Citroen C4 Picasso Five-Seat
1.6 HDi VTR+ review
by David Finlay (31 July 2007)
Well within a year of its first appearance on the UK market, the C4 Picasso has already won an armful of awards various motoring magazines. Sales are good too - it took just over half a year for 10,000 British buyers to write out cheques to their local Citroen dealers.
To a very large extent, all this is quite justified. The Picasso is in many ways a star among compact MPVs. But in typical Citroen fashion - which you may find either endearing or infuriating - its design is a mixture of absolute brilliance and comprehensive barminess.
Let's look at the good stuff first. In five-seat form as tested here, the Picasso is one of the best-looking compact MPVs in the business, and it's been made that way without recourse to fiddly design details which might reduce practicality.
The outstanding example of this is the amount of glass area at the sharp end. The windscreen is colossal, but more importantly the front side windows are among the largest I've ever seen. This is not a case of a manufacturer adding a tiny triangular porthole which is mostly blocked by the door pillar - and in fact, although the Picasso's door pillars are quite chunky, they are also angled into the cabin so that only the narrow edge blocks the view. Why can't all car builders do this?
One downside - and it's common to many MPVs - is that the bonnet slopes down so sharply that you can't see any of it from the driver's seat. Without front parking sensors (not available as standard on the VTR+) you have to guess where the front of the car is, which can cause sharp intakes of breath the first time you try to negotiate a busy car park, though you do get used to it quickly.
The five-seat Picasso isn't just a seven-seater with more space in the back. It's really a different car, with less luggage room rather than more. But you do get anything from 605 litres to 1734 litres of fresh air depending on what you do with the seats - and offhand I can't think of any MPV whose seats are easier to fold and unfold than this one.
So far, the Picasso is so good that it's difficult to imagine buying anything else. But hang on a minute. This would not be a proper Citroen if it didn't have its share of eccentricities, and here they come.
All models in the range have an electronic handbrake; a cussed thing which takes quite a long time to disengage and makes the most remarkable amount of clunking and whirring noises in the process. That would be no more than slightly frustrating except for the fact that the control button is mounted in the centre of the dash, just in front of the electronic instrument display (which I don't find particularly easy to read).
That button is a long way off, and I couldn't reach it without leaning forward in my seat. Even then, it's easier to get hold of than the four buttons on the display panel itself, two of which are barely accessible without unhooking your seatbelt.
The controls for the air-conditioning are much closer, but since they're to the right of the steering wheel they have to be selected by the driver because nobody else in the car can get to them.
Wouldn't it be safer if the front passenger could operate them and leave the driver to get on with driving? And is it really so clever that the control the passenger can most easily access is the one which switches the ESP on and off? Isn't that the sole concern of the driver?
Possibly because of packaging issues, the footrest is much too high up, and this makes the Picasso more tiring to drive on a long journey than it should be. The test car was fitted with the five-speed manual gearbox which has a notchy, awkward change (a big contrast to the silky steering action), but at least it's better than the manual/automatic Electronic Gearbox System alternative.
The ride quality is a bit of a puzzle. On very smooth roads it's absolutely brilliant, but rough surfaces and sharp corners throw it into confusion. I'd happily accept the compromise of a firmer ride and better body control.
The test car used the 110bhp 1.6-litre HDi turbo diesel engine which Citroen reckoned right from the start would be the most popular choice. It's a good unit, probably better suited to the Picasso than the 138bhp 2.0 HDi which drinks more fuel but doesn't add much in the way of useful performance (combined fuel economy for the 1.6 is better still with the EGS transmission, though I still wouldn't want that).
There's only one obvious reason to be concerned about the 1.6 HDi, and that is that it brings the Picasso's service intervals down to 12,500 miles - in the case of the 2.0 HDi and the petrol models, official services are 20,000 miles apart.
All round, the C4 Picasso is quite a mystery. As a car, it has so many daft features that I was driven well beyond my usual level of pottiness, but despite all that I could never lose sight of the fact that it is one of the most ingenious compact MPVs on the market. Go figure, as they say.
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