Just noticed, my wife's 66 plate Citigo Monte Carlo will start with the clutch pedal not depressed, box in or out of gear.

I'm sure there was a time when it was younger you needed to depress the pedal to enable the start like all modern cars.

 

Car has just turned 21K miles. Starts instantly as usual pedal down or up.

 

Must be a switch somewhere failed?

Nope! Our 66 plate Citigo Monte Carlo is exactly the same, it starts without the clutch down and in gear. Always has done.

Edited 25 February, 20251 yr by Luckypants

That almost certainly indicates a clutch position sensor fault - the vehicle should always require the clutch pedal to be depressed before allowing engine start. A message should appear on instrument cluster if clutch pedal is up and start should be inhibited. 

From past references on this and other forums, clutch inhibit switch/sensor has been fitted to Skodas since at least 2010.

Edited 25 February, 20251 yr by Warrior193
added information

 

There is a clutch switch on the pedal assembly. This tells the ECU if you are pressing the clutch, and as said, this may be faulty. Hard to get to, but easy to test and cheap to fix, if that is the problem, but I'm not certain that is, as there may be other faults stemming from the clutch switch being stuck on as if the clutch was pressed....
 

Many many manual cars do not require you to press the clutch to start, but it is a common feature on VAG cars.

Citigos have no message about clutch pedals on the instrument cluster, at least none of the models I have driven - it's best for non-Citigo owners to not spread disinformation that may confuse people!

15 minutes ago, freemansteve said:

it's best for non-Citigo owners to not spread disinformation that may confuse people!

Indeed and as an owner of a 66 plate (MY2016) Monte Carlo (the same car as the OP) I can confirm there is no clutch interlock switch on this model of Citigo.

Thank you for the responses.

We have had the car from new and the habit wife and I have is to press the pedal down before turning the key, so we would not know if the car was 'correct'

I only made the mistake of starting the car pedal-up and in neutral recently and the car started.

 

The car is all working, so will do nothing at the moment, but fear the car one day will not start....

 

Nothing comes up on the dash, but who can see anything on the LCD dash display anyway!

I don't recall it ever did this on wifes Citigo (2018) but does it on more expensive Skodas like my vRS however. Could be confusion of ownership or more than one vehicle.