New C3 1.6i 16v Exclusive Sensodrive

[CE08LDB]

I just been on a C2 Forum Web site they think they are better than us C3 owners. They reckon the C3 is crap compare to the C2 VTR and VTS well why is our C3 Exclusive worth more and has better features. Digital Air Con is a cost option on the C2 VTR and VTS.

I said about our new display screen they thought that was dangerous it was better to see the mpg on the speedo. They are gelous but don't like to admit it.

How is all you cars going anyway?

[jazzster]

After 4 Months 3000miles still can not make my mind up.
Like look of car love the dash, boot space is a little small but O.K.
Gearbox I think is dissapointing changes great 95% of the time but in traffic and on junctions it is useless.
Get clutch judder sometimes pulling off and changing to second.
Got some road humps which need 2nd gear if you go just a little to slow clutch bangs or judders. Pretty dissapointed with the gearbox really.

Slowed down for a junction left hand side road was in 3rd in manual mode forgot to change down which should not be a problem turned corner got 75-100 yards in new road up bank car right up behind me, suddenly engine revs and no go, looked at what gear it was in and it said 1st but it sould of been in 2nd did not go anywhere near slow enough for 1st (I have to go very slow on 1 junction on my estate parked cars on bend and it never changes to 1st). I am pretty sure that there was no drive , knocked gear leaver and it went in to 2nd and was fine. Don`t know why this happened and it not done it since (about 300 miles ago)
I know there was a girl with a C2 on C2Forum that had lots of problems with clutch judder and lost gears I hope mine is not going down the same route. I know the girl took hers back and they did not sort it, in the she got rid of it.

As for gearbox learning how you drive I don't think so.

Think I would prefer BX 4 speed auto at the moment much better changes, or even a manual gearbox at least then it would be me makeing as mess of the gear changes.
Also don`t think it handles as well as mine last one on bumpy surfaces may be the Jazz was just better.

Still ave MPG 37. This week on holiday average on car 44MPG about 41 to 42MPG in real life then.

So car is begining to annoy me a little, not enough to go down the dealer yet.

[CE08LDB]

Well I have had mine just over 3 months with 2,500 on the clock. I am happy with the car but I do try and avoid the Streets with hills where I live because I feel it don't give much power on hills after you stop. When you drive up a hill say on a country road its great. You never guess my mpg showed 50mpg last week. I drove the car about 8.45 this morning down to Town and its a bit colder today and I find the gear box don't seem to like the cold god help the winter then. I was by my neighbours C3 the other day across the road and when I opend my car from by his C3 his engine made a clicking my brothers C3 does the same when its parked by mine when I open mine. I am thinking about buying a CD Draw to go in the gap.

[CE08LDB]

I have jusy bought a CD Draw for my C3 Exclusive it was £26 with free fitting which the Service manager did for me.

[Igloo_Vindaloo]

What is a CD Draw?

I put a CD changer (from eBay) in the 2nd DIN slot below the radio/cassette. The C3 had to be reprogrammed by a main dealer (£25) to recognise it.

But now I'm very pleased with it - although the CD's keep being interupted by "Traffic Announcements" which are only a few seconds long and nothing to do with traffic. This goes away if I turn off TA, but so do the real announcements. Is there a way to set the sensitivity of the TA switch?

[hertsnminds]

[quote]CD's keep being interupted by "Traffic Announcements" [/quote]
Some radio's can switch between local and national traffic announcements it depends if you have EON (extended other networks) as a feature.

This web page gives you more information about most of the RDS functions, of which traffic info is just one
[url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/factsheets/text/rds_factsheet.html"]http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/factsheets/..._factsheet.html[/url]

And this page tells you more about traffic info specifically
[url="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rdsforum/message/681"]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rdsforum/message/681[/url]

Traffic announcements are actually triggered by someone at the radio station pushing a button, sometimes they forget to turn it off when the traffic news is finished and your radio stays tuned to that station. On some radios you can just switch back to what you were listening to by pushing the preset button for the original station, not sure if just pushing the CD button will take you straight back to hearing the CD.


Ian
Orange 03 Senso

[Igloo_Vindaloo]

[quote]On some radios you can just switch back to what you were listening to by pushing the preset button for the original station, not sure if just pushing the CD button will take you straight back to hearing the CD.[/quote]

Yes - I just press TA to go back to what I was listening to.

