Citroen Xsara Picasso Exclusive 2.0 HDi

buy a bike at least that will get you to where u are going.

bought new 2004 2.0 hdi passed every mot until 2014.original michelin did 55000,budget replacements on front did only 15000, one set of pads and discs.fuel pump at 50000 replaced,dont let the main dealers mislead you its quite easy with a competent person handy with tools.failed the last MOT on suspension strut at front,(pot holes and speed humps me thinks).i have driven to spain over the last 7 years without a problem.milage now at 800000 i can only describe my car as ultra reliable,very comfortable,economic 47 mpg,cheap to insure £140 fully comp,go and find one now,you wont regret a low milage car

AC fan burns out on ignition and on fan itself. Indicator stalk indicates left at random as it wears out quickly. Sills on both sides rot under the front doors. Looks ok until you press or tap it.

Other than that no real problems and it is a handy car.

Mine is horrible the clutch sticks. Today we hat to get it put on the back of a van and went to a garage to get fixed. citroen it was popular upto 2005 you should have stoped it then!!

Citroen I had a C3 the same!

I am never ever buying a citroen again !!!!!!!!!

I hate you and to think I was going to buy a ds3 cabrio

Strange car the picasso ! bought ours as a second car and ended up keeping it and gettin grid of the more expensive car when we only needed one.

Its just sooo handy! handlings not great but its a French MPV, great MPG for its size ( 45 local 55 long runs) and I dont spare it!

so many cubby holes you can loose stuff. Ultra comfy - 300+ mile journeys are a joy - Ive had XJ jags and top end Audis worse for long journey fatigue.

Its no looker but its like a faithful dog, we just cant get rid - servicing is cheap and its been reliable - change the oil regularly and the 8v hdi will oulast a lexus !

Would we have another, damn right - at the prices they are the best family car available !!

Having spent months trying out various seat combinations in our Mondeo we came to the conclusion that with baby no3 on the way we had no choice but to buy a people carrier of some nature. Our 1st choice would be an s-max, but unfortunately way over budget. We began looking at Galaxys but the only ones within our £4000 budget had very high mileage or were looking particularly ropey. We then spent evening after evening researching other options. We found excellent review after excellent review of the xsara picasso. We were surprised as for every other car we had researched there had been very mixed reviews. We really didn't want a Picasso as they are just plain ugly (among other reasons) but it appeared to be a good choice and essentially ticked the boxes we needed. So the hunt started, we were very particular in that if we were going to have a car we didn't want it must at least be a decent colour!

We managed to find a 54 plate 2.0HDI exclusive with only 64,000 miles on the clock in our budget with several hundred pounds change. Compared to the Galaxy we would have been looking at a X or Y reg with 160,000 miles for the same money. (Yes, the Galaxy is a full size mpv, but we were very surprised at the difference in cost).

Onto our opinions that we have formed in the 10 days of ownership...

Initially we were surprised that the centre instrument display was not as strange as we had 1st expected. The centre console was also a lot less intrusive than we had thought it would be from looking at pictures. Upon driving it we were pleasantly surprised at the low level sound from the engine. We even found that standing with the bonnet open was actually quieter than what we were used to with our Mondeo (also 2.0 diesel) from inside with all doors and windows closed. The pedals seem to be OK in both size and position (having previously driven a few French hire cars we found that often the pedals were slightly offset and clutch pedal high and small, thankfully this is not the case witht he Picasso). The steering is very light, very easy to park (there are lots of reviews saying it is difficult, but if you know the length and width of your car you should be able to park anything) with good all round visibility with the exception of the front a-post which can block your vision on roundabouts for example (having owned a Renault Scenic in the past this is by no means a unique problem to the Picasso). The brakes are sharp and the gear change is typically French, i.e. lots of throw on the gear lever and quite sloppy gear changes (this isn't worn as it feels the same as a brand new French gearbox). The acceleration is ok being only 90bhp it's never going to accelerate quickly. The economy seems average - approx mid 50's combined, which is what we were used to with our Mondeo. The handling felt ok for the type of vehicle, nothing to get excited about, we did note that you have to be extremely careful overtaking lorries and crossing open bridges as the wind will push the car across the carriageway. Moving into the back, we were very impressed that we could comfortably fit 3 car seats in and still have access to the seat belt buckles and not worry about the children being unsafe with poorly fitting car seats. We were disappointed with the boot space, expecting it to be much bigger than it is. The boot in the Picasso is actually significantly smaller than that in both the Mondeo and in the Scenic (the Scenic was able to carry a large pushchair and a weeks shopping, whereas this would be one or the other). There are lots of little cubby holes around the car which seemed handy for putting bits and bobs in but as we started to use the car properly we soon discovered that they weren't as well thought out as they could be. In the first few days we were pleasantly surprised with the car. It was never going to be our first choice and was very clear that it was quite shoddy in build which we had expected, but it did the job we needed and while it was never going to excite you the drive was ok.

After a few more days of ownership and having started to use the car properly all the novelty of having a new car soon wore off...

Driving the car - as our 1st impressions it's not an exciting car to drive as you'd expect, it drives typically French. The ride is very soft and bouncy, every bump is exaggerated, it is almost like driving a rocking horse! (not due to wear on suspension as the same as any other Picasso we test drove and a similar ride to the scenic) It has made one of our children feel ill in the back within 20 minutes of being out in it (we have read the odd report of this but hoped it was just isolated and wouldn't affect us).

The drivers seat doesn't have a height adjustment, only a pitch adjustment which still won't lower the front to the correct angle and the steering wheel doesn't have reach adjustment. Having spent lots of time trying to get the seat into a comfortable driving position it is proving impossible. We are very different height and build so need to adjust the seat regularly, but unfortunately the seat doesn't have the full range of adjustment that we need and expect from a modern car.

