Open Letter

[fallingoverdrunk]

Dear Sir/Madam

 

I am writing this message for theraputic reasons. I am the less than proud owner of a Citroen C5...a 2001 model HDi 110 bhp. In the space of 6 months of owning this shed, I have seen more problems with this one car than I have had with all my/my wife's cars....thats a combined 20 years of car ownership. Congratulations on this remarkable achievement.

 

This car is supposedly a luxury model but appears to have the build quality of a wet fart....actually....farts dont rust, unlike the aerial and rear door hinges on my little pearl. What is most galling and probably most instructive is that Citroen dealers take off faster that Linford Christie with a rottweiler up his backside when you try to offer one in part exchange. How they can expect to slaughter my part ex and then expect you to do it all again and buy another Citroen ?

 

And speaking of dealers..... the service department of my local Citroen dealership had, well....lets be nice.... a relaxed attitude towards fixing problems. Yes sir....we could fix that under warranty but we dont do warranty work on any day that has a Y in it...come back in 2 months..or preferably, not at all.

 

Am really looking forward to taking a bit hit in the pocket when I sell this car. My previous car....a Skoda Octavia ..... gave me 95k miles of completely trouble free motoring. I think I will now be telling Citroen jokes !

 

Apologies to all the real Citroen afficionados....I admire your determination. I wonder how many of those fans actually work for Citroen. You really can't expect to get away with this for much longer.

 

Yes...and mine's a bitter lemon

 

Cheers !

[citroeneddie]

Sorry to hear about your problems. I have a mark 2 C5 estate and only really had to replace the rear opening window under warranty.

[Johndouglas]

I wonder how many of those fans actually work for Citroen.

 

 

Here's one who doesn't! I've been driving Citroens since 1988 and think they're great cars. Currently, we have three of them - each one a gem.

[old'uns]

it's a car, that's what cars do, any car can do it

got a Seat Ibiza no better than my C5, so much for german quality & yes i do know Seat are Spanish! just that everything is stamped VAG

[kfk]

Well i'm quite happy to say i have worked on Citroens for 20years.

 

In general the product doesn't have any more problems than any other manufacturer. However, the product is in a lot of areas more advanced than your 'average' car.

 

I wonder whether your problem is in fact the car or, that 6 months ago you were sold a 'lemon'.

 

In which case the manufacturer of the product can hardly be held resposible for something that is 6 years old and has probably been maintained to varying standards over that time.

 

You indicate you have a warranty, is it a 'Citroen Manufacturer Warranty' or a mechanical breakdown warranty?

 

And just out of interest, what problems are you having?

[shallishanti?]

Don't confuse luxury with build quality. Cars have problems. My Merc had more than its fair share, and that really was a luxury car - and cost a small fortune to put right, constantly.

 

I've not had my C5 long enough for it to misbehave, but it is the only car I've ever had that is as comfortable as (in fact more than) the Merc I had. For what these C5s cost secondhand, they're a bargain.

 

You will never get anywhere near what you pay for a car when you trade it in.

 

My previous car, a Ford Galaxy, was a poorly built, unrefined, noisy, uncomfortable pile of junk. Designed by VW.

 

Having read your posts you don't seem to have had that many problems, but then of course you may well not have posted about them all.