Citroen C5, Any Owners?.

[jon.bda]

Got to go and look at a C5 estate tomorrow for my sister. Been looking at the recalls and stuff like that for specific faults to look out for but i was wondering if theres anyone here who owns one and has opinions?. Its a 2.0 litre HDi estate.

 

[davidstone28]

Have you had a look on carsurvey.org ?

 

[blueboy2001]

I used to have a 2003 2.2 HDi hatch until it met an early demise when shunted from behind when I was sat at traffic lights.

I would avoid an early one, from about 52 plate onwards they ironed out a lot of the bugs - these cars, especially the higher spec models have a lot of software controlled kit on them and early cars would exhibit very strange behaviour at times due to software problems. This should have been sorted under warranty though.

The 2.0 HDi is a well proven engine and whilst its down on power compared to recent stuff, its pretty refined and economical. The C5 is a very smooth and quiet car, it's not really something for throwing around and driving hard. There's plenty of grip, higher spec models have more advanced suspension which alters the damping depending on conditions and this does reduce roll in corners - you can tell if it has Hydractive 3+ if there is a Sport button between the height adjustment buttons. The suspension seems to be very reliable - they changed the rear sphere design in 2002 as the early ones were noisy - not sure if this affected the Estates or not. There was a modification that involved fitting soundproofing under the back seats so it's easy to spot if it's been done.

For the money they are fetching these days the estate is a great load lugger and they aren't as unreliable as many would have you believe.

 

[jon.bda]

Have you had a look on carsurvey.org ?

Had a look at that and a couple of other sites mate thanks.

I used to have a 2003 2.2 HDi hatch until it met an early demise when shunted from behind when I was sat at traffic lights.

I would avoid an early one, from about 52 plate onwards they ironed out a lot of the bugs - these cars, especially the higher spec models have a lot of software controlled kit on them and early cars would exhibit very strange behaviour at times due to software problems. This should have been sorted under warranty though.

The 2.0 HDi is a well proven engine and whilst its down on power compared to recent stuff, its pretty refined and economical. The C5 is a very smooth and quiet car, it's not really something for throwing around and driving hard. There's plenty of grip, higher spec models have more advanced suspension which alters the damping depending on conditions and this does reduce roll in corners - you can tell if it has Hydractive 3+ if there is a Sport button between the height adjustment buttons. The suspension seems to be very reliable - they changed the rear sphere design in 2002 as the early ones were noisy - not sure if this affected the Estates or not. There was a modification that involved fitting soundproofing under the back seats so it's easy to spot if it's been done.

For the money they are fetching these days the estate is a great load lugger and they aren't as unreliable as many would have you believe.

Thanks mate, couple of handy tips there. I believe the car we're going to see is an 03 so fingers crossed it should have had all the faults sorted and the recalls done. Not had much to do with these cars and i only found out last night they want me to go and have a look at it!.

 

[Third Opinion]

They are ment to be awful.

I asked a citreon machanic as I saw one was going cheap a few months ago. He said only buy it if you have about 5 warranties on it, one covering another. Read about them and the only certainty is you are highly likely to have big bills.

Honest John

Also read about what the owbners have written about them and it's equally dipressing.

Car Survey

Shame as they are quite nice to drive however there is a reason they are cheap to buy.

 

[v0n]

I think many people hoped they would be like Xantias, as in - even if they give you grief from time to time they are easier to repair than everyone makes it sound. Meanwhile, because of electronics overload they are more like XM - niggling faults difficult to diagnose, small faults need replacing massive amount of kit etc. Having said that - I know a guy with 53 plate C5 Estate, with more than 100k on the clock and it never skipped a bit. It is however second one he picked, first one had some issue with dashboard before they even took it for a spin.