are french & italian cars that bad?

webmonkeyuk

webmonkeyuk

webmonkeyuk

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Im in the market for a small-medium diesel in the next few months and ive always tryed to stay clear of the french & italian ones as i dont want things to be falling off and having to get it repaired all the time, but if you discount these 2 whats left ford,vauxhall,nissan and the germans. out of that only the ford choices (fiesta,focus) really tickle my fancy maybe an astra at a push. i know owning cars are a gamble but ive had a r reg micra for 5 years and nothing at all has gone wrong in 30,000 miles ive clocked up on it, my borther has had 2 puntos and they have been a bag of rubbish now hes on a 306 and the odd things have gone on it not as bad as the puntos though.

what do you guys think? are they that bad
 
A colleague of mine has a Clio (think it is a 04 plate) and it needs £1k of work - fuel injectors or something.

I'm keeping to efficient German cars :)
 
Some are hounds, some you cant kill.
Basic french cars are virtually indestructible, anything even vaguely complicated though will die within 0.2 seconds of driving out the showroom though.
 
Currently owning a 16 year old french car that is STILL running without any major problems or minor ones to that point I dont believe they are the bags of trouble that they are often made out to be. Im sure that if it had been treated like dirt and a consumable item it would have been dead long ago but that can be said for any car.
 
Look at the "associate" germans, eg SEAT and Skoda. Same underpinnings as the "proper" VW without the associated price tag. All those Skoda owners who love their cars can't be wrong.

Edit to the rules
1. Don't buy an Alfa
2. Don't buy a Fiat
3. Don't buy a Renault
4. be careful of anything else French
 
I have had one, a Citroen ZX Volcane which I had from new, the lease company eventually took it back after 20 months after about 25-30 garage visits , aorund 45 days off the road and warranty costs that had exceeded the cost of the car
 
theres no rule on this, such as all french cars are terrible

ive owned my Citroen Picasso for 4 years, and not had anything other consumables done to it.

But if you read the owners surveys, you'll find that the picasso one of very few exceptions to this rule, but there are some

bottom line : research your purchase first. You'll soon find out if the car you're interested in has reliability problems.
 
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Apparantly Renault were the most reliable of 2006 and again in 07 according to a few seperate articles i read, and even TG commented on the 07 one.
 
MrLOL said:
theres no rule on this, such as all french cars are terrible

ive owned my Citroen Picasso for 3 years, and not had anything other consumables done to it.

But if you read the owners surveys, you'll find that the picasso one of very few exceptions to this rule, but there are some

bottom line : research your purchase first. You'll soon find out if the car you're interested in has reliability problems.
Click to expand...

We have a Y reg Picasso 1.6lx, it has done 46k from new. Never caused us a problem in 3 years that we have owned it. It has had a new exhaust and a couple of tyres, have done all my own basic servicing and it is run as a workhorse. Picassos are so under-rated, and the older w,x and y reg models are getting quite cheap now. The 1.6 is a boring 90bhp 8v engine, but it works well as long as you stick decent 10/30w semi-synthetic oil in the beast. Never had to top the oil up between yearly 6k oil services.

Rob H
 
mines on nearly 80k now and 7 years old.

bearing in mind i got it 4 years ago with 25k on the clock, its not had an easy life :D

but again, nothing other than consumables.
 
Duke said:
Although I have heard the Picasso is meant to be reasonably reliable, I wouldn't expect a car that only does around 6000 miles a year to have too many problems.
Click to expand...

It spends its life doing 3-4miles runs from our house to hospital were my wife works, with the odd long run maybe once a month. Those short runs tend to cause more wear than a 90mile motorway cruise.
Loads of taxis in Hull use Picassos, some of them have stellar mileages;)

Rob H
 
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