On 04/12/2018 at 21:57, Estate Man said:

 

Hi rum4mo, Yes, the C2 is not a car I would use to go out of town in. It's a lightweight model and is now discontinued due to some issues Citroen had with it. It was in fact a re-badged TOYOTA, the quality of which was not what was expected by Citroen. Interestingly, Toyota are in negotiations to buy the C3 along with lots more genuine Citroen vans to be rebadged as Toyotas in Japan and Asia. Toyota already buy Citroen vans, they sell well and don't give issues to customers. 

Not much love for the C2 on here, I feel obliged to step in and defend its honour!

Firstly, I don’t think it was a rebadged Toyota, the C1 certainly was/is though, what Toyota model are you referring to Estate Man?

I owned a 1.4 HDI C2 from new, literally no problems in the 5 years I owned it, in terms of motorway driving it was fine too, in my job at the time I had to travel the length and breadth of the country and was paid a pittance in mileage allowance which made it the perfect car. Infact I regularly got in the 80mpg on a decent run, 90mpg plus on the odd occasion if putting my mind to driving economically. It was also a pre-DPF engine so no problems there. Nippy enough as well due to the small size/weight.

I agree with you there, the C1 - was it not a "3 car venture" - certainly very small Toyota was same car. The motor industry is still full of joint partnerships over quite a lot areas without joint ownership.

1 hour ago, rum4mo said:

I agree with you there, the C1 - was it not a "3 car venture" - certainly very small Toyota was same car. The motor industry is still full of joint partnerships over quite a lot areas without joint ownership.

Yep, Toyota Ago, Peugeot 108 and C1 are the ‘same’ cars, positioned very slightly differently in the market with the C1 being slightly cheaper. I am not aware of the C2 having been shared with a Toyota model.

 

Incidentally after the C2 I bought another new Citroen which was a shared model, the Nemo, that was built in Turkey on a production line with the Peugeot Bipper and the Fiat Qubo. Now that was a truly horrible machine!

With the Aygo, P107, and C1 the petrol engines were Toyota and the Diesel engines were Peugeot.

 

With the Citroen Nemo the Diesel engine is a Fiat one.

 

The C2 has the same floorplan as the P206.

 

Thanks AG Falco

57 minutes ago, AGFalco said:

With the Aygo, P107, and C1 the petrol engines were Toyota and the Diesel engines were Peugeot.

 

With the Citroen Nemo the Diesel engine is a Fiat one.

 

The C2 has the same floorplan as the P206.

 

Thanks AG Falco

Not that it really matters, but initially the diesel offered in the Nemo was the 1.4HDI Citroen/ Peugeot engine, while the Qubo had the Fiat 1.3 multijet. After a couple of years, and presumably after using up all their remaining stock of 1.4HDI’s the diesel option for the Nemo and Bipper became the 1.3 multijet Fiat engine. All useless, irrelevant information for a Skoda forum I know :)

Aaah, these little vans look the part as Postman Pat vans though, Royal Mail loves cheap vans from Pug/Fiat - with maybe a few from VX thrown in.

This does not make any sense. Why does the OP not keep sending the car back to the dealer to sort it out considering he is still paying for it? Or ask them to take it back and tear up the finance agreement?

Maybe the OP isn't the sort of person that can be bothered with it all. As long as it occasionally gets him from A to B he puts up with it,stiff upper lip and all that.

It's not in my nature to put up and shut up personally.

I would fight until I could fight no more to get fairness and full satisfaction. 

No dealer would win against me once I've started,you would see me smiling in the newspapers when I'd finished 

 

3 hours ago, Miller73 said:

This does not make any sense. Why does the OP not keep sending the car back to the dealer to sort it out considering he is still paying for it? Or ask them to take it back and tear up the finance agreement?

 

Maybe the OP understands that a car will last X miles, Y years or Z visits to the dealership, I'm not sure if many people knew that, my Ford dealership did seem very surprised that they might have learned something new when I explained that to them - in reflection they probably did not did a stuff about what I thought, all they wanted was the chance to charge Ford for pretending that they knew what was wrong with that car, Ford pulled the plug on them a few years later which made me smirk very slightly.

 

Personally I like trying to care of the small annoying simple things and leave the time wasting to trying to get the big things sorted out, cars are for using at your convenience and not for taking you to the dealership to get them to spend time taking them apart.