However, it is still annoying to be continually switched over the a "Traffic Announcement" for only a second or two. These just seem to be false triggers that I would like to reduce.

Thanks also for the useful links, Ian. My symptoms sound like the ones decribed below:

[quote]Why do I get brief interruptions to the radio reception?

RDS constantly searches for the strongest frequencies available, so you may get a brief interruption when a frequency grows weak and the RDS searches for a stronger one. This usually stops if you switch off RDS by pressing the AF or RDS buttons. Similarly, if you have the EON facility switched on, the RDS will be receiving data about other local stations within the coverage area and this may lead to brief interruptions. If you find this annoying, then turn the EON function off. [/quote]

However, I get these brief interruptions even when listening to CDs or tapes.

Could be I just need to fiddle with the radio's settings. But I don't like to do this while driving...

[CE08LDB]

The CD draw used to be standard on the Exclusive but not anymore so I bought one it goes under the CD Player where the gap is.

[Igloo_Vindaloo]

[quote] The CD draw used to be standard on the Exclusive but not anymore so I bought one it goes under the CD Player where the gap is.[/quote]

Is it just a drawer for storing CDs, then?

[CE08LDB]

Yeah I also keep my disabled parking badge stored in there and my handsfree kit.

I find it usefull no more CDS falling out of the gap when going up hills.

[jazzster]

Had car about just over 5 months now 4500 miles average mpg still 37 .
car is O.K., still seems a little to bouncy on the suspension on grid and rumble strips car tends to jump sideways.
Gearbox still misbehaves sometimes clucth judder and a couple of bad changes but not lost gear again yet.
To be honest I would change the car now if it had not lost so much money might wait till next year see how it goes over winter.
If the starting of in second in cold weather is as bad as it sounds I think that will be goodbye to the C3.
As for what I will replace it with I've no idea

[CE08LDB]

Well Jazzster if you said to me a week today hows the car going I would have said ok but on Monday I was about to go up an hill and the car stalled. Now its not suppose to do that. If it happens again I will be taking it to the dealer.

Apart from thats its great. Its nearly on 4,000 miles and its 5 months old on 21/9/05

Seen 5 55 plate Citroens so far

[pork_pie]

Hmm you mention going up hills

Twice going up a hill in my old C3, the engine management light came on and the engine was short on power. Pulled over restarted the car no problem.

Driving in the Peak District last Sunday int he Xsara and nrearly florred it up an incline as the engines realy flat as a pancake and the same light came on.

Maybe HDi engines dont like hills.......

[organist]

It maybe that the oil level in the engine was a little low, and the hill was steep enough to allow the oil to the back of the sump, uncovering the sensor. This would cause the management light to illuminate.

[CE08LDB]

the weird thing though no warning lights come on. The C2 Sensodrive owners are getting this problem aswell

[pork_pie]

Good idea organist but me oils topped up regularly.

Poor little engine........

Bet the 1.6 HDi 110 has no such problems. Test drove that engine in a C4. Smooth as silk........ Pity about whats around it!

[CE08LDB]

Pork Pie do you test drive alot of Citroens?

[pork_pie]

LOL - not really

Not really mate.

The past decade or so have seen quite a lot of changes from being a soap/tax dodger to getting a job then being a family person so I have had to buy a car to accommodate the change..

In that time I have test driven about 6-8 Citroens and out of that lot have bought 5. I drove a Picasso and vomited after the test due to its ride.

I have moved from small hatchbacks (AX, Saxo and C3) to the hatchback and estate versions of the Xsara.

You can imagine I have researched other possibilities before finally choosing them cars.

Yes I always picked Citroens!!!!!

They may be badly put together and they are not reliable but they are cheap to buy (but not nasty apart from my C3 of course) and the styling of some of their products have been different.

Since errrrr April I have been in the hunt for a medium hatchback to replace the estate and the C4 was a contender.

The passing away of my second child last year meant an estate was redundant.

Back to the C4

Lovely engine (1.6HDi 110) and the best assembled Citroen I have driven but compared to other manufacturers that is not saying much! The cockpit was somethign else and the equipment you get was unbelivable for the money. I was offered a new one (VTR+) with met paint, leather pack, multichanger, alarm and parking sensors for 16k.

The little teething problems sometimes made car ownership a real pain in the a55

I will always have a soft spot for Citroen but I am tired of the niggles, poor workmanship and unexplained bills and problems that don't get fixed and I am not referring to my current Citroen either.

