thoughts please.

[GeordieBoy]

Im sorry m8 but are you on crack?

Not recently NO.

I have been warned by 3 new mondeo drivers to stay away,

Mondeo is very good in our country.

BMW? really? do you know where i live, the roads here would kill a BM in a matter of minutes,

Highly doubt it, they are well made.

finally audi, sorry im not a cnut i just couldnt drive one,

Be a cnut if you dont drive 1. Solidly built, excellent reliability. Everything the 3 you picked are not.

the skoda idea is valid though, i have been looking at the superb, but just cant muster love for the thing, the octavia is a bit small in the cabin area unfortunately otherwise its a nice motor.

I was on about the Skoda from years ago, way before VW bought into them. Utter w@nk, like the 3 you picked.


You want a reliable car, stay away from French or Italian. Stick to German or Japanese, by far the best for reliability than others.

[Gary406]

[DiscoPol]

Geordie I appreciate your input, i really do but dont expect me to pay too much attention to your ramblings when you are telling me that the Audi is the way to go, big heavy well built just seems to add strength to the old saying of "the bigger they are the harder they fall"

Had my share of BMWs and loved em all, bar a couple of dodgy 3 series company cars, but they arent built with anything but perfect autobahn-esque road surfaces in mind and those we really haven't got.

As for Jap sorry not as long as i have a hole in my .......... they just dont do it for me.

[jamjar1383]

Out of those 3 I'd rather WALK, a skoda would be more reliable.

Mondeo, BMW, Passat or Audi would be a far better choice.

Im sorry m8 but are you on crack?

I have been warned by 3 new mondeo drivers to stay away,

BMW? really? do you know where i live, the roads here would kill a BM in a matter of minutes,

and passat mmm possibly i just cant find one i like and new they are just too pricey for what they are.

finally audi, sorry im not a cnut i just couldnt drive one,

the skoda idea is valid though, i have been looking at the superb, but just cant muster love for the thing, the octavia is a bit small in the cabin area unfortunately otherwise its a nice motor.

well said

id prob go with a c5, they are massive inside and really nice to drive,

[FarmerPug]

French and Italian cars are fine. You dont see the Germans or Japs making a car as good looking as a 159, a nice red one get one of them, take pictures of it and earn money selling pictures. Only thing about the 159 estate, i think through some amazing engineering the boot in it is smaller than the boot in the saloon.
I find the Passat to be very dull, id rather a skoda, because at least then your not getting ripped off for a dull car with a vw badge. Audis are very choppy over bumps.
Anyhow the current C5 is far from dull, the build quality of them things are superb, and new citroens are moving up the reliability tables.

[FarmerPug]

heres a few reviews of a c5 not by motoring journalists but the more useful owner reviews, and they seem, to be reasonably happy.
http://www.whatcar.com/car-reviews/used ... ws/25766-6

[Welly]

I'd get a brand-new C5 with a nice little warranty.

Turning up at a customers with a Alfa Romeo can send out the wrong kinda signals imo....sure it's no Ferrari but it doesn't stop them thinking you're minted for some reason

[sirwiggum]

I'd get a brand-new C5 with a nice little warranty.

Turning up at a customers with a Alfa Romeo can send out the wrong kinda signals imo....sure it's no Ferrari but it doesn't stop them thinking you're minted for some reason

When I had my old Alfa GTV (bought for less than I bought the 406 with...), the neighbours thought I'd won the lottery!

There is a view amongst the uninitiated that an Alfa is a mini-Maserati.
We car folk know that 2nd hand they are very reasonably priced, if you can live with the odd electrical or suspension gremlins.

Of the 3 above, I would go for the C5 *only* if it had the hydropneumatic suspension:
- Incredibly comfortable
- Self levelling
- Can be raised / lowered, which would allow you to get over bad terrain where ground clearance is needed / helps with loading and unloading without putting your back out.
- It is nothing to be scared of. The modern pipes (from Xantias onward) are as rugged as fuel lines, the spheres are as easy to change as oil filters. Modern C5 doesn't have the clutch and brakes on the same system, so no need to fear losing them if the worst happened (although the Xantia did have a reserve for such unlikely situations). Modern Citroens don't have the same "binary" braking (on or off, no in between).
- As above point, hydropneumatic cars are usually cheaper
- Proper big Citroens have the hydropneumatic suspension. Otherwise it'd just be a Pug.

[DiscoPol]

The hydrothingymajigy suspension is only available on the exclusive and exec models with a 3 month wait for delivery, now seeing how i need a car in the next 3 weeks that is out the window, have just test driven a 2010 mid-range 2.0 Hdi C5 Touring today and i have to say im smitten, it doesnt have the uppy downy sussy but the ride was superb and that is saying something over here.

