Team-BHP - Citroen C3 Review

Quote:

Originally Posted by DicKy (Post 5363017)

The French have been notoriously anti RWD for God knows what reason.

Some of their vans even have their parking brakes working on the front wheels!!!

Very true - and I too wonder why! Right from the time of the Traction Avante (a ground-breaking model in many ways) they have stuck to FWD and more recently AWD for their successful WRC forays.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arjab (Post 5363172)

Insurance charges, at Rs 49,000 for the top end Turbo 1.2Petrol is extremely high, even if you consider bumper to bumper 1+3 year comprehensive insurance cover on an ex-showroom of Rs 805,000. If you do not believe what i say, just take a parallel quote from any PSU or private insurer and see fir yourself.

I think dealer has quoted the premium cover, you can check in their website they have insurance starting from 30,000 and also they have various packages for extended warranty and maintenance but in the price list dealers have given the expensive packages. Regarding the handling charges, their website also includes that charge and I think it is nothing to do with the dealers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RGK (Post 5363562)

On Wednesday, a camouflaged test mule was spotted in Chennai on Velachery Main Road.

The test vehicle is riding really low. You can see that clearly in the second picture. City drive cycle testing for a different powertrain or transmission option?
There is no visible tailpipe. Can be an early test mule to test a battery pack for the upcoming C3 EV.

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Originally Posted by deehunk (Post 5363910)

The so caled Convenience pack is expensive, whoever prepared the pricelist at PPS Motors needs special recgnition by Citroen. They have a note referring to TCS for vehicles with 10 lakhs ex-showroom price, but none of the variants come under 10 lakhs segment.

So what is wrong in note about TCS? These are standard notes and are not changed on car to car basis. Moreover, a car which cost less than 10L ex-showroom today, might cost above 10L with time, and this TCS clause won't be missed at all.

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Originally Posted by Iyencar (Post 5337337)

This is going to be treated with the disdain it deserves. Hope the marketing/ product planning geniuses at Citroen don't scratch their heads wondering what went wrong in round 2 of their India debacle.
P.S. I cannot remember the last time a car was launched without even the manual option of dimming the IRVM. Truly a segment/market first.

I agree with your views, the benchmarking has to be spot on before launching new products. I see there is a round slot next to the power window lock switch which will accommodate the powered ORVM adjustment knob in the future. The placement of switches is weird, those rear P/W switches foul with the slot for placing the mobile phone. A rear wiper is not a fancy feature, missing it even in the top variant:thumbsdown

Quote:

Originally Posted by deehunk (Post 5363984)

A rear wiper is not a fancy feature, missing it even in the top variant:thumbsdown

Rear wiper and adjustable head rests for the back seat are in deed fancy features for Indian cars. They mostly figure only in the top 2 variants of the cars nowadays.
Having said that, Citroen, IMO, has not really announced their top 2 variants for the C3 yet! That's a strange product release strategy though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iyencar (Post 5337337)

Wait, so the bread and butter model for which the C5 was overpriced (in the name of creating a "presence") doesn't have:

I truly do not understand this approach. Have they not seen what the competition has been offering for the last decade? Is ride comfort going to really wow a customer so much that he will forgive the absence of basic features? Man this is a lazy strategy, if I ever saw one, to enter a very unforgiving segment in a brutally competitive market. Very disappointed. This is going to be treated with the disdain it deserves. Hope the maketing/ product planning geniuses at Citroen don't scratch their heads wondering what went wrong in round 2 of their India debacle.
P.S. I cannot remember the last time a car was launched without even the manual option of dimming the IRVM. Truly a segment/market first.

I 've been driving for the past 34 years (when I bought my first car, an Omni) and I haven't notice the absence of auto dimming IRVMs in my subsequent Tata Sierra or my M&M Scorpio or indeed my Eeco or Getz. I feel that too much hot air is being generated about these and other candy-floss items. While ignoring the vital items that are essential. I'm almost tempted to conclude - are we losing our driving skills and are we just waiting for the day when AI will do that for us, just as the auto-parking feature is doing even now! Perhaps the day is not far away when we'll need Magnus, Robot Fighter, to save us from our own Frankenstein's monster!

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Originally Posted by T-REX84 (Post 5363265)

Is it just me guys, I really think the turbo version would make a really good rally spec project car!! Call me old school but I for one am really thankful that a company really made for car fulfilling its actual purpose rather than making a bigger smartphone with wheels.:Cheering:

Very well put indeed, T-REX! I'd begun to conclude, regretfully, that there are no more folks left who want to look under the skin at the hardware that makes a driver's car. In our country we have become so addicted to Japanese, Korean, Chinese, (and to lesser extent) German products, that we now see all cars only through those lenses. I'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping that Citroen makes a go of it here and does not pull out like Peugeot did after their initial foray.

Wait, we are still talking about the same car which has a 10 inch tablet with Wireless Android Auto and Apple Car Play slapped on the dashboard right?

I understand that folks don't think Auto dimming IRVM is a big deal. I actually agree with that opinion too. In fact, with multiple threads on the forum that show you how to swap your manual IRVM with an Auto IRVM this one miss is not really a concern.

But excluding things like rear wash and wipe or even the defogger:Frustrati and the manually adjustable ORVM is just taking things too far (multiple people in my family would use the same car).

Can we conclude that then the C3 was built as a wet dream come true by engineers (who paid attention to the suspension characteristics, turbo engine character etc.) and then some kid in market analysis decided to stick a 10 inch tablet onto that dash?

They could have made do with an 8 inch tablet without the wireless Android Auto and Apple Carplay and then put that money saved into one of those misses.

Think the Auto enthusiast in India is a starved crowd waiting for some attention from these car manufacturers. Even one of them comes out with a car that remotely caters to the basics (which I love by the way) we tend to ignore all the obvious flaws/misses.

Especially, for a car like the C3, it seems like damn near the perfect package for some looking for manual turbo petrol in our country. Why take the chance to ruin it with silly omissions like these?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shashanka (Post 5365328)

I’m guessing you misread. There is no option to even manually dim the IRVM. I’m all for mechanically simple cars. However, in this day and age of blinding LED headlamps, not being able to reduce the glare even by flicking a switch is more to do with safety than it has to do with comfort.

Another point I just realized is that the C3 comes with a 30L fuel tank. It's not mentioned in our review as far as I can remember (just heard it while watching a Youtube review).

This seems really low. Don't cars such as Alto et all have a larger tank?

Edit: Yep, just checked and confirmed that even the Alto has a 35L tank. I guess it allowed Citroen to provide more space inside the car.