Faults:

Dipped beam bulbs fail in sequence every few months.

All rear lights on the passenger side failed while driving at night. Police pulled me over.

Car developed a transmission fault, which was repaired under warranty.

Transmission failed completely at 83,000 miles in January 2012. A damaged bearing took out several gears.

After replacing the entire transmission unit at considerable expense, the clutch bearing failed after the car had been in use less than two weeks. The car had to be taken by the AA to a garage.

Following replacement of clutch bearing, the car is now indicating BSI failure.

General Comments:

I was very pleased with this car when I first owned it. It drove well and is very comfortable. It seemed to be the ideal family car.

The car has a very impressive stereo system.

For the transmission to fail completely, after only 83,000 miles of mostly steady motorway commuting, is frankly astonishing.

I have spent, and am continuing to spend, a great deal of money trying to get the car roadworthy in order to sell it.

I would definitely advise anybody against buying any Citroen with an EGS transmission system.

Faults:

We had problems right from day one as the previous owner had hand controls fitted to the steering column (many C4 Grand Picassos with EGS are ex-Motability). This had meant some re-wiring in the Comms 2000 computer (this is mostly to do with stalks, steering wheel input, gear selection etc) that sits above the steering wheel.

Thanks to this, the auto lights didn't work and maybe some other stuff too. We took it back to the dealer who fitted a brand new Comms 2000 without any fuss. Problem solved!

Around the 22k mile mark, the back suspension started dropping. At first when parked, and then sometimes when on the move. Whilst the suspension was trying to recover to a fully up position, an air leak could be heard.

The dealer was excellent in taking the car in, diagnosing the problem (perished seals on the suspension air bags) and replacing both sides under warranty.

Car seems OK, for now...

General Comments:

This was both a car we really wanted, but also one that scares us a little. Firstly, we were very keen to have an economical car, but retain some form of automatic box that we're used to.

With high fuel prices and the threat of ever higher road tax, we decided to plump for the 1.6 HDI with 110bhp, and the single clutch automated gearbox that Citroën calls "EGS".

This is what scares me. Citroën aren't best known for making cars bulletproof (see suspension problems on the faults section) so having an automated manual gearbox seems like a huge risk. The jury is still out on the reliability, but in terms of day-to-day usage, it's great. Despite only having a single clutch (as opposed to VW's clever twin clutch DSG system) gear changes are very smooth, as long as you don't accelerate too quickly. The car is also smooth at slow speeds, unlike the DSG box, which can be jerky in those conditions - in my experience. This is a surprise, the generally unknown Citroën system actually does something better than VW's highly lauded clever box...

To accelerate more quickly, I'd recommend changing out from the fully automatic mode and using the nicely shaped paddles to change gear manually. This produces excellent results.

However, the hill start assist can kick in sometimes when you're trying to move slowly to park on a slope, and that can be a pain. Also, the hill start doesn't seem to work when you shift from R to A or M1, and that can take you by surprise too.

The engine is surprisingly gutsy for a 1.6 diesel. It revs cleanly, runs quietly, and provides ample power for shifting around such a large car. Any car equipped with this same engine, whether it be a small Fiesta or a large Volvo, would have to be taken seriously. It's a great unit. Fuel economy seems on a par with official figures.

The car is very well equipped, with multi zone digital climate control, laminated windows, 5, yes 5 built in sun blinds for the kids, a tailgate window that opens separately to the boot (and Citroën seem to have addressed the old fault from the C5 estate by moving the release switch too...), a very fancy computerised dashboard, auto wipers and lights, and self levelling rear suspension - although not *proper* Citroën suspension, just a cheap compressed air system. And other stuff, of course. The list is nearly endless! How about a button to raise and lower the back of the car to aid loading? Check. Ambient lighting all around the cabin? Check. Panoramic windscreen? Check. Etc.

The car is full of nice touches, showing real attention to detail, such as the lights in the door pockets that come on when your hand reaches down to find something, and an air-conditioned cubby hole where the gear stick would otherwise be. The rear seats fold flat with just one pull on a lever too (this is the 7 seat Grand Picasso version), which is so much better than our old Zafira.

I'm impressed with the huge array of storage spaces, although the doors and centre console could do with better shaped cupholders for drinks. The doors and fridge seem to be shaped for the size of a standard wine bottle... C'est tres important, non?

I guess there's only two things I actually dislike about the car. One, the "Economy Mode" that shuts everything electrical off unless the engine is running cuts in way too quickly, plus the interior lights turn off too fast when strapping kids into seats, and two, the foot rest is too close to the driver, it should be about 2-3 inches further back to line up with the other pedals. Other than that, it's very good.

Overall, we're very impressed so far. How things go as the miles and months go by will be another story, no doubt. My feeling is that the compromise of having such a richly featured car for the list price (when new) means money may have been saved elsewhere... We'll see!