Citroen Assist or NOT

zico_2

Just a word of warning to any( primarily female) Citroen car owners who have the Citroen Assist roadside assistance cover which comes with new cars. It does not cover changing a wheel at the side of the road!!
I have a 6 month old picasso and yesterday returned to my car and discovered a flat tyre. Not a problem, I have changed tyres in the past. Got all the things together, but was not able to shift the wheel nuts with the little wheel brace supplied with the car, it is almost completely straight, about 18" long. Now I am quite strong for a woman I think, but I could not move these nuts. No problem I thought, I will ring Citroen assist. The young lady quoted some change in terms and conditions either earlier this year or last year, prior to my purchase of this car. This was never identified to me at any point during the purchase procedure, although is probably hidden in the small print of the cover. My main concern is that I could have been in a very isolated location, I do get about a bit with my job, and all these recovery services bleat on about how they prioritise lone woman drivers!
I was fortunate, I had not cancelled my Green Flag cover which I took out with my motor inurance and which runs until end Sept. They were more than helpful and came and changed the wheel. I think this is cost cutting by Citroen, they will want to pay as little as possible for roadside rescue and have chosen to remove this service from their package.
Also I am going to buy a + shaped wheel brace which I think will make undoing nuts easier.
I am not sure which roadside recovery provides Citroen Assist, but from experience I know that they all offer varying levels of cover to different organisations/individuals for different rates.

Wig

No, a + shaped will not be the best option, (if you can find one I don't remember seeing one in the shops). Your best option will be a telescopic one "L" shape. A good one might be about 50 quid.

Or if your current brace which comes with the car has a round thinnish round metal handle, you could just keep a length of steel tube - which fits snugly around the brace - in your boot cheaper and does the job just as good. If you don't have a piece of tube you could go to a steel supplies place and get a length of 2 feet, tell them what it's for and they'll sort you out.

Wasn't there any passing motorists who stopped to help? Waving a white hanky would have done the trick

zico_2

Thanks Wig, I was parked in quite a quiet side street and the only bloke who staggered past smelled strongly of booze!!
My main point is that these rescue services claim that they prioritise lone woman drivers, but obviously only for certain problems!

bylromarha

It's Citroen that are the problem here, not the brace.

Their after sales customer care is, at best, poor. We have 2 citroens and love the cars, but when things go wrong, or you need some advice from them, they can't do it.

It took them 8 weeks to tell me I couldn't have a forward facing Isofix seat in my Blingo. On advice of trading standards, I rang dealer I bought the car from. Within an hour, he had found the seat in the catalogue and gave me the part number.

And don't get me started on the stupidity that is the glued windscreen to the pluriel frame...a chipped windscreen means replacement trims as well as glass.

I still don't know any car company which offers good post sales service but Citroen are appaling, thats a cert.

JimArnold

While denigrating the Citroen response I think eveyone should be able to change a wheel. - Our Local Tesco has the extendable handle wheel brace for a fiver !

The standard Citroen tool should be adequate if the nut was correctly tightened - so assuming it was done by Citroen or a Citroen garage then Assist should assist!

Citroen have always had a reputation for ignoring problems with their cars I had one of the BXs which snapped 8 clutch cables - I used to carry a spare with me for th breakdown people to fit!

MissSunshine

Got all the things together, but was not able to shift the wheel nuts with the little wheel brace supplied with the car, it is almost completely straight, about 18" long. Now I am quite strong for a woman I think, but I could not move these nuts.

While denigrating the Citroen response I think eveyone should be able to change a wheel.

I used to have a Citreon Xantia and even my dad who regularly gets his hands dirty fixing his lorries struggled to get the nuts undone when i had a blowout cos the tyre garage use the electric thingy to do the job!!! My dad was standing on the brace and he's not a small guy!!

I had a faulty starter motor, kept getting changed under warranty. I'd been for an interview in Wolves, 45 miles from my home and car wouldn't start :eek: RAC wouldn't give me priority cos i was on a company car park, even though i didn't know anyone and interview was out of office hours. I had a stick in the car for such occasions, but needed 2 people, 1 to hit the starter motor, 1 to turn the engine over. Anyway car started after 20mins and i was able to tell them not to bother, wasn't happy though!!! :mad:

OP good job you still got green flag. Read the small print and fire off a letter, see where you get

Wig

JimArnold wrote:

While denigrating the Citroen response I think eveyone should be able to change a wheel.

The standard Citroen tool should be adequate if the nut was correctly tightened - so assuming it was done by Citroen or a Citroen garage then Assist should assist!

If I understand correctly, you are saying everyone should be able to change a tyre, the fact that she couldn't means - likely - the nuts were on too tightly therefore Citroens fault, Citroen should have assisted. Is that what you're saying?

I thought I'd clarify that otherwise you might mislead people like the poster above.

Wheel nuts also sometimes corrode and will take some strength to get off. I had a Toyota once, 3 out of 4 of the nuts broke off. That was an interesting day!

zico_2

Just to say JimArnold, that I thought I could change a wheel, as I have done some years ago and I still consider myself fit and able most of the time! This is a 6 month old car which has never had any wheels off since I bought it so assume wheel nuts were tightened in factory, probably by machine and not man (apart from man using machine!!)

I will need to buy a better brace as the one with the car has a bend at the end (so can't add a bit of piping) to use to loosen the bolt which lowers the spare wheel cage which is another major design fault of the citroen!!! I had a rant about that previously and got nowhere with citroen.
Will not be renewing citroen assist, will stick with Green Flag which I believe is cheaper when bought with my motor insurance anyway!
Probably won't buy another citroen either, when due for replacement I fully intend to be in need a wee sporty number!

The_Biff

I think you might have a case against Citroen. The wheel brace supplied did not work. It was badly designed. I would expect Citroen to pay for one that did work but ask them to supply first before proceeding with Small Claims Court. Good luck.

omega27

To be fair to Citroen, it does say very clearly that Citroen Assist only covers you for warranty related problems. At the dealer they pointed this out, no problems as I've already got AA cover with Lloyds. I'd take this up with your dealer.

I tried to ge a wheel off & found it rather hard work. And I goto the gym regularly!

bylromarha

Had to change the wheel today (for the first time in about 10 years!)

Hubby was late for work so he took my car leaving me with the flat.

I remembered this thread, and realsied that this would be the first wheel change on the Pluriel...machine tightened nuts (:eek: )at that time of the morning...

Thankfully, it was fine. I jumped on the brace a bit and it loosened them enough to change.

However, the thing that gave me the most hassle was the strap over the top of the spare...took me ages to unstrap as the pluriel boot comes out, not lifts up, so you have to get in a really strange position to unstrap it.

And I also owe an apology to Tesco...I thought their bag packer had left my brie on the end of the checkout at Christmas...I found it this morning nessled next to the spare tyre. Explains why OH has been complaining that the car was developing a strange odour and he didn't know what it was...:o