We currently have a S-Max for the family wagon, perfect car for us except that our finance on it is quite steep and we could do with saving some money.

We need a people carrier type car as we still have three kids in car seats / booster seats.

There seems to be plenty of C4 Picasso’s around. I know that it will not drive as well as the s-max (which handles really well) but are they okay?
Other questions:
Is the 1.6 engine any good, seems quite small for a big car?
Loads of automatics on the market, I try to avoid these usually, am I missing a trick here?
Any glaring alternatives that I should look at?

Ta

We are on our second Grand Picasso Swapped our last one in May. It was 4 years old with 70000 miles on. Great cars, ours is a full automatic 2.o ltr 160 hp.

I wouldn’t…

We’ve got a semi automatic 1.6 HDI Grand Picasso and to be completely honest, it’s not terribly good.

For starters the gearbox is extremely slow and sometimes doesn’t bother to change gear at all. It’s not very well put together as bits of interior trim are falling off already (it’s 18 months old BTW) and the ride and handling aren’t up to par at all.

We had a Ford Galaxy loan car a while back, which was astoundingly good in comparison. We also had a Vauxhall Zafira which handled very well but had a terrible driving position. I’ve not driven a single Vauxhall where the steering wheel isn’t uncomfortably offset to one side. If you do lots of miles, then avoid it otherwise it’s a reasonably honest car for your money.

I have a manual 1.6 diesel Zsara Picasso and it doesn’t seem at all under-powered. Nice to drive and plenty of room.

Hi
I have had one of these for 14 months-actually just traded it in at the weekend.
I had the 5 seater VTR+ model with automatic gearbox.
As a family car it is very good-spacious, economical, comfortable, well specc’d, carries a decent amount of kit etc.
I bought mine from motability (it was my dads car) and got a reasonable deal at the time but I have to say that I got a poor trade in price.
I wanted something that would carry 4 people, 4 bikes and all their associated gear and the big problem was that the suspension is very soft and wallowy and this is very evident when fully loaded.
The other problem is that the design of tow bar fitted to the car combined with the weight of 4 bikes and the soft suspension meant that there was a lot of “bounce” at the rack and this resulted in the tow bar “failing” last weekend and the rack was trailing on the floor. We managed to sort it out but I just had no confidence that I wouldn’t have a repeat problem.
Final issue is the auto gearbox-its not that smooth. You can feel each gear change. My dads latest car is a Golf with a 7 speed auto and the diffrence in smoothness is massive.
To sum up as a family car it is definitely woth looking at and the prices on the forecourt seem reasonable for what is a well speccd car.
As a bike carrying vehicle though I wouldn’t buy again.
Any more questions just shout.
Cheers
Steve

(PS if you decide to go ahead II have some genuine roof bars and mats for sale Ha Ha)

I can’t see how you can win in this situation. Unless you sell the S max privately for good money and you actually have equity left in the car to make another purchase.

I have a friend who’s just swapped his three year old S Max for a new C4 Picasso and thinks the C4 is a nice motor but nowhere near the same league as the max. Citroens depreciate a lot more than fords do as a rule but there is also a demand for nearly new S max’s too so it could turn out to be viable, but only just….

I very nearly bought one, infact we had an ex-motability one lined up which we would have bought except for the “collapsed” driver seat – a known problem. . The “exclusive” top spec model has loads of toys but until recently only came with the semi-auto box it also has self levelling suspension. The semi auto is quite good if you like that sort of thing, it can be a flappy paddled manual or full auto, gear changes in semi auto were quick and but not massively smooth.

I know the electric parking brake is not to everyones taste and found it a bit annoying. Loads of storage space and cubby holes. There have been problems with the semi auto gear box and the self levelling suspension reported on the C4 forum. The VTR+model is the one we were looking at in manual to lessen any expensive failures. It drives ok, definitely not as good as the S-Max and the Renault Scenic (new shape) we ultimately bought. The 1.6 is fine, not amazing but it will quite happily power you along on fast roads, and accelerate with enough zip around town. There seem to be quite a few being used as cabs so reliability must be ok If it had been down to me I’d have got one but the missus preferred the more car like Grand Scenic and ultimately it was her decision.

Re: Fatgits post above, the “Exclusives” self levelling suspension would have been better in those circumstances and from what I read there is a software upgrade for the box which makes the changes much smoother.

Both ours had the full automatic gearbox and the self levelling rear suspension. Never had a problem with it bouncing even with 4 bikes on the rack. Have been to Verbier 3 times fully loaded up and 4 bikes on the back. You can only get the full auto box on the Exclusive

Was in a Ford dealership at the weekend and the new style S-Max looks great.

Not helpful I know, but there you go.

I have a standard 5 door C4, I think its one of the best cars i’ve owned. I bought mainly for mpg and comfort.

Not had any problems as of yet.

I’ve had a C4GP for over 2 years – it’s the 2.0HDi Exclusive with the semi automatic gearbox. The Exclusive also has the self levelling suspension which is frankly bluddy brilliant for heavyweight family outings. The gearbox can be a bit hesitant but let’s face it, this type of car is not meant to be driven fast. We traded in a current shape Galaxy for it. OK the Galaxy was bigger but it was a complete **** donkey – the most unreiable car I have ever had. And Ford customer service was apalling. The C4GP hasn’t missed a beat and the service at Citroen (for routine servicing!) has been excellent. I would get another one.

since I sold my 9-3SW I’ve been driving Mrs_D’s C4 standard hatch – 1.6SX with manual box. It’s been fine so far, no problems but it still has < 40k miles; I’ll soon fix that 😉

only problem for me is that it’s not an estate or diesel, but when we bought it, it didn’t need to be. I can get a full 7-piece drum kit & a couple of guitars in the back & one passenger. Average 36mpg on a 30 mile each way commute through Bradford