C5 how good or bad?

[Jabo]

I've seen a few in town especially.

Ask yourself why so many taxi firms run C5s.

Is there....not one in my area (South Glasgow and surrounding)

[qprdude]

Sorry Bill, but it's not a fact, it's YOUR opinion. Driven just about every manufacturers cars since I passed my test over 40 years ago. That Includes a Passat, a Bora, a Golf and a Touran.
The Golf cost me more to run than my Jag!
As I say, it's a matter of opinion, not to be confused with a fact, which is scientifically proven irrespective of personal taste.
Maybe you need to compare the new shape C5 with the Passat.

[Northern_Mike]

Not swap c5 for passat, u not driven one then, lol. Nothing compares to a vw, fact

What utter nonsense. You should see some of the repair sheets for the VWs on our car fleets. Awfully unreliable things - Golfs, Passats, Boras, Scirroccos. We have a few C5s. Car fleet manager tells me they're as reliable as anything else other than a VW. He drives a Mondeo, which has a PSA motor in it I believe..

Better edit that to just have a moan about the nasty ride and soggy handling I've experienced on just about every VW I drove. The MK4 Golf was just *completely* awful in every way.

[Peter.N.]

I have run XMs for over 15 years and was very reluctant to venture into C5 teritory but I took the plunge and am not sorry, my first was a 2.2 Hdi estate which is a lovely car to drive but very poor on fuel, not as good as the 2.1 XM!

I now have a 2.0. and although not a smooth as the 2.2 has a number of advantages, the main one being that with gentle driving you can get up to 60 mpg, the others are that the 8 valve engine is much simpler and it is also easier to work on. Mine has done 188,000 miles and is still on the original clutch a DMF although the bite point is a bit high.

It has needed a few jobs doing on it but most C5 spares are fairly cheap and anything expensive can be obtained from a scrap yard. The cars themselves are very cheap if you don't mind doing a little work, they are a lot of car for very little money.

Peter

[jelly]

Thanks for input people getting 41.5 mpg which is less than I thought but sometimes I am doing half mile trips what is the cambelt change interval and how much of the job is the clutch to change?

[Peter.N.]

Cambelt change time is 100k I think, not done a clutch - yet, so can't help.

41.5 mpg isn't bad for short journeys, I only get 60+ mpg on long trips with a continually warm engine, ambient and engine temperature can make quite a difference to fuel consumption, I got 67.3 over about 650 miles last year in my 406 coming back from Scotland but it was around 28C for a lot of the trip.

Peter

[duncan bladen]

Not swap c5 for passat, u not driven one then, lol. Nothing compares to a vw, I like c5 cos of large interior, and cheap to buy plus fancey suspension, .,but vw is the cream of the crop,

i worked for vw , they are not as good as the advertisers would have you belive , give me a Citroen over a vw any day

[blackbeard]

Hmmm,

C5 how good or bad?

Thats a bit like saying 'terraced houses' good or bad?, or British weather good or bad? The answer is 'it depends...........'

It depends on literally thousands of variables, weighted against personal experience, coupled to the subjective interpretation of the variables and experiences.

All that most people can do therefore, is give an opinion, which may or may not be worth listening to, based on their experience. Opinions in the case of C5 ownership usually swing to the extremes, such as 'mine has done 2 million miles and has only ever needed a wiper blade', to the other extreme of, 'a complete pile of s--t which has spent more time in the garage and cost me more than a flat in Mayfair to run'.

My experience of owning a 2.0 petrol, automatic, C5 is pretty indifferent. I bought it simply because it was the cheapest 5 seater, low milage, high NCAP rated car with a full service history available at the time at a price which I could afford. I bought the C5 to replace my Wifes 20 year old Toyota (which although in mint condition did not have any safety features - not even a drivers airbag - which was the only reason it had to go).

All my 'get to work' cars have been cheepies bought at auction. I run them for pennies and sell them a year or so later for not much less less than they were bought for - which makes for cheap transport. Did not want to go that route for my Wifes car though, especially as I'd worked out whatever I was going to be able to afford which met my criteria would be likely to be either a Laguna or a C5. No way I would buy a 'modern' French (esp Italian) car from auction - the risks are simply too high of it having an expensive fault. Old Citroens and Renaults were cheap and easy fixes, not so these new fangled electric sensor on everything dealership cash cows.

Back in the days when I had a decent job and could afford to pick and choose cars, I always bought Japanese, with Toyota and Honda being my top picks for quality and reliability. Sadly circumstances change and reduced incomes over the last few years mean reduced choices. My 2002 2.0 16v Automatic 'Exclusive' C5 which I bought 3 years ago with just 42000 miles on the clock, full dealer history, and 12 months MOT, was purchased for LESS THAN HALF the price of an equivilent spec and condition Honda Accord or Toyota Avensis.

