26th Apr 2010, 07:32

I'm struggling with my 03 Pluriel at the moment. Leaks are the major issue. I was told on purchase the seals were the newer modified ones - they were not. Citroen UK seemed sympathetic, told me to take it to the local Citroen dealer to get a 'goodwill' repair organised. Dealer told me they had to check for leaks - test cost me £75 and confirmed the leaks...

I then heard nothing for ages, contacted dealer who said Citroen would not pay as I was not the original purchaser... OK, so Citroen got the roof wrong, why should we pay for their mistake? Dealer quoted me +/- £2500 to fix. I am now awaiting Citroen UK to come back to me with an explanation. I'm not holding my breath.

Sometimes my rear screen won't pop up - tends to just need a little lube as it sticks. When you switch on the ignition, the fan comes on for a few seconds...

26th Apr 2010, 14:19

A solicitors letter will do the trick - they can't charge you £75 to check for a warranty claim fault and then refuse to pay a claim.

Outrageous - the fault has no relation to who has owned the car, it is a design fault that is well known.

Your car insurance may have legal cover for this type of thing, so this is the first thing to check.

I think Pluriel owners should get together and go public with a mass demonstration with press coverage, as most cars are faulty and Citroen has been appalling at sorting out the issues. Citroen are trying to go upmarket with the DS3 etc and would not want the adverse publicity. Regardless of the warranty, merchandise should be of suitable quality and a roof mechanism on a modern car should not fail within 10 years, or leak as a matter of course on every car.

To see how a roof SHOULD work, look at a Daihatsu Copen..

If you have no legal cover, I would get rid ASAP and save yourself the headaches - there are much better cars out there.

27th Apr 2010, 11:20

Well, yesterday I talked about my leaky 03 Pluriel. The word came back from the dealer that Citroen UK had rejected my claim. Reasons - age, service history and mileage. It is well under average miles, out of warranty and not Citroen serviced - so what?!... Nice chap from Citroen called today to tell me how sorry Citroen are that they will not be able to help me. But, they were willing to offer me every assistance in the future - whatever that is. So they politely said 'tough'

27th Apr 2010, 11:27

As a matter if interest does anyone know of anybody who has had a 'goodwill' repair with a car out of warranty?

14th Jun 2010, 12:47

2003 Pluriel - The passenger side rear hatch hinge does not fit correctly due to the main rail having suffered metal fatigue. On closer inspection, it has been milled too thin on manufacture. I don't believe this can be the only one very poor quality control by Citroen, will see what dealers have to say tomorrow.

25th Jun 2010, 13:45

Hi, I have just bought a 54 reg Citroen C3 Pluriel 1.4

Drives good, but having roof and boot problems.

Top part of boot won't open for me?

The roof will only go back 10inches or so. I have noticed some (clips) along the roof are broken. Driver's side window won't go down either.

Anyone got advice, and how much would this cost to fix???

4th Jul 2010, 11:33

Hi All.

It's interesting reading all the problems that everyone has had, but it doesn't bode well for my little Citroen Pluriel.

I bought the car in November 2009 after little/no research, which was silly, and I regret it completely.

In January I noticed leaking on the passenger side and leaking through the boot. But after a good clean up and vaseline on all the seals it seemed fine.

After a particularly bad storm, the next morning, there was a pool of water in the boot a couple of inches deep! We dried out the car and it seemed fine.

However three or four weeks after this incident, we took the roof down and had a great day. But when we came to put it up on the night it wouldn't go up. We called the AA out, and they couldn't put it up so took it to our local garage. The motors for the roof had completely rusted/seized up. It has now been in the garage for 6 weeks, and the mechanic has tried nearly everything - the new parts keep breaking. He is still working on it, but the most annoying part is the RAC warranty bought when I purchased the car does not cover the roof!

I'm really hoping that its not going to turn into £3000+ job.

It is such a shame as the actual car is fantastic, and if we lived in a warmer climate I am sure it would be the best car I had ever owned. Unfortunately they just don't make sense in the UK.

Disgruntled, Pluriel Owner.

6th Aug 2010, 06:29

As a recent owner of a 2004 Pluriel Sensodrive in Holland, I also had my share of roof problems.

Bought the car 2 months back from a local garage, and upon collection, the roof failed to close. Apparently a bad electrical connection. After 2 weeks, the roof could only open in its first position. Trying any other position, you heard a loud rattle. On top the bootlid did not open. A new roof computer and new roof cables were installed, the tailgate received a new latch mechanism. Perfect now and under warranty.

Surfing the web, I came to understand there are basically 3 things that can go wrong with the roof:

1) Broken runners

2) Broken cables

3) A gear problem (electro motor)

Citroen dealerships will advise you to replace the roof entirely; for me that only indicates their level of skills! There are now a few companies that have specialized in the Pluriel roof problems, at only a fraction of the costs compared with replacing the entire roof by a Citroen dealer. Check out: www.chevroncitroenspecialists.com

Good luck, John van Beek - The Netherlands.

30th Aug 2010, 20:24

Our 2006 Pluriel has no roof leaks so far, but has let us down many times with the upper half of the rear tailgate failing to operate and so on. I can usually fix this myself, although a locking mechanism was found to be faulty on one occasion, which was fixed under warranty.

We bought the car brand new because we liked it, it's sort of sexy in a way. Luckily it's a second car. In the four years we've owned it, this car has let us down completely at least twice, i.e. unusable, will not go at all. It has partially let us down three times with tailgate/roof not operating/won't let us in type problems, and leaked twice which I've resolved myself.

One day we were driving down the M1, something went wrong with the roof, we'd gone under a motorway bridge and it sounded like someone had stoned the car from the bridge. When we pulled up at the next services, we found the roof spoiler had disappeared. Citroen refused to repair it under warranty because we couldn't produce the missing part for inspection. I wanted to go to the small claims court, but in the mean time my wife did a deal and went 50/50 with the dealership, I was not happy.

When looking in the last few days for a bigger car, rather than buy a brand new C3 Picasso which we discussed with our local dealer and looked exactly suitable for our needs, I looked back to the the first time the Pluriel let us down. It was but a few weeks old when a switch that stops you starting the engine without the footbrake being depressed failed. Our local dealers said Yes of course we'll repair it under warranty, bring it in! I said "But it won't start" the dealer told us it was our responsibility, and asked if we were in the AA, and if we had Home Start? I said we didn't and that I had a brand new car, and that I didn't need Home Start (I'd never owned a Citroen before you see, so I was probably a bit naive). The dealer said they would fix it as soon as we brought it in!

Not surprisingly I've decided not to buy Citroen and gone for a two year old VW Golf Estate instead. It's a shame really because the C3 Picasso is just what we need.

The fact is, I won't be buying anything from Citroen ever again, which is sad really because they are tremendous innovators and their cars have much to recommend them. I'm sorry for Citroen, they've lost me for ever I'm afraid and talking to people around me, their reputation in the UK is not good anyway. The internet is world wide and customers talk to each other. Citroen, you've been warned.