Safety recall for Citroen Picasso

[elsiegee40]

BBC News: Citroen Picasso UK recall over 'passenger brake'

 

I find the idea that the brake cable just runs under the carpet terrifying!

Edited May 19, 2011 by elsiegee40

[john]

BBC News: Citroen Picasso UK recall over 'passenger brake'

 

I find the idea that the brake cable just runs under the carpet terrifying!

 

Another reason to never buy a French car IMHO, although I've just been told today by a member of staff who has a German car with an electric handbrake that in her car its had an annoying habit of releasing when your not expecting it to EEK! Good job mines a manual one and I keep the car in gear when parked!

[witch]

BBC News: Citroen Picasso UK recall over 'passenger brake'

 

I find the idea that the brake cable just runs under the carpet terrifying!

 

Could be quite useful if you are the passenger in a car driven by a boy racer (not that he would be driving a Citroen Picasso)

[Andrew_C]

That is "special" even for French car manufacturers. I've had 3, and nearly bought a 4th. Then I read up on the C5's electrical issues...

[elsiegee40]

We had the clutch cable of our Citroen AX break whilst on holiday in the South of France many years ago, before the kids, etc.

 

Fortunately we had AA Five Star cover and they took the car in for repair and gave us a hire car. However, it took nearly a week to get a new "cable d'embrayage" as they had to send for one from England. The French AX had a clutch cable about 20cm long; ours was much longer to compensate for it being right hand drive!

 

We ended up staying staying for 5 days in a gite near Vallon Pont d'Arc which was attached to a vineyard owned by the head of the local Cave Co-operative (Co-operative for small wine producers)... we weren't that upset!

[jinnantonnixx]

Is it me or are modern cars an exercise in complexity? It's as if the designers have a competition to work out the most convoluted and obscure ways to control parts of the car.

[elsiegee40]

I think the problem with the C3 Picasso is the opposite of complexity; they ran the cable under the carpet! A more complex solution should have been used.

[Gibbo]

Another reason to never buy a French car IMHO

 

That's just a really lame stereotype. If they were so bad, why are there so many on the road all across Europe?

 

I've had about 40 cars in my driving lifetime (I like change!) and the Peugeots have been the most reliable. The faults I've encountered have always been because of poor maintenance and usually boil down to a bad earth connection in the engine bay.

[BenABF]

In my experience of french cars, having owned 2 pug 205 GTis, 2 pug 306s, a pug 405 and a Citroen AX 1.5d they do have dodgy electrics but machinicaly they are usualy excellently engineered. They usualy handle very well and when they do break they are inexpensive and easy to fix. The C3 seems to use the same system my Vauxhall Nova does with a long bar operating the master cyclinder on the opposite side, however the nova has a great big dashboard in the way so you can't press it.

[witch]

We have a peugeot, our second, and we are very happy with it except for the airbag light that keeps coming on due to a dodgy connection under the seat!

You never know quite who to believe about cars: The guy who recovered my car after the clutch cable snapped said that he mostly picked up Citroens and Renualts and therefore wouldnt buy one, and my lovely mobile mechanic says to go Japanese and to avoid European cars as they are getting less easy to work on and therefore more expensive to mend when they go wrong..

I fancy a Jeep Compass...

[BenABF]

We have a peugeot, our second, and we are very happy with it except for the airbag light that keeps coming on due to a dodgy connection under the seat!

You never know quite who to believe about cars: The guy who recovered my car after the clutch cable snapped said that he mostly picked up Citroens and Renualts and therefore wouldnt buy one, and my lovely mobile mechanic says to go Japanese and to avoid European cars as they are getting less easy to work on and therefore more expensive to mend when they go wrong..

I fancy a Jeep Compass...

 

I'd imagine its more likely due to the amount of French cars on the road than due to their reliability.

[mjs_mjs]

this was on watchdog last night and they show you pics ect of how it works... BBC iPlayer - Watchdog: 19/05/2011

[AMLinington]

My father has a VW Passat with an electronic handbrake... It's ridiculously compicated with different sets of conditions leading to a different outcome hand-brake-wise... I guess the old adage 'If it ain't broke don't fix it' doesn't apply to the tried and tested trusty handbrake...