9th Jul 2010, 16:40

Sad to see you have had issues with Citroens. My experiences have been far better. I started with a CX Safari that was 10 years old and cost £250. I ran it for 4 years, the only hassle being a leaking water pipe. What a car.

I then bought a 120000 mile XM 2.5 Exclusive for £1400, and ran that for 30000 miles with nary any trouble, in fact it was less squeaky in the cabin than similar mile BMW's (must be the soft suspension) :)

Since then I have bought 2 more, but I am not just a Citroen freak, I like cheap to run cars. I got a Saxo for my wife, that has had an exhaust and the throttle cable snapped in 5 years, and been hit by 2 other cars, but that is not an unreliability issue.

The final Citroen (I still run it) is a Xsara HDI. I bought it with 80000 miles on its clock, and I have run it so far to 150000 miles. It still returns 45+ to the gallon and everything works. It did have a spate of blowing headlight bulbs, but (touch wood) that is gone. It needed a clutch at 140000 miles and 9 years old, the only time it let me down.

Would I buy another? If the price is right, yes, but I am thinking of buying a better car, sexier car, now I drive less miles.

Would I buy German? I know of several dead Passats, and for a hobby, the firm I used to work for seemed to kill turbo diesel Toyotas, so there is not much salvation there. What are my choices then? I fancy a Saab cabrio or maybe a Megane CC; after all, I may even have good luck with their reliability.