CITROEN C1 1.4 HDi Rhythm 5dr (2005)

My Citroen C1 - Fun small car, struggles a bit at speed

I used to have a smart car, one of the original ones, but it turned out to be pretty rubbish really. Leaky, poorly put together, too many repairs. I still wanted a small economical car that made clever use of space. It's pretty good that the smart car sort of inspired a generation of tiddly cars, worked out well for me. The Citroen C1 seems to be part of a massive Citroen rebrand or something, C1, C2, C3 etc. Anyway the C1 fit my needs. I had a Citroen before the old smart car and that was always reliable so I came back 'home' in a way with this one.

I haven't regretted it yet (just over 3 years). I've heard that there's a common problem with the clutch on the C1 but nothing has gone that wrong for me so far. The gears can be a bit funny sometimes but nothing out of the ordinary. It's generally very reliable.

My only real day to day problem is the boot, which is really tiny. I mean, the four seats are really very cleverly put together and give a fantastic amount of space, but the boot really is a silly size as a result. I do get the feeling the boot could have been better sized though, I mean just by flaying out the back end of the car a bit (admittedly I don't know anything about car design).

The fuel economy is great, BUT... the paperwork says it's 67mpg in my diesel one (fab) but I just assumed this would be a whole lot higher than the petrol version. Actually the petrol ones are over 60 as well, at least on paper. Having said that, those petrol ones I'm talking about are 1.0 litre. Then again, maybe 1.0 petrol is more powerful than 1.4 diesel? I'm not sure, and to be honest the power doesn't really bother me. What does bother me is that diesel is a few pence a litre more than petrol, so I'm really not sure if it's actually more economical or not. What a head scratcher. Mind you if you're worried about whether you're getting 61 or 67mpg then you're doing ok really :)