Mondeo or Rover 75/ZT - any recommendations?

MrSmartprice

Yep! That's the sort of thing I mean. Nondescript boy-toy.

Silent_Bob_3

Very box like too :D

jjames_3

As opposed to the AX, ZX, Xsara, Xantia, Saxo which are all incredibly sexy cars. I see what you mean.

Sorry, but I'd take an Accord or Mazda 6 over a Citroen C5 any day.

At the end of the day, why don't the French manufacturers sell in the USA? Peugeot, owners of Citroen, gave up because they kept being sued over reliability problems. This is a country which, after all, considers the VW Golf to be "very unreliable". The Japanese cars thrive in this market. That must tell you something. Ironically, French cars should really do well in the States: roomy, wallowy, comfy things with nice big spongy armchairs for seats, exactly the sort of attributes they go for over there. Yet no, they won't have 'em.

jjames_3

I guess that this car:



Is a non-descript box then, and this car:



Is a classy quirky piece of Gallic superiority?

Even PSA realise Toyota are better -- the new C1/107 is a Toyota in disguise.

seaniboy

I recently went on a car hunt for a saloon sized car after I gave up on my 97 Tigra, road tested a Mondeo, Vectra, Octiva, Laguna, Rover 400, ZS and ZT and others, I settled for a ZS as the ZT was out my price range, I bought a 23 month old ZS for£4000!!(yeah I couldnt believe my luck, some guy traded it at the collapse it was £17000 brand new although I got Arnold Clark down from £5000, so they broke even, just!) handles the road like a dream,1.8i, part leather interior, air con etc etc.... best of all? my budget was £8000 cash and the rest on finance, I spent 50% of my cash budget....now thats money saving !(makes up for the £15000 I spent on that bloody Tigra in '97 lol).

Go with the MG ZT, MG handling gives BMW and Mercedes a run for the money.... at a fraction of the price (pardon the pun)

MrSmartprice

For the benefit of jjames, we have test driven the Aygo and the C1, although not the 107. They are OK but nothing more. And none of them are Japanese. Or French. They are thrown together somewhere in Eastern Europe, and probably given the badges at random. They are, however, cheap and cheerful.

We chose a C2 as our second car, far superior to those three, and to everything else in a similar price range. That included Hyundai, Fiat, Nissan and god knows how many others. (Which reports were absolutely useless, incidentally.)

All that nonsense about America cuts no ice. When did they ever have any idea about cars? If you don't like French cars, fine. But look at how many Citroens you see these days.

jjames_3

> They are thrown together somewhere in Eastern Europe

What is that supposed to mean? Does the fact that they are built in Eastern Europe have any bearing on quality? These cars are built to Toyota QA standards using mostly Toyota mechanical parts. Time will tell, but they'll almost certainly be the most reliable vehicles ever to wear the Citroen badge.

As for the US, they will not stand for bad engineering over there. Peugeot were forced out of the market because their cars were not up to the job. As for the number of Citroens we see on British roads, we don't have a very good track record in the UK for going with the most reliable vehicles. In the 70s everyone bought BL junk despite the fact it wasn't very good, and we bought far more Fords when they weren't very reliable than we do now when they have improved immeasurably. Citroens are not in the same league as those old horror stories (although Renault's current range of dCi diesel engines are probably even worse), but still this country does not purchase on grounds of quality, so the number of Citroens on the road says very little about anything other than PSA's marketing machine. It's all about image.

BigAde

jjames wrote:

> It's all about image.

That sums it all up very nicely... well put.

A large number of us British (as a whole) tend to go for "image" above other factors like reliability, cost, safety etc etc.... That's why VW sell so well despite VW not scoring so well on reliability surveys. Citroen seem to be going for this image-factor as well, producing fairly stylish, but otherwise unremarkable cars. I've never owned a Citroen, but had a '94 Citroen Xantia as one of the pool cars at work... very nice ride (renowned Citroen suspension system), but always having one problem or another and kept going back to the garage.... Before it was eventually dragged off to auction after 60,000 miles and a number of years it was sounding like a clapped-out Austin Allegro with 400,000 miles on the clock. It was this experience that put me off Citroens. I don't blame Citroen for going for "image" (it's easier to improve on than reliability), and I speak as a big fan of the Citroen DS (never drove one, but great to look at), but I think in this instance the reliability surveys are about right.

That said, I believe that almost any modern car well-serviced and cared for will prove far, far more reliable than the equivalent we all drove just 10-20 years ago.

As far as "image" is concerned, the one car I would never be seen dead in (and I know I won't win many friends by saying this) is a BMW. For me it just reeks of "look-at-me, I've-made-it, aren't I great". Besides, I couldn't drive one of those things - I just can't help driving considerately.

Let the hordes flame away....

BigAde

seaniboy wrote:

I recently went on a car hunt for a saloon sized car after I gave up on my 97 Tigra, road tested a Mondeo, Vectra, Octiva, Laguna, Rover 400, ZS and ZT and others, I settled for a ZS as the ZT was out my price range, I bought a 23 month old ZS for£4000!!(yeah I couldnt believe my luck, some guy traded it at the collapse it was £17000 brand new although I got Arnold Clark down from £5000, so they broke even, just!) handles the road like a dream,1.8i, part leather interior, air con etc etc.... best of all? my budget was £8000 cash and the rest on finance, I spent 50% of my cash budget....now thats money saving !(makes up for the £15000 I spent on that bloody Tigra in '97 lol).

Go with the MG ZT, MG handling gives BMW and Mercedes a run for the money.... at a fraction of the price (pardon the pun)

Thanks seaniboy - appreciate your comments.

I'm actively looking for a 75/ZT or a Mondeo Estate. All things being equal, I'd certainly go for the ZT-T... just have to see what comes up in the coming weeks/months.... the secret of finding a bargain is not to be in a hurry to buy, but to move fast when you find what you want at the right price.

jjames_3

I think it's a good choice in the current climate. The ZT is a fine looking car, with sporty handling, decent build quality, a good quality German mechanical base and very cheap due to Rover's collapse. I wouldn't have touched a Rover with a bargepole had it been foreign (look at the problems Daewoo owners had when that company went bust), but being a Brit car you can be sure that parts will be in decent supply for a while to come yet.

As far as Citroens are concerned, at the end of the day there are very few genuinely bad cars on the roads any more, and PSA parts are fairly cheap so Citroens are usually quite cheap to run which is a good thing. It's just that it always seems to be French and Italian car owners (and I'm not having a go at anyone on this board here, it's elsewhere) who seem to enjoy deriding certain marques' lack of image and refer to them as crappy, rubbish cars. Being an owner of a Nissan, and a Hyundai, two of the makes concerned (Rover is another), i get a little bit tetchy about the whole thing from time to time.

I don't suppose it helps that the models concerned (Nissan Sunny, Hyundai Accent, along with a Vauxhall Vectra I had before that) have all been voted by Jeremy Clarkson at various times, totally unfairly in my book, as the "worst cars of all time" etc :rolleyes: