I thought this would be a great opportunity to see if I could bait him into telling us his story as this topic was very interesting and I would reckon his story could be quite fascinating [:D][:D]
Alan S
It has to be said that with so much specific knowledge out there, and with the certainty that you will come away at the end of the experience having learnt something new, this Citroen Forum almost makes it FUN to have a problem!!!
Any other car owner either takes it to QuickFit or dumps it and buys another .
Any other car owner either takes it to QuickFit or dumps it and buys another .
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Black97Xantia
- Posts: 3
- Joined: 01 May 2003, 10:49
- Location: Australia
- My Cars:
Having just purchased a Xantia (97 2.0 16v VSX)and previously been the proud owner of a BX and a couple of CXs, I thought it amusing that we NEED to justify our cars. No car is perfect, many far from it. I also own a 87 Porsche 928S4, and on the Rennlist Forum ( www.forums.rennlist.com) this issue comes up every now and then. Based on the level of discuusion on that forum, one would assume the 928 to be the most unreliable vehicle (which it is not)......its the same as the Citroen forum....as owners we want our cars to be PERFECT...the fact that we want to fix every little problem is a reflection that we own cars that are not in the "sheep" category and we strive to have them working as they were engineered to. My guess is that if we owned a run of the mill Holden or Ford or Japanese car that level of commitment to its perfection would not be there, because after all we are enthusiast not JUST owners so we give a ****!!!
Jim Ioannidis
Melbourne, Australia
Jim Ioannidis
Melbourne, Australia
Fof my opinion it is not exactly correct to compare reliability of different cars basing on quantity of publications on the site. There are too much statistic data must be taken into account: qty of manufactured cars, average millage, number of failures, number of owners in the country, activity of web site visiters,whatever.
Of cause, when you know, that instead a single spring and shock absorber on the car installed pump, precise hydraulic equipment, "misterious" spheres, tens of meters pipes and joints-it's very simple to "decide" which car is more reliable. [xx(]
Perhaps it is correct-generally hydraulic cars suspension has more failures, but taking into account that most of the main units are commun for both cars, hydraulic's contribution don't seems too serious.
By the way-did you pay attention, that milage of "problematic" cars is very high?[:p]
So, i agree with those who think that we do it because of enthusiasm.[^]
Citro hydra are special cars with high comfort level and this explanes the enthusiasm.
Reed this forum and see what a wonderful peoples are here and You will agree with me.[:D]
Plenty of experience, patience, humor-it is the best forum i saw.
Of cause, when you know, that instead a single spring and shock absorber on the car installed pump, precise hydraulic equipment, "misterious" spheres, tens of meters pipes and joints-it's very simple to "decide" which car is more reliable. [xx(]
Perhaps it is correct-generally hydraulic cars suspension has more failures, but taking into account that most of the main units are commun for both cars, hydraulic's contribution don't seems too serious.
By the way-did you pay attention, that milage of "problematic" cars is very high?[:p]
So, i agree with those who think that we do it because of enthusiasm.[^]
Citro hydra are special cars with high comfort level and this explanes the enthusiasm.
Reed this forum and see what a wonderful peoples are here and You will agree with me.[:D]
Plenty of experience, patience, humor-it is the best forum i saw.
I bought a brand new C3 six months ago and now wish I hadn't. All ive had is trouble and the garage doesn't want to know.Ive had it in four times already for the same problem on one occassion they had it for five days without a courtesy car because im too YOUNG. However it doesn't seem to matter your age when your giving them your money.
The problems started on day one when i had very squeaky wheels which is happening all the time apart from when I take it into the garage where it doesn't like to make a bloody noise. Even after having it in the garage on four times they are still sqeaking and have got considerably worse since the last time I had it in the garage. Ive had a beeping coming from my radio, which doesn't stop for hours also causing the radio to stay on even when the car is not on.The radio just will not turn off.That has haapened twice and the radio has been on all night draining my battery.
Also this is the best part. The second time it was in they changed my steering column with by doing so had loosened a panel just below the column. Ive had it in the garage twice since where I have mentioned this panel as it is hanging off and I can put my hand in the gap and grab the wires. This job would take a 'tecnichion' less than five mins to do but have failed to do so. Then last time when I picked the car up, sure enough it was still hanging off so after laying into them about it I was calmly and seriously told that I would have to put up with it because that was how the new C3s where made.HA. Apparently if you knock this panel it will pop out and thats how the cars are made, the only thing that sprung to mind was bollacks. Funny that when you see the car in the show room the panel isn't hanging off if thats the way they are made. Any way ive made my point. Dont buy from Citroen or if you do make sure the salesmen and garage staff are going to be just as helpful after the sale.
The problems started on day one when i had very squeaky wheels which is happening all the time apart from when I take it into the garage where it doesn't like to make a bloody noise. Even after having it in the garage on four times they are still sqeaking and have got considerably worse since the last time I had it in the garage. Ive had a beeping coming from my radio, which doesn't stop for hours also causing the radio to stay on even when the car is not on.The radio just will not turn off.That has haapened twice and the radio has been on all night draining my battery.
Also this is the best part. The second time it was in they changed my steering column with by doing so had loosened a panel just below the column. Ive had it in the garage twice since where I have mentioned this panel as it is hanging off and I can put my hand in the gap and grab the wires. This job would take a 'tecnichion' less than five mins to do but have failed to do so. Then last time when I picked the car up, sure enough it was still hanging off so after laying into them about it I was calmly and seriously told that I would have to put up with it because that was how the new C3s where made.HA. Apparently if you knock this panel it will pop out and thats how the cars are made, the only thing that sprung to mind was bollacks. Funny that when you see the car in the show room the panel isn't hanging off if thats the way they are made. Any way ive made my point. Dont buy from Citroen or if you do make sure the salesmen and garage staff are going to be just as helpful after the sale.