Im furious about this arse about face backwards nation that i live in though they couldnt organise a piss up in a brewery let alone simple car leasing deals, its like walking through treacle with your legs tied together and somebody hitting you in the face with a tree branch every 1/2 step, quite simply

ARGHHHHHH f*cking COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

please excuse my language but nothing else seems to even come close to how pissed off i am right now.

[Welly]

Is there not any nearly-new C5's with uppy downy for you? mind you the standard sussy sounds ok.

Feel for you chappy, it can't be easy trying to sort this kinda thing out with a load of Vodka-swigging numpties*


*for comedic effect, no inference implied or suggested.

[steve_earwig]

You'll probably find something similar in every country that has been "blessed" by communism. We've been spoilt by living in Britain, where everything is possible with a simple phone call or even over the 'net. Here I have to wade through endless bureaucracy to do anything and it all takes weeks, if not months. In GB if I need to fill out a form they'll give it me for nothing, here I have to go somewhere else and buy it first. When I go see my man in the cop shop he has a whole wall of shelves stuffed with files full of this sort of crap. They love it though, they must do because they don't appear to have any intention of doing anything about it. And just because they've got their stupid little stamp to smudge on the dumb form you've had to fill out yet again because the one you filled out last year is out of date even if it does contain exactly the same information, they feel like they are in some way special. Fuckers.

Oh yes, do you have to furnish them with a copies of your birth certificate that can't be more than a year old? Like you could be fricking un-born or something I HAVE THE ORIGINAL YOU STUPID FUCKWITS.

[DiscoPol]

No offence taken here, i couldnt agree more they make the simplest one man task into a bureaucratic nightmare, a hangover from the old communistic times, why have just one person employed when you can have 7 people employed to do the same jobs?

I would say jobs for the boys but its more like jobs for jobs sake and screw customer service

Arghhhhhhhhhh

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

and just tried to post and stevie has beat to the explanation.

[steve_earwig]

The office that makes me sick the most here is the glavni bilježnik - head book keeper. Every town here has one, here it consists of the head bloke and 4 female underlings. Their main purpose in life is to certify signatures and copies of official documents. You need this done for just about everything - getting a job, buying or selling a car or a house, getting married, having kids, dying, whatever, so there's usually a queue outside the door. So, if I need yet another copy of my passport I have to go and get two photocopies then take them to the head book keeper's office. They will check my passport, compare it to the copies, put their special little stamp on the copy I want to keep, stick the other copy out the back on what must be a steadily growing mountain and charge me a fiver. I'd imagine they easily get 100 people a day who need something pointless like this done so they must be raking it in. For what? Absolutely f*ck all of any value as far as I can see. When my ma-in-law popped her clogs we had to go see the one in a neighbouring village. We've no idea why but ok, we can handle that. One guy, two female underlings in a tiny little office over a shop. It was all sorted out that day in the office, I was there with the wife and her sister for about 2 hours, and they were supposed to send all the information on to the relevant places. Only they didn't So we had to start chasing them and it turns out THEY ONLY WORK ONE DAY A WEEK!

[DiscoPol]

So far i have set my own company registered for tax and national insurance, registered my home address at my m-i-l's because if you rent a property you cant register that as your home even though you live there, sorted out my polish health insurance, appointed a Polish accountant to ensure i pay enough of my hard earned every month, been told i dont need a PESEL (national identity number) as we are all europeans now, have a REGON (polish company registration number) registered my son as a Polish/English person, he now has 2 birth certificates had my marriage approved by the Polish courts. lodged copies of my passport with my local Gmnia (town hall) etc etc etc the list goes on it really is endless but now im being told that without either a PESEL or a REGON (which i have) i can not arrange leasing, so i speak to another leasing company and they say no problem just send us a copy of your passport and we will sort it out only to be told by citroen that they wont deal with any leasing company outside of the approved group list, i really have had enough, im ready to fly to england and buy something over there and screw the law on residents not having LHD cars its an absolute joke, i am seriously pissed off with the country right now, for god sake im trying to be a good citizen and give the state and the local business my money but they dont want it!

[Welly]

That's bloody crackers

So you do everything to the book and they still won't take your money

Have you tried speaking directly to one of the approved Citroen finance companies? as I don't think dealer will be much help, he'll just do as he's told. Over here, you pay enough deposit to cover a few months at first in case the financing goes belly-up and they've got time to get the car back off you.

I suppose there's that much red tape there they probably think you're setting up some elaborate scam to run away with a Citroen C5 diesel and never pay them