CITROEN C2 1.6i 16V VTR 3dr SensoDrive (2003)

My Citroen C2 Review - Not lovin it

I feel like a bit of an idiot really driving this. Not because it looks daft, I still think it looks really sleek and nice. I feel stupid because it's got so much going wrong with it, and that would have been so obvious to me if I'd done a bit of reading around internet forums and stuff before handing over thousands to a car dealer who after the sale didn't want to hear from me about any problems I might be having.

My Citroen C2 just makes me sad most days. It has regular, everyday problems like the constant rattling (which I swear is getting louder), the teeny weeeny little seats in the back which are increasingly tight for our kids who are only young teens.

Then it has the bigger 'surprise' problems, i.e. when things go wrong, sometimes really wrong. The senso drive is a big part of the problem, easily hundreds of pounds worth of repairs on electrical and gearbox problems over the years. It's out of warranty now, but even when it was in warranty Citroen seemed skilled at denying things were actually wrong, and finding ways that our problems weren't covered by the warranty.

Other things have gone wrong, and things that just make you think what on earth is this car made of? Like one of the steering wheels stalks just sort of came to pieces a year ago. I've never known that to happen in any car ever! But the Citroen C2 has a few little things like that. The paintwork is very poor too, attracts chips very easily, and as a result allows rust to develop.

I put the running costs at two out of five because that's a sort of balance between what is admittedly a pretty good day to day fuel economy, as against the high ongoing cost of repairs. Basically I feel like a fool for just not doing even a little bit of reading up on people's experiences, cos I definitely would have avoided it. We're hoping to switch to a Kia next year when we can afford it, and we'll be putting RELIABILITY above everything else from now on. It's so sad to have a car you just can't rely on.