Citroen Xsara Picasso - tell me about it?

Haggisman · 23 Feb 2012 at 11:23

So, after my rather shocking insurance renewal, it's changing car time.

Struggling to find something big enough to fit my newborn and his associated stuff in, which at the same time doesn't cost me a fortune to insure!

Having been comparing various cars, the Picasso seems to be a lot of car for the money, and is nice and spacious, so please tell me good and bad bits in terms of:

Reliability
Repair cost
Economy

The alternatives I've been looking at are:

Focus Estate
Astra Estate
Peugeot 206SW

For reference, I can get a ~70k Picasso for £800 and insurance is ~£800, for any of the others on the list, insurance goes up to at least £1k, and higher depending on spec, plus the cars themselves are more expensive.

Budget is £1.5-2k (depending what I get for my Legnum), so with the Picasso I could actually pay the the whole lot off in one, rather than the insurance monthly.

TL,DR version.

Need a car with big boot, how's the Picasso or should I avoid?

daveski · 23 Feb 2012 at 11:25

My dad has a 53 plate 2.0 HDI one. Has had it for a few years and thinking about it now I am struggling to think of any issues he's had.

Dull, slow and drives like a boat though.

Conscript · 23 Feb 2012 at 11:42

My dad has owned a 2003 1.6l Picasso since new. For practicality, it is excellent. Very spacious and comfortable for a family, with huge luggage space. Best party trick is that the rear seats are all independent and all three can be removed from the car entirely, giving you basically the same load capacity as a small van.

Daveski is spot on, it's more like sailing that driving; but comfortable none the less.

Reliability wise however, its been atrocious. Name a component on the car and chances are that at some point it's failed. But we think he must own a Friday afternoon special, as I have heard others commend it for being a very reliable car in general.

Haggisman · 23 Feb 2012 at 11:49

daveski said:
Dull, slow and drives like a boat though.

Yes, coming from what's essentially an Evo estate, I'm rather worried that I'll want to drive it into a river at the first opportunity

Conscript said:
My dad has owned a 2003 1.6l Picasso since new. For practicality, it is excellent. Very spacious and comfortable for a family, with huge luggage space. Best party trick is that the rear seats are all independent and all three can be removed from the car entirely, giving you basically the same load capacity as a small van.

Daveski is spot on, it's more like sailing that driving; but comfortable none the less.

Reliability wise however, its been atrocious. Name a component on the car and chances are that at some point it's failed. But we think he must own a Friday afternoon special, as I have heard others commend it for being a very reliable car in general.

What are the repair costs like for when it does go wrong?

Conscript · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:29

Haggisman said:
Yes, coming from what's essentially an Evo estate, I'm rather worried that I'll want to drive it into a river at the first opportunity

What are the repair costs like for when it does go wrong?

I don't know as he didn't often mention the cost. Often it was only small things, but I think the gearbox had to be replaced once. The air-conditioning compressor packed up. Exhaust fell apart. The digital display on the dashboard just gave up working one day for a few weeks, then came back to life. The build quality wasn't great either. I remember he came home from work one day and walked through the front door holding the gear knob and it's gaiter. They had come away in his hand.

Relentless81 · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:58

I've seen one on fire.

Brookert · 23 Feb 2012 at 13:04

possibly one of the ugliest cars known to man, bar the fiat multipla

radderfire · 23 Feb 2012 at 13:06

More reading for you:

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/citroen/xsara-picasso-2000/

Rgds

Myshra · 23 Feb 2012 at 13:28

Won't you lose more money by doing the switch than the insurance renewal or is it even higher than that?

Haggisman · 23 Feb 2012 at 14:45

Brookert said:
possibly one of the ugliest cars known to man, bar the fiat multipla

I know, unfortunately I've resigned myself to the fact that my insurance co. hate me, and so I'm reduced to having the premiums of a 17 year old coupled with the requirement to have a largish car, so fugliness is pretty low on considerations right now. I figure if I can't have the car I want, I might as well get the cheapest I can and save the difference.

radderfire said:
More reading for you:

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/citroen/xsara-picasso-2000/

Rgds

Cheers, will have a look through.

Edit: 4/5, "There are better people carriers around, but for sheer value for money, few can match the Citroen Xsara Picasso. It certainly represents plenty of family car for your money."

Think that pretty much settles it. *cry*

Myshra said:
Won't you lose more money by doing the switch than the insurance renewal or is it even higher than that?

The lowest I can get the premium is £2.5k. If I can sell my current car for £1700, then I've barely lost any money on it, and that will cover both the cost of the Picasso and the insurance for the year, meaning I can save the monthly premiums too.

Ixon · 23 Feb 2012 at 15:29

I own a Picasso a 1.8SX, power wise it's not bad, much better than both the 2.0HDi & the 1.6 which both are underpowered.

Mine getting on abit, X reg, but has got FSH, if it been looked after it shouldn't cause you much problems as the Picasso is considered one of the more reliable car's from Citreon.

Paid less than a Grand for mine, sorted out it's little faults & now it brilliant love driving it

Haggisman · 23 Feb 2012 at 15:46

Ixon said:
I own a Picasso a 1.8SX, power wise it's not bad, much better than both the 2.0HDi & the 1.6 which both are underpowered.

Mine getting on abit, X reg, but has got FSH, if it been looked after it shouldn't cause you much problems as the Picasso is considered one of the more reliable car's from Citreon.

