Opinions please Looking to buy a Citroën Xsara Picasso

miss-piggin

Hi I wasn't even considering a new car but the clutch has gone in my MOndeo and it's gonna cost more to keep going than it's worth so am looking for another vehicle as it's essential for work, as it is I have 3 children who all need car seat so in the back my hubby is squashed between 2 so we thought perhaps something with a bit more room might be better, but we still need a decent boot we have come up with a Citroën Xsara Picasso the one I am looking at is 2001 and any experience/opinions and or suggestions on alternatives would be appreciated. Many thanks

anniecave

how old is the mondeo? How many miles does has it done? Is it in good condition otherwise? Is the clutch the only thing wrong with it?

miss-piggin

Mondeo is a P reg, it's done 136k not sure really, there were quite a few things on the MOT cert from last yesr whihc were advisory so am thinking they will need doing this time - suspension arm bush and brake pipe corroded

U've_been_framed

I loved my picasso. It was a 2 litre turbo diesel. It had more useful storage than my current C4 grand picasso. Boot space was enormous and it had a fold out shopping box on wheels. The only thing that I didn't like was the large turning circle which could make parking awkward.

anniecave

ok so probably at end of shelf life then .. .just checking

someone else may be able to give you an idea of cars - I only have a little one

anniecave

this thread may help

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1158701

susan1105

I have three kids in car seats all fit in no worries and also a renualt scenic also great size in side

jonnyb

my wife's got one, my mum's got one, my sister has got one.
they are very good practical cars that don't cost a lot to run.

MrsFraggle

Going to play devils advocate here, we had a Picasso SX 2.0HDI from new (2003) and traded it in a couple of weeks back

Positives
HUGE boot, three full seats for the kids (when we first got it, all our three were in carseats), ours was a deisel, cheap to run and maintain (only £120 a year tax) and only a few minor issues, by the time we finished with it it had done 113,000 miles so had had to usual bits replaced, exhaust and so on (to be expected). For a Citroen the paintwork after such high miles was pretty good especially considering the other half doesn't seem to realise cars need to be washed...

Negatives
I bloomin' hated driving it. It was like a tank/bus. It had the turning circle of a tank/bus and sounded like a tank/bus. It wasn't my car as such, it was the other halfs but was our 'family car'. As the other half won't drive abroad it invariably ended up with me driving a car I hated on the wrong side of the bloomin' road :rotfl:. REALLY heavy steering. You do get used to it though. I also hated the fact that every other car on the road appears to be a picasso. And dont' get a blue one, unless you want to be called Uncle Bryn! (ours wasn't blue I hasten to add :rotfl:)

Thats just my opinion though honestly, to be fair it did us well when we needed the space for car seats etc.

MF

p.s. I have a set of roof bars and a haynes manual going cheap