This is the worse car i have ever owned or driven, it is a living horror it has completely destroyed my ISA, which 2 years ago had just short of 3k in it. Where do i begin, maybe with the seats on day one, which i found were not secured to the floor as i stopped suddenly at a juction as i took the car home, followed not so long after, by the steering column slipping into my lap as i drove along a motorway, expertly propped up by a citroen main dealer by a piece of foam, which keeps it neatly in place. Then the injectors went, twice!! Followed incredibly, by a complete frontal collapse of the front road springs, followed a few years later by the rear ones doing exactly the same, maybe i should mention the countless number of headlight bulbs i have had to fit as soon as we have wet weather or maybe the rattling ball joints that cause me to fear that the entire car is about to fall apart around me, i have recently fitted a new exhaust, but still wish that i could reclaim my favourite cd's stuck in the less than impressive cd system. I have had problems with my windscreen wipers and now my engine coil pack has given up the ghost, the car cuts out at all speeds in all manner of places grinding to a measely 23 mph at times, the most impressive example was whilst overtaking on the a64, my gasket is leaking as fast as my wallett is attempting to keep up with the repairs on this car and i now just can not wait to get shot of it, in fact i am engaged in discussions with a former collegue who still works on tanks at the RAC gunnery ctr in dorset to arrange for its use as a target. I would not recommend purchasing a citroen c3 to anyone, how the entire line has never been recalled and the owners compensated is a testament to the poor customer service the brand provides.

pam 2008 my engine management light came on was on a long journey it cut out had to get rac out they fitted a coil. few days later it came on again had all plugs and filters changed . came on again had 2 lader sensors fitted. came on again had cat fitted after a week it came on again they flushed a chamber out now after a week it is on again what next so far has cost £430 and we havnt paid for cat yet.

I bought a Citroes C3 sxi (2003 model) in June 2007, with full service history, 23K on the clock and knowing the previous owner (family member) knew it was reliable with no problems. How wrong that turned out to be:

Fuel Injector - failed within 2 weeks. The garage where it was originally bought decided not to tell me that it was a known fault, a washer had caused the injector to malfunction, only after lenghtly research on the net/ denial by both the garage and citroen and standing in their garage for 10 mins causing a fuss did they pull me aside and admit that I was indeed correct and that they had known the washer was faulty and they would replace injector without charge - saving me £178.

30K miles - burst fuel pump and petrol tank. Original garage again would not take responsibility, were going to charge me £1.5 k for replacement. Second hand pump and tank bought and fitted by local garage for £170.

Air conditioning - burnt out at 45K miles on setting one!

48K miles - Fault in ABS unit. New unit £750. Automatic MOT failure so had to be replaced.

Break pads and discs - worst wear and tear I have ever known. Shortly onto my 4th set in just over 2 years.

Radio - frequently doesnt switch off with the engine.

1st gear - bleeping sounds every time I set off from first gear, garage cant find any fault. A nightmare when driving in town with zillions of sets of traffic lights!

Along with suspension problems and the usual bearings, ball joints, etc this car is a nightmare.

Citroen? Never again/

Looks like a common problem with Citroen C3 1.4 SX be aware!

Same happened to me my engine light came on and the car cut out, another garage fixed this and got me going again but within a couple of days the car cut out again. I took this to a citroen garage and they fixed injector number 4 it had corroded with the rain as apparently there is no seal on the injectors to prevent this! and set me back £260. Here I am a month down the line and the engine light has come on again after a night of rain?? I still await the problem.

I had a real issue with my Citroen C3 1.4 SX. The engine management light came on and then the nightmare started. The car kept stalling at low revs (below 2000 rpm). Took it to a small garage who couldn't work out what was going on. They kept following the error codes reported by the CPU with no progress. They tried looking at the electrics and found "pulsing signals" instead of clean signals? which affected injector number 4. They decided it was the CPU and sent it off to a specialist who said the CPU was fine. The garage didn't believe them and send it back again hoping to get the CPU rebuilt. 3 months had passed and I was on the point of agreeing to buy a new CPU for around £700.

I gave up with the garage and took it to a Citroen dealer. They worked out that it was the windscreen fluid seals failing and leaking into the injector causing all sorts of electrical signal issues. They fixed the seal, replaced the injector and returned the car within 3 hours of me turning up!!! Works absolutely fine now!

I bought my C3 04 reg brand new, it is now 5 years old and has under 25,000 on the clock. Last December I had my first problem when I returned to my parked car and found that the front had collapsed. AA took it to a garage and said passenger side coil spring had snapped. In January, engine light came on - fuel problem £300 bill. Last week I was driving on the road, heard a bang and car collapsed again - driver side coil spring. Lucky it wasn't on a busy road as I couldn't move the car and had to have the AA to tow it away again. For a 5 year old car with low mileage I think that this is very poor. I'll think twice about getting another C3!

A nice well equiped car in sx trim, handles well and is very very
smooth indeed on a long run, cheap on fuel and tax (HDI) The Citroen C3 1.4 SX's tyres brakes etc last a long time. However certain aspects of the care seemed poor, there were lots and lots of bits of plastic in the engine bay that rattled and broke The suspension spring breaking seems more common than you might think (there was a recall to fit a cup to retain the spring should it fail). I think they should have replaced the springs.
The running costs are very low and i get around 70mpg .

I bought this car for my wife at the end of 2003. She is still happy with the car and so I am. In city driving and when I prefer economy over performance I also use this car. And as a very tall guy I should admit that it is the best car for driver in its class for big size. So far we have not lived big problems. Just the materials especially plastics used inside are very low class and feels cheap. But I saw that new models quality are upper. I really recommend this car to anyone who is considering small on the outside but spacious for front side and second car for the family.

Some style over substance but a good value buy. Flimsy interior, limited rear leg room and sluggish performance (especially with an auto). Question mark over reliability and certinally not a drivers car.

Both my front coil springs went at 30,000 miles. The offside one was rattling like a box of nails. Interior a bit plasticky too.

I first reviewed my Citroen C3 in November 2004, now 3 1/2 years later it has done 89,000 virtually fault free miles. After reading the various horror stories about other C3s I realise that I have probably been very lucky with this car as I've spent very little on it. I have done all its servicing myself for the past 2 years, it has been backwards and forwards to Spain on many occasions and has never missed a beat. When it has done 100,000 miles I'll probably get rid of it.

Three years ago, I bought a C3. But now the car has electrical problems again and again. It's terrible!!!