Paid less than a Grand for mine, sorted out it's little faults & now it brilliant love driving it

Yeah I'm looking at a 00 - 03 plate, either the 1.6 or 1.8 petrol - I don't do the mileage to justify the diesel, plus from the HonestJohn link Radderfire posted, it appears the hdi suffers from a lot more problems than the petrol.

You'd recommend the 1.8 over the 1.6 then?

Ixon · 23 Feb 2012 at 18:51

The 1.8 is the best one to go for in the Picasso range, the 1.6 petrol is underpowered. they do a 2.0 Petrol aswell, but that isn't worth considering as it has a lot worst mpg compared to the 1.8 and very slightly more grunt.

If your do decide to go for a Picasso, make sure it has full service history.
Also things to check for when buying.

Central locking can be a bugger on these make sure all the doors lock do this a few times & check all doors including the boot.

Drop links also go on these a lot, if you hear anything that sounds like the parcel shelf bouncing around coming from the front of the car, knock them down cost around £70 to fix in a garage or you could do it yourself as it pretty easy to do.

When you come to inspect the car, check the clutch pedal see if it comes away from the Clutch Master Clyinder, move the pedal with your hand to the left if it comes away from the Clyinder it means it snapped from the clip as it made from plastic with no retaining pin, if it does can easily be sorted with a couple of tie wraps, but knock them down as it £200 to replace this should you wish.

Other things to check is all the dash lights up, bulbs in these go pretty often, but very easy to replace 5 mins a job and around £2.00 per bulb, if any are not lighting up knock the person down again

More serious things to look out for is the temp sensor can go, making the car think it's overheating, it not & not expensive to replace, when taking for a test drive keep an eye on the temp it should be 2 to 3 bars & no higher.

Clutch judder is quite common, if it judders but yet bites good and no slipping then the clutch bell housing is knackered you be able to tell this in the feel in the clutch pedal basically it not be smooth and you get some vibration.

You can drive it like this, but it not nice, replacement clutch is anything from £300 to £600 depending on were you take it, just had mine done cost me £306 :/ but drives brilliantly now.

If the check engine light is on walk away, usually on the Picasso only really serious thing bring the check engine light on, don't let the seller blag ya it isn't a major problem because 9/10 times it will be.

If there is a slight misfire when cold, this not a prob just replace the sparkplugs with either Denso or Bosch, they don't like NGK, or cheap ones garages like to stick in.

Gearbox on these have a loose feel to them, it isn't knackered it just the way they are, but the little spring inside can fail making it not reurn to the middle when in neutral, again not expensive to fix as it a little spring that broke.

One thing to really check for with the gearbox is the gear linkage come away from they mount onto in the engine, you can fix it yourself by cliping it back on but it pop off again at some point leaving ya with no gears.

To check for this keep putting it into reverse a few times, if it gonna pop off it do it in reverse more than any other gear, if it does walk away as it expensive to sort it means all the dash has to come out to sort it.

The older Picasso is a better buy than the newer ones because usually all the problems that people have had in the past have been sorted, so a lot more reliable in the long run.

Haggisman · 23 Feb 2012 at 19:35

Brill, thanks for that post

Will print out and take with if i go to view any! Would +rep you if i could!!

Brookert · 23 Feb 2012 at 19:37

Haggisman said:
I know, unfortunately I've resigned myself to the fact that my insurance co. hate me, and so I'm reduced to having the premiums of a 17 year old coupled with the requirement to have a largish car, so fugliness is pretty low on considerations right now. I figure if I can't have the car I want, I might as well get the cheapest I can and save the difference.

Cheers, will have a look through.

Edit: 4/5, "There are better people carriers around, but for sheer value for money, few can match the Citroen Xsara Picasso. It certainly represents plenty of family car for your money."

Think that pretty much settles it. *cry*

The lowest I can get the premium is £2.5k. If I can sell my current car for £1700, then I've barely lost any money on it, and that will cover both the cost of the Picasso and the insurance for the year, meaning I can save the monthly premiums too.

Well you sound like your actually buying a car for sensible reasons, must be a first for motors.....

Haggisman · 24 Feb 2012 at 09:24

Brookert said:
Well you sound like your actually buying a car for sensible reasons, must be a first for motors.....

I know... I'm secretly hoping someone will put me out of my misery before I get round to it!

Diesel · 24 Feb 2012 at 10:27

Ixon said:
I own a Picasso a 1.8SX... ....love driving it

Have you spent the rest of your life driving around in a wheelybin?

Dogbreath · 24 Feb 2012 at 10:44

Relentless81 said:
I've seen one on fire.

That is by far the best thing to happen to them. Terminally boring jelly mould on wheels.

Brookert · 24 Feb 2012 at 15:22

Haggisman said:
I know... I'm secretly hoping someone will put me out of my misery before I get round to it!

normally threads around here go:

I want a cheap reliable run around........

................guys I've found a 1987 porsche with 200k miles, needs some work, Im going to BUY!!

Ixon · 24 Feb 2012 at 18:41

The Picasso isn't a driver car it was never designed to be, but Citreon did something right because you see them all the time on the road.

I like mine & i actually like driving it, only the other week I used my Pic to bring home a brand new Washer for my mum, took the back seats out fitted in no probs at all, thus saving on delivery costs.

I also do a lot of Fishing, i can fit all my tackle in inc holdalls without them getting in the way of the front passenger seats.

I like the Picasso for it's Practicality, that why i bought one