Faults:

The car never missed a beat for months, then it started flat-spotting a couple times a week, a real worry if trying to overtake - so I avoided that! Eventually found the ignition coil pack needed renewing. Biggest car parts company wanted £78 for the Haas part. eBay parts company wanted £36 for the same make part! The car is now totally smooth again.

Replaced the rear exhaust box with a standard Saxo one (lack of cash) and saved about £30. Looks a bit sad but performance is the same. Aim to replace whole system later, with the oval chrome pipe, as it should be.

Rear washwipe worked but never squirted water from buying the car, but it's not a worry or an MOT fail.

One rear radio speaker was crackily from car purchase and unfortunately won't be repaired whilst I own it... why? Because you need to remove most of the rear interior of the car to get at the speaker! Stupid design.

Tailgate central locking module never worked. Sourced a very similar £12 module for a 106 and it works fine!

N/S front wheel arch trim was missing. Sourced different colour from a scrappy, good amateur paint job totaling £19 and looks fab!

General Comments:

Bought car blindly on the big auction site for £260, without viewing! Didn't realise it had standard boy racer bits on it, until I went to collect it!

From the moment I drove it, it was fun, fun, fun! Had newish Chinese 185 sports tyres on the alloys and I've never had so much fun pulling away from new cars from Fiestas to BMWs in corners and on roundabouts! It out-corners just about all of them! A 50 year old boy racer he he!

Those tyres are a handful on a couple of pothole riddled roads I negotiate each day. Bad road edges really suck you in towards the verge, making me battle with the steering.

Brakes could be a little better, but are better than my old Corsa, so I learnt to brake earlier before.

The comfort level for this old small car is fairly good; you feel bumps but nothing really bad. Seats are adequate and driving the car is easy.

After-thought factory fitted alarm had never been used for 5 years before I bought the car, but I re-activated it and it works fine!

Engine had 98k on it, added another 6k of fun to it, and it's as good as ever!

Good on fuel, tyres and no loss of oil.

Faults:

Strange squeak (sounds like a mouse) from the nearside front below 30mph after about 30 minutes driving.

Very loud noise from front of car on longer motorway journeys (80 miles plus), but on inspection nothing evident, happened twice now, thinking about changing driveshaft.

Exhaust rubbers fell off (not the car's fault due to stupid boy racer exhaust, which has now thankfully been removed)

New front tyres, brake pads, discs and nearside front wheel bearing (wear and tear) and new battery also.

Replaced driver's door lock, as some wannabe thief tried to break in, not cheap at £170.

Cannot always hold revs on idle - jumps between 500rpm and 1500rpm, and eventually cuts out if you don't blip the throttle.

Airbag light on dashboard, quite common I believe due to poorly designed wires under driver's seat (I hope the airbags actually do work, as Saxos are not the safest cars to have a crash in!)

Random clicking noise from passenger side glovebox area, have been told it's the indicator switch, now seems to have fixed itself.

Loads of weird squeaks and rattles from all over the car that do not exactly instill confidence!

General Comments:

Cracking fun to drive, really quite fast if you push it, and handles brilliantly. A great introduction to sporty-ish motoring, although I'm surprised more Saxo VTRs don't end up in hedges/upside down, given the typical inexperienced burberry-donning young drivers and truly awful brakes; a lethal combination in my honest opinion.

As mentioned, this car does have something of an image problem, it is something of a boy racer's dream and an unmolested, non-modified version is actually quite hard to find. Even our relatively untouched version, fully equipped with a ridiculously oversized exhaust (with rather rude inscription which I dare not repeat here - now since removed - the car is nicknamed the MD after it) it feels like it has had a hard life. The car does attract unwanted attention from boy racers, who seem to think we have an inbuilt instinct to race them to the nearest fast food outlet, but this is better since the exhaust was taken off.

The Saxo VTR really is good on fuel for a 1.6, and is in fact much better than smaller engined cars I have driven, as you don't need to drive flat out everywhere just to get to the speed limit. Long journeys are OK, but fuel consumption does increase above 70mph, but nobody goes faster than that of course, as it is the national speed limit. Insurance is very reasonable considering the performance.

Specification is good on the VTR, including sunroof, central locking and CD player. Boot space is good considering the car's size, and the back seats fold down. The Saxo VTR looks superb even against more modern cars, with smart subtle wheel arch flares and the alloy wheels are a really nice design. My girlfriend likes it too (it is difficult to find a pretty car that isn't a bag of nails - it's either one or the other.)

When it comes to reliability, the Saxo is very, very French. All the main parts seem fairly sturdy, and it is yet to break down, but occasionally it theatrically throws its arms in the air and threatens to stop working. This said, this must be the first car in history to fix itself, as one strange squeak or rattle can be there one day, the next it is completely gone. It is cheap to fix though, parts are cheap and mechanics simple, so if you fancy doing some DIY repairs, there's even a Haynes manual for it.

We love the MD and, despite its foibles, it is great fun and has truly become a member of the family, and I wouldn't swap it for anything else!