I could literally write an essay about the ups and downs of C5 ownership - I have had my C5 for 3 years now and have had many of the common faults. In 3 years, and with my Wife covering just 10k miles a year, the C5 has still managed to cost us over £2000 in parts (including tyres and service parts), which is a bit higher than I had hoped, but not as bad as it could have been had I not had some basic mechanical knowledge. Petrol consumption has also been very poor (not helped by the auto box and mostly short trips), coming in between 22 and 28 mpg averaged over the week (has been as high as 40mpg on the open road though).

To cut a potentially very long story short - would I have another? Hmmm, Yes - but only just, and only if nothing else was available. It would also have to be very cheap (and come with a full MOT and a full dealer warranty). To be honest, and at risk of upsetting some other C5 owners, In future I would much rather run an older Jap machine and would therefore be very unlikely to replace this C5 with another one when the time eventually comes to replace it.

[qprdude]

As long as it's an OLD Jap machine. My heighbour has a year old Avensis which has already had four recalls. The big Toyota is relying on past reputation a bit these days. Some of the parts are suspect and the build quality is not what is was. The New generation C5 is as reliable as the new Toyota although possibly not as reliable as the old Toyota. Thats how advances are made. They will learn to make new equipment more reliable just as they did when cars first used diesel engines.etc.
You can only compare like for like. It's no use comparing the reliability of a ten year old design with ten year old technology, and a car using current technology and materials. The specs have changed so much to conform to modern emissions etc that a ten year old car could have a tractor engine compared with todays advanced machines. My first car was a Morris Cowley, which is probably still running. It had all the elan of a shrimp boat on wheels and the refinement of a wheelbarrow, but it was reliable.

[bill196510]

Never seen a c5 taxi, more like skodas here, vw rebadged motors, lol.
C5 not good enough on fuel.

[oneday]

you mean the 2.2 not good enough the 2.0 is good enough on fuel

[spigven]

Well you sucked me into this one, I feel I have to redress the balance and recount my personal tales of unreliability, Citroens that is, not me.

A few years ago I bought a SII C5 2.0 litre VTR petrol manual, 18 months old with only a few thousand miles on the clock. It was the most unreliable and expensive car I've ever owned (and I've owned a lot of cars in 35 years of driving mainly old bangers). I only owned it for 10 weeks as I actually managed to reject the car, but in those 10 weeks It was only on the road for a total of about 3. I wont go into detail unless requested but it had a multitude of faults one of which was diagnosed as incurable.

A few years ago I shared an office with 4 other people, all of them had French company cars, I had my old TD Xantia. Of all the cars in the office mine was the most reliable. The Renault was scrapped at 30 months old and 70K miles as the engine was excessively worn (that was a £17k car at the time - 30 months). The other 3 cars were all Peugeots, and it seemed like that at any one time one of them was completely dead, and at least one of them was running in degraded mode. They also suffered from odd conditions like mirrors not unfolding, headlights that constantly flashed, wipers that refused to work in the rain, boots that refused to unlock and various bits of trim/trays falling off, those are the things I can remember but there were more. Of course none of this phased the drivers as the company just provided another vehicle.

With regard to VAG offerings at the time they were undoubtedly more reliable and some had very powerful engines. I was loaned one for a few hours and accidentally pulled a wheelspin on a dry road in fourth gear, the amount of torque was huge compared to my TD Xantia, too much I thought. However the downside was fuel consumption as many complained of consumption in the mid twenties, but they drove the diesels like high performance petrols so it wasn't really surprising.

I may need to buy a cheapish car soon but unless I can find a good Xantia, which appear to be few and far between, I think it will probably be a non Citroen.

[Peter.N.]

If this was the Hpi engine they never were any good, I have a set of Exclusive seats I removed from a scrapper at less than 100,000 miles. I have a 2.0. Hdi here that has done nearly 200,000 miles and another 2.0. Hdi in a 406 that has done well over 200,000 miles, as far as I know they are both on the original clutch and DMF and both will exceed 60 mpg driven sensibly.

They both use the early 8 valve engine which is most reliable and simplest of the lot.

If you want a cheap car you won't better an early 2.0 Hdi C5 or 406 and I mean cheap. I paid £300.00 for my 2.2 taxed and MOT and £550.00 for the 2.0. Hdi C5 likewise. I have done 25,000 miles in the 406 and it hasn't missed a beat, they are a bit dearer but you should get a good one for well under £1,000.

Peter

[spigven]

The car was a 2006 standard petrol (not HPi which I think were not available after 2003). Citroen UK gave up on it and declared it unrepairable after the umpteenth attempt (apparently 9 months of trying to cure it). They gave the original owner a replacement car and told him this one was to be broken up. Anyway they must have changed their mind at some point and it arrived back at the supplying dealer who sold it to me, of course they lied about its history.

[qprdude]

Sounds like you were sold a "write-off" then. Not surprised you had problems, but hardly a fair car to compare reliability.