On 05/12/2018 at 22:59, chieflordy said:

Not much love for the C2 on here, I feel obliged to step in and defend its honour!

Firstly, I don’t think it was a rebadged Toyota, the C1 certainly was/is though, what Toyota model are you referring to Estate Man?

I owned a 1.4 HDI C2 from new, literally no problems in the 5 years I owned it, in terms of motorway driving it was fine too, in my job at the time I had to travel the length and breadth of the country and was paid a pittance in mileage allowance which made it the perfect car. Infact I regularly got in the 80mpg on a decent run, 90mpg plus on the odd occasion if putting my mind to driving economically. It was also a pre-DPF engine so no problems there. Nippy enough as well due to the small size/weight.

 

Thanks chieflordy, it was the C1 I was referring too. Got my wires crossed. Had just driven the C3 a very long way (370 miles starting at 6am) before posting that and wasn't really very focused when I posted. In fact, had driven the C3 a total of 740 miles that day finishing at around 10pm. Won't be doing that again in a hurry, Although the car performed beautifully, it was me that finds those distances somewhat aggravating, unless I'm on my motorcycle that is!

 

My C3 has now had it's first service at 12,400 miles. It was as expected, just a routine job, with no faults found. She's running fine, uses no oil and is as quiet as a mouse. Both of my Skoda Mk3 1.2TSI 110ps engines were using oil straight from the word go. Not a great deal of it but still near half a litre in the first 2,200 miles or so. Not a big deal I know but considering the light use the cars got at that time, ie: not tramping ups and down the motorways like I'm having to do now, it was not expected. Both of my earlier Skoda Fabia's petrol and diesel never used a drop of oil and were great cars. 

Oh, just an update from my neighbour concerning his new Fabia Mk3 that has issues. He's going to reject the car for sure. He's doing all the right things to accomplish that and he won't have any problems as far as I can see. He's then going to order a new Citroen C3 same as mine! Shame he has had those problems though. He's not a happy man. 

Hopefully his Citroen C3 won't  be a lemon as well,which is possible.

Yes indeed Rick, one never knows for sure!  But the great thing here is that unlike Skoda and other VAG group cars, Citroen/Peugeot and the PSA budget for designing and producing engines is not all over the place like it is from a cash strapped VAG group. I learned long ago that it's best to steer clear of manufacturers who are tightening their belts as the VAG group is, due to paying out billions in compensation around the world, as they suddenly economise on design and production costs and the way they build their cars. I believe Skoda has been sucked into all this and it's bosses have little choice but to follow instructions, like when they were told by VW to dumb down the Skoda range, fit fewer standard accessories etc. Now they have to take in substandard engine designs. I hope this improves soon.  I actually broke my own rule on this when I bought my first Mk3 DSG. I immediately had problems with both of the new Mk3's and I could see the issues and frankly they should never have happened. The same quality thing happened to VAG in the '90's when they overstretched themselves buying up other manufacturers and found they were cash strapped. Quality of VAG cars hit rock bottom for years as they adopted very bad designs, build practices and used poorer materials, in a bid to make profit. 

I'd think that Skoda could not have survived as a meaningful car manufacturer if VW Group had not stepped in and saved it, the design pot/pool/bowl was empty.

 

Citroen have likewise had a few owners over the years, but like SAAB it has been due to massive overspend in design relative to what these designs could pay back in sales, SAAB went to the wall, or China, Citroen have only been saved because they are French and France protects its industries, I'd think that Peugeot will hold a tight rein on Citroen like VW are doing with Skoda and what GM failed to do with SAAB - though in this case the odd one out is Skoda as they have not stunned the motoring world for quite a long time, unlike Citroen and SAAB.  

Yes indeed rum4mo. Skoda would not be where they are today without the assistance of VW. But it's worth remembering that VW actually bought Skoda for lots of reasons. Not least because they wanted the know how that Skoda's long history had given them on how to design and build tanks, guns and cars on such a tight budget. Citroen in some ways was a bit like Skoda although it was much bigger, but like Skoda it was innovative and made cars most folks liked, albeit still a bit niche like. Like VW, build quality was not always brilliant either but they sold in great numbers. These days it's on par with pretty much the best of the best with it's build and quality. Citroen was owned by Michelin the tyre company for 40 years and someone else before that. But since it's amalgamation with Peugeot many decades ago it's thriving at a level most are envious of. I don't think Citroen were saved or protected by their government particularly, no more so than any other car firms of the day. And of course, the EU doesn't allow much help to be given to failing firms due to there rather outdated competition rules.

