Faults:

Absolutely nothing.

General Comments:

I have had 4 Citroen C5s, so I have just purchased a 2007 C5 twin turbo 2.2L diesel. I am very impressed by their performance, ride, comfort, and handling.

I am a retired professional coach and interstate semi trailer driver of over 50 years experience.

Keep up the services and do maintenance checks, use good oils and have a good mechanic as I have; I do not take my cars to a Citroen dealer as I have been burnt once on service pricing, so overall I am very happy with my private mechanic...

Faults:

Headlight washer cover fell off.

Aircon needed recharging.

General Comments:

This is the second C5 I have owned, and I have been totally happy with both. The first was a new 2001 C5 2.2 SX diesel, which I owned for two years, and apart from servicing, never visited a garage.

I bought my 2007 C5 two years ago, and apart from the above, it has been totally reliable. It achieves up to 63 MPG on a run, and averages 50 MPG on mixed driving.

It tows well and has all the toys, which have all performed reliably.

Between me and my wife, we have owned over 60 Citroen's in the last 40 years (everything from the 2CV to the DS-old shape(!), including GS, GSA, BX, CX, XM, and C4 Picasso. And yes we have had the odd problem, but touch wood, nothing major, and no worse than other makes of cars we have owned.

I am now sourcing a replacement for the C5, and looking at the new shape model, or if I can persuade my wife - a DS5!

Faults:

Water ingress on rear near side suspension joint, resulting in a loud squeak.

Leaking rear suspension cylinder.

General Comments:

I have always been a proud owner of 100% reliable Rover cars since passing my driving test in 1998. However as most British drivers preferred not to support their own manufacturers I am no longer able to purchase a Rover since the company ceased to operate in 2005.

Thus I reluctantly purchased a Citroen C5, primarily because of reading reviews of its excellent diesel engines and supreme ride comfort.

I must admit the I have been quite impressed by the Citroen, the engine has bags of power and I have embarrassed many smug drivers of German marques!

The Citroen is also loaded with equipment such as TV, sat nav, integrated telephone, voice activation, auto wipers, auto headlamps, electric windows and much more. I can even phone the emergency services or Citroen Assist at the touch of a button, and the car will read my text messages to me!

The Citroen is very refined providing a silky smooth and virtually silent ride, just as good as my previous Rover 75's.

Unfortunately I can't offer much praise to the local Citroen dealer, quite simply they're incompetent. An example being fitting an incorrect headlamp bulb and failing to identify the cause of my squeaky rear suspension on several occasions.

I would recommend the C5 to anyone, but be sure to find a good dealer.

Faults:

The plastic shield below the engine proved no match for some of the roads I had to travel on and I had to remove it. Fortunately I no longer needed to drive in construction areas after that.

General Comments:

First a little heads up. I posted in the C4 Picasso section a comment about leasing a C4 Picasso in may 2007 for about 2 months. Then, when the car had to be upgraded to C5 Break I promised a follow up in the right section. So here it comes.

I got the car brand new through the Citroen buy back program which is available to outside EU tourists.

The car was brand new and behaved admirably. I have heard about reliability issues with the brand however I cannot find a serious fault on my C5 Break. And the customer service was great.

I drove through various conditions, from rainy German autobahns to muddy Danube shores going through narrow French city streets and parking lots and also bumpy roads in the Eastern Europe.

All in all, the car worked great. As a a matter of fact it just worked. The only thing that proved too much for it was the excessively bumpy segment on an Eastern European highway. I will not mention the country's name since the quality of that road was the exception to the rule in that case and the route could not have been avoided. Anyway the plastic shield below the car broke and finally went to pieces about 500 clicks later on a highway driving at 160 km/h. I guess it was the excessive airflow that finally ruptured it.

Other than this detail the only other thing that bothered me, and again it is a minor one, was the way I started to get numb after sitting in the chair for more than 2 hours straight. Yeah, I'm picky, but only because I'm used to chairs form a Grand Marquis. Apples and oranges I know, but there you have it.

The Citroen dealer in Regensburg, Germany was very helpful with the initial visit. Even if they spoke no word of French (the papers were in French) they did their best to accommodate me and did the the initial revision on the car without a problem.

Other words that might define the car: roomy by European standards, highly maneuverable, safe, silent, comfortable, steady. Oh, and also the automatic gearbox is no sport enthusiast's dream, but then again it's not supposed to be. This is a family car that only lacks a 4x4 option, but I guess there's not much call for that in Europe. Canadian winters require it though so if Citroen plans on crossing the Atlantic they should consider a 4x4 option on their cars.

So to sum it all up, this car did about 9000 km in 50 days on all kinds of roads and didn't even break a sweat.