Electrical glitches is another. I wil never forget when my lad opened the rear doors of the C3 when driving at 70mph. The childproof locking button frequently forgot its settings. I guess it could be worse which the Ren ault and Pug drivers are willing to testify to.

I decided not to go with that cut price new C4 and decided to plum for a demonstrator BMW 1 series diesel for not much more with a free service inclusive package for 5 years.

I will continue to post on here.

[wozza]

Just ordered a C4 myself. Not a fan of BMW's to be honest.

And i have seen more BMW's on the hard shoulder than i have renaults.

Renaults and a few other cars get a bad rep but there cheap cars. If BMW's were in the same price area i reckon there would be a lot more complaints about them.

Lots of people just dont wanna complain about the cars cause they basically get upset cause they paid more for something thats supposed to be better reliability wise etc and it just isnt that different.

My clio is driven hard every day and hasnt skipped a beat in 3 years of ownership. Never had a problem with it apart from 2 airbag lights coming on all you do is flick the engine off turn the passenger side off. And make sure the cable hasnt come loose under the seat. It is just a plug afterall gets loose after a while with vibrations etc.

But from most of the reviewers the C4 is said to have amazing build quality one of the best cars citroen have ever made in those terms.

[organist]

I test drove a C4 the other day and both the wife and I absolutely hated it. The model had a 1.6 diesel engine in it and it was absolutely gutless. The other thing which is really poor is the relation of the top of the door opening and the seat - it was impossible to get into the thing without banging your head on the top of the door opening. The rear headroom was very poor and the instrumentation unnecessarily complicated.

I'll stick with my (ultra reliable and FAST) 1.4 Hdi 92hp C3 thank you very much!

[pork_pie]

The doors and frames have sharp bits. Nearly knocked myself out when getting out from the rear compartment. Ooer.

The dash I agree is complicated with tiny displays for the speed you set the limiter and what not.

A magnifying glass would be handy.
Gutless engine? Coauldn;t have been the 110 but the 92bhp version.

You have the 1.4 16v Hdi?

That was a nice engine but gutless low down..... Why have they discontinued this engine?

To maximise sales for 1.6Hdi 92s?

I would not say C4's bulid quality is amazing - its vastly improved and approaches that of Japanese and German makes.

[organist]

Not sure why the 1.4 Hdi 92 16v diesel engine is discontinued, it seems fine to me. As for not having power low down, I would agree that if you catch it with less than 1500rpm on the clock, it's dead. So just make sure you have at least that on then clock and it goes just fine.

Now the engine is loosened up (21000 miles) I am getting really good mpg and on a trip to Germany recently I had an indicated 121 mph out of it at one stage! But what is really good is that it will cruise for mile upon mile at speeds of well over 100mph for hours on end!

[wozza]

Wouldnt have said the 92bhp C3 is fast.

But the 110bhp 1.6 in the C4 is pretty quick round 3 seconds faster to 60 anyways. Just cause its a bigger car wouldnt feel as quick. Know this from driving my little clio which has about the same oomph as your C3 times for everything are pretty much the same. But getting into a 1.8 or a 2 litre car i know is faster it just doesnt feel it since im not in a tiny wee car.

I got the 1.6 petrol engine in my C4 though which is gonna be going for a remap so should be putting out around 120-125bhp afterwards hopefully. Should be plenty quick enough then.

And indicated speeds are usually well out. My clio is supposed to top out at 106. i have seen it read 115 on the dial and my gps has said i was doing 101.

[Guest CE05LDB]

Went with my brother today to order a New C3 1.6i 16v Exclusive Sensodrive in Wicked Red.

My C3 is going well I wouldn't change it now. I think the cruise control switches should have been kept on the wheel not on a seperate switch. They are putting a darker interior in the C3 Exclusive now. They are still not doing the in the green like mine don't know why.

I prefere the original Sensodrive Gear Stick. The New one looks more like an Automatic Gear Selector.

I don't know if the SX Auto Gear Selector is like the original on the 1.4i SX Auto.

[wozza]

Ahh all been sorted out with your brother then. bet hes happy. And went for another C3. Probably best choice get more with the C3 than you do with the auto C4 which is a little unfortunate.

The only problem with the C4 the auto boxes are either bottom of the range model or it jumps straight to the top of the range 2.0 litre Exclusive model theres no in between models its cheapo one or top spec.