 

I remember going to the Citroen factory as a young technician just after I entered the world of engine design. I also went to some of the VW plants in Germany. My firm was in talks with both of these companies. But the visits were to see how they operated. Citroen even then made BL seem like complete novices. MInd you, a bicycle factory could have done that! 

Now you have mentioned the dreaded BL, were they not using Pug designed/built gearboxes in some cars along with maybe some VWs, I seem to remember that lots of "experts" slagged BL for spec'ing a cheaper version of these gearboxes, maybe even only having the crown wheel bonded onto its carrier with a couple of dowels to help it where as others had the same gearbox/diff with the crown wheel properly dowelled on as well as bonding adhesive.

 

I think it was the hydro systems that Citroen were developing that caused them to need Michelin's wealth to keep them going - then Michelin's patience ran out after they restarted sinking too much money into the same areas. I read that the general agreement now with their current owners is that all this fancy stuff will get limited to active/smart damper design - until they forget again and overspend.

 

I'm not convinced that any French company pays much attention to EU rules on the issues concerning state protectionism, it was that form of control that was the final straw on any multi national military combat aircraft design/build that included France.

Agree with rum4mo about our French colleagues not concerning themselves overly with the rules regarding state protectionism.

 

Estateman however, if you know as fact that VW wished to avail themselves of how Skoda could build on a tight budget I bow to your superior knowledge. But, they weren't very good at it were they - just look at the cars they were producing before they were bought out. It was a slow haul to get them on the right track. My cynical mind thinks that VW bought them for the capacity they provided, cheap labour force and a ready marketplace for their cars - and (crucially) they were on their knees so it was cheap.

 

Tanks & guns? With the talk of an EU army this could possibly be VAG's saviour - and who would object to the emissions in their tanks!

 

Bill 

lawnmowerman, I cynically/jokingly wrote on the Polo forum that maybe selling cars was not what VW dealers were actually trying to do, maybe you have hit on a possible alternative ploy, these crafty Germans have "been there done that" a couple of times in the recent past?

 

Now if I'm correct, and the Rusky's sort them out, we should be able to start to buy some well made Ladas with German engineering behind them, still better than BL ever were?

 

Edit:- I can see where this is going - I think.

Edited 14 December, 20187 yr by rum4mo

lawnmowerman, yes indeed, it was a stated objective of VW to buy up the know how that VW lacked but that Skoda had oodles of. They already made some of the best tanks and guns in the business, and in fact, their cars were great too. There is a misconception that Skoda cars prior to 1990 were not good cars. Quite the reverse was true. The engineering was in fact very good. They did have some slightly quirky models at times but they almost universally didn't break down, leaving aside the slight overheating problem with the very early rear engined model made in the 60's. They made brilliant engines, and the cars were rugged. Many driving schools in my area had the rear engined 'Rapids' and the standard saloons for year upon year as did many taxi firms. These generally did very very large mileages without issues.

 

It was the overall designs of these cars that left some wondering about the brand. Because of financial constraints Skoda could not invest in the lastest tooling and engine and body design that it desperately needed. VW solved all that but Skoda had to sell their soul to the devil to get it! In the main it's been a raging success and Skoda are a fine brand of car these days, but have to take instruction totally from VW. But I see a wobble in what's going on with the company finances and the issues now surfacing with some cars in the range. All well known to be problems that occur when a manufacturer is working to budgets that are too tight. Sadly, I won't be buying another Skoda for the foreseeable future after being bitten badly on my last two new Skoda cars caused by issues due to poor design of the mechanicals. And I'm not the only one sadly.....

I think it was more about access to cheap highly skilled, highly motivated, non union labour and access to the then fledgling east European market. A cheap price tag, heavy subsidies, low tax and planning freedoms etc sealed the deal.

 

Of note that a massive proportion of VAG engines, gearboxes etc are now made or assembled in Skoda factories now.

It was of course about that too xman, you are quite right. But VW had a major quality issue leaving it at the bottom of the manufacturers list for reliability for many year, both before and after it aquired Skoda. If yoiu remember, Vw featured repeatedly on the consumer complaint programs over and over for all sorts of issues both big and small for years. They took one hell of a beating. It was thanks to Skoda's know how that the VW brand has gradually caught up. Although at the moment that are far from catching Skoda in terms of reliability.