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Picture courtesy of Elmbeard.
| Performance | 3/10  |
|---|---|
| Practicality | 9/10 |
| Reliability | 6/10 |
| Value for Money | 8/10 |
| Reviewer Rating | 7/10 |
| Overall Rating | 4.3/10  |
Full review by
elmbeard
on 8th Aug 2005
User Rating : 7
Respect :
+1
Good Points: Very versatile. Simple to maintain. Open roof. Spares available. Group 1 insurance. Character. Comfortable.
Bad Points: very basic trim. Slow. Noisy. Can be temperamental. 5th person very uncomfortable. Rattles and leaks.
General comments: I have been driving them for 23 years as my main transport. I wanted a motorcycle on 4 wheels, and you get real fresh air from the vent flap, the bottom opening windows, and the roof, which can be folded back half way, one handed with skill, at around 20mph, all it is is two clips and a popper, and that's it. There is also not much you cannot get into one of these. Two bolts and two screws, and the whole roof comes off to the rear bumper. The doors and seats slide out, and the floor is flat. The gearbox is in the engine compartment.
The engine sound is unique, there is no other car like it. It is an air-cooled flat twin, with no distributor or radiator. Problems with misfiring or mis-starting can usually be traced to the HT leads, which chafe against the frame.
Don't expect great speed. It does 70, but you can, with determination, break the speed limit downhill. Driving requires a lot of thinking ahead, although the heavy flywheel does give a turn of speed at the lights, and it is surprisingly comfortable.
The car was made from 1948 until 1990. Quality took a dive in 1981, with the arrival of disc brakes. The discs are much easier to service, but the bodywork was thinner, and more prone to rust. It took a further dive in 1987, when production transferred to Portugal. Few cars these days are on their original chassis. 2CVers will argue forever about who makes the best replacement chassis, but a good galvanised one should see out the life of the car. They are not too expensive. Wings are all bolt-on. At the moment there is a supply of scrappers, and you choose a wing less bent than the one you've got. Same with doors, bonnet and seats. Roof and bumpers are best from new.
Things that go each MoT time, are the king pins. Maybe steering tolerances in 1948 were more relaxed than those accepted by modern garages. Best to get a job lot in! Also tending to go quite regularly, are the CV gaiter boots. You might get some judder from the driveshaft which should be replaced within a year, before you get ball bearings bouncing down the road. Not expensive to do this. Gearboxes tend to unwind. This is a design fault in later models, when Citroen managers saved a few pence by skipping the tab washer holding the gearbox on. So if you reverse down a bumpy track for long, the gearbox falls off! Clutches usually last about 80,000 miles. With regular oil changes (important since the oil cools the engine), the engine should last forever.
The 2CV has an excellent club, which publishes a magazine once a month, and carries advertisements for cars and bits for sale. There is still a specialist spares merchant in Stafford, only dealing in 2CV parts.
elmbeard's review and ratings | 505 words | 2 comments added.