The controls & centre display - the lack of rev counter is very annoying and we don't like it! The display is pretty useless with the low winter sun shining across it, the dashboard reflects hideously in the windscreen. The climate control works adequately and is very simple. The controls for the windows are infuriating and dangerous to use whilst driving. The front controls are on the centre console which is quite a long reach from the drivers seat. Only the drivers one is automatic which we feel is silly in a modern car. Every car that I have owned with electric windows has been automatic on all 4 doors. The controls for the rear windows are to the right of the steering wheel in the position you would expect your headlight adjustment and fog light controls. The buttons are out of the drivers view, you have to feel around for them and it is not obvious which control you are on. As they are not automatic the driver then has to 1. Keep pressing the button until the windows are up/down instead of just pushing once, 2. Whilst droiving have to look behind to ensure windows are all the way up or more importantly free from obstruction. Auto windows would reverse if there was an obstruction, (e.g. a childs arm) but these do not do that and the driver has to watch to ensure that the childrens arms or hands are not in the way. The window controls in our opinion are not just an annoyance but potentially dangerous.

In car storage - The glove compartment is air conditioned which is a handy feature for stopping chocolate from melting int he summer! The door pockets are deep, but not wide, they have a picture of a bottle for bottle storage, but you can't fit a large bottle in there. At one end of the door pockets is a 'cup holder' but this would prove useless as a cup holder although is ok for holding a small coke bottle for example. The door pockets are pretty useless in general as they are too low and deep, so items in them cannot be accessed while wearing a seat belt. The centre console has a large compartment, there is a tray under the drivers seat and 2 floor compartments int he back. In the scenic these were used for storing the dvd player and dvds, however due to the travel sickness-inducing ride, we will not be using the dvd players, so these will have very little usage). The trays on the back of the seats feel very flimsy and as if they will break quite easily, guess what...our 5 year old managed to break one off within a few minutes. We feel that the storage leaves much to be desired, there is a lot of unused space between the 2 front seats, why has this area not been used for decent accessible storage and cupholders for the driver and front passenger?

We haven't commented on the cruise control as it is average, does the job you'd expect. The car does have auto wipers and auto headlights. The wipers are as useless as every other car we've driven with auto wipers, and the headlights have no override system once set on auto without switching the engine off. So if you need to turn them off in a hurry you cannot. Needless to say these 2 are features we will not be using.

Overall we feel that the car is really missing several features that a 6year old top of the range car should have. These include:

- Electrically adjuastable memory drivers seat

- Heated front windscreen (although Ford seem to be the only manufacturer that make these so if you've never owned a Ford you won't miss it)

- Rev counter

- Parking sensors (while not needed, on a top of the range car you expect them)

- Decent stereo (this is the same as in the base models)

- Power fold mirrors are great, but have to manually controlled while ignition is on, should be operated automatically)

- Only a 5 speed box, other manufacters have been using 6 speed boxes for years

- Better seats all round - these are the smae seats as in the base model, the passenger one in particular is very uncomfortable especially if you have a back problem.

Typically having checked the internet since buying this car there are now several Galaxys with fairly low mileage with the spec we require within our budget.

We wanted to like the car but find ourselves embarrassed to be driving a blob. We enjoy driving and love cars, we quite often go for random drives, however this will be no more. Not just because of the embarrassment we feel but because the car is just not comfortable enough to do this and with the ride making our son ill we'd rather not have lots of mess to clean up. We struggle to understand how anyone can describe it as comfortable.

The car is perfect for someone who has no interest in cars but just needs something to run children around in. Anyone who knows anything about cars or driving will know exactly what we mean. We usually look forward to the weekend and going out and discovering random places, but now we are wondering what to do this weekend as we have no desire to get in the car. On the plus side we will find our fuel and maintenance costs go down due to the lack of mileage we will be doing!

We do a lot of mileage each year, having driven many types of car in work covering a lot of miles on both motorway and city roads. We are not 'school run' type drivers or 'Sunday drivers' and know a good car from a bad car. As stated above this car is probably perfect for someone who just does a few miles each week and needs something to easily fit children into, but for someone who likes to drive and knows a thing or 2 about cars this is not a good option.

We wish we that we had had the extra time to wait to see what else came up, but after several months of looking it got to the point at 37weeks pregnant where we could wait no longer. 1st impressions were that actually it was an ok car, but even after this short time we can confirm that it is not. It is ugly, not great to drive, a poor, bouncy ride, shoddy build quality and we just hope that the mechanics are a better standard than the rest of the car.

The perfect family car! Mine has cruise control, privacy glass on the rear windows, independently folding rear seats, masses of room when seats folded and averages about 42 to the gallon for normal day to day running around and it was great in the snow, (which I was concerned about after owning a Freelander) it coped brilliantly - what more could you ask for!

Could do with cruise control...otherwise best car i have ever driven. Solid, good road presence, good seating position, excellent fuel economy,great on motorways.

i have once carried a three seater sofa and a fire door in it at the same time.

Alloys hard to come by and a bit more gadgetry would make it an ideal second hand MPV.

I love this car.

It's the best car I have ever owned and driven since 1975.

It's so well thought out. I believe the designers must be driving these cars, and it maybe part of their hobby.

It has all the extras I am ever likely to need and more.

My manager bought one for work, and his wife loved it so much, he also had to buy one for her.

At church, the number of Citroen Picasso owners is growing, 5 so far.

I would buy a new one tomorrow, if I could afford it.

The Picasso is our family car, it's very spacious for passengers and has ample storage space. We've driven long and short distances and found it to be economical on diesel. W've never regretted purchasing this car and would purcahse one again.