The Latest Love Of My Life? (Citroën Saxo 1.1i Desire 5-door)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Citroën Saxo 1.1i Desire 5-door
Date:	30/09/02 (4404 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reasonable price, Economical, Looks nice

Disadvantages: Top speed only 101mph

Well, now I am taking a risk writing about cars. Thing is, yer see, I'm hardly an expert. Still, I'll give it a go and hope to do my best. It all started a couple of years ago (audience's eyes glaze over already)...

OK..I've got 2 cars...one for my good lady and one for me. We decided to invest in a second car as the kid's school is too far to walk to and Ali went back to work part-time. Personally, I'm hopeless with motors so wanted something reliable. So...instead...I bought my father-in-law's Rover Maestro. It was getting on a bit; oh, you know, 1993 model, diesel, 70000+ miles on the clock blah, blah but I knew he would have looked after it so we entered into a deal and I bought it. Typically, my other 'arf decided that she wouldn't drive it and nabbed me decent motor leaving me to...erm...glide to work in a car that sounded like a bus.

So..anyway..2 years later and the car is succumbing to wear and tear to the point that the head gasket goes landing me with a £500 bill (approx value of car £750 - £1000). Ho hum...I consider getting it done to avoid paying for a new one knowing my car loan is paid off next April allowing me some scope to review the car situation. My garage assures me that as long as I keep the water topped up (radiator keeps emptying) it would be OK to drop the Maestro in to sort in a few days time. Dag nabit, a few days later the car won't start. It turns out that the water has been forced through the turbo unit (only recently replaced at a cost of £300) rendering the car virtually un-repairable (at least that's what my garage told me although I knew he simply didn't want to do the job).

Being the pragmatic soul that I am...I dragged the whole family to the Carshop Megastore and bought a new car. Hmmm...well, it was a shop and it sold cars so we didn't hang about and bought a Citroen Saxo. Most folks thought this behaviour most strange but I don't see why people
spend days and weeks picking the perfect car when there's so much choice.

So...why did we choose the Saxo? There were a number of considerations I wanted to take into account. Firstly, we had a family car so there really was no need for another large car. After all, this one would only be doing the school run and running my wife around the corner to work. Secondly, I wanted a car at reasonable cost with a budget in mind of about £5000. Thirdly, it needed to be economical to fit in with Marandina's tightly worked budgets and cash flow forecasts (no...I'm a Bank Manager, not an Accountant). Of course, there were other advantages like being environmentally friendly and reduced costs via insurance and taxation.

Having been sucked into the salesman's vortex at the Carshop, we did genuinely like a BRG Saxo having survived his classy but in-yer-face sales technique having looked at a few motors on the car lot. Here's the low down on me latest motor:

The Saxo is a small car designed for the more economically minded. The body is a compact but sporty type. This is the 5-door version although you can get 3. The engine is at the front whilst the headlamps cut a dashing swathe either side of the bonnet. There's the familiar Citroen logo, which looks like 2 inverted "v"s on the grill. The Saxo is a petrol car with the ignition key doubling as the petrol filler cap key too. Needless to say, unleaded is the fuel required. Brakes are ABS whist the wheels are 13" as standard with 155/70 R13T tyres (optional on new models is 14" steel wheels along with 165/65 R14T tyres).

Inside the car, the seats are reasonably comfy with enough room to take 3 people in the back (just right for most trips). The front seats come with headrests whilst it is possible to adjust the seats with manual levers underneath to change the pitch/angle. The car has central locking along with immobiliser operated from the usual little h
and gadget that comes with the ignition/door key. The electronic key makes a little high-pitched noise when you open/close the doors which a friend of mine thought annoying but it's really not that bad. This model has electric windows front and back although the controls are in the front with back seat punters having to use the more customary manual version. The luggage space at the back will cope with most loads although you may be struggling for the family fortnight away (unless you start thinking luggage racks and all that).

For the first time, we found ourselves with a car that came with driver's air bag for extra safety although we possibly would have preferred air conditioning to the sunroof that came with it instead. Still...we could always stand and pose out of the top of the sunroof on the one sunny day we get a year (he he).

The dashboard's a suitably sleek affair with all manner of controls present as seems to be the trend these days. Along with air vent, glovebox, rear screen de-mister, hazard warning lights, air recycling, controls for horn, lighting, direction indicators, front fog lamps and fog lamps there is the instrument panel on the drivers side housing LCD clock, windscreen wiper/windscreen wash/rear windscreen wiper controls, headlamp adjuster and so on. Most of the modern day luxuries are present as well as a CD player, which, for us, was again a first. The radio is nothing special albeit it's very competent picking up FM/MW/LW with speakers set in the front doors and rear.

The Saxo we bought is manual gear (I can't get on with automatics). As for performance well, the Saxo 1.1 should get you from 0-62 mph in around 12.8 seconds albeit this was hardly our main consideration. You're unlikely to get much more than the 101mph max the car is designed for but you should question whether you've bought the right car if you're looking for a racer.

Perhaps, more importantly, you should
get a respectable 36 miles per gallon around town which is more the kind of statistic I was interested in. Also, with it being only 1.1ltr the car tax was only £105, which was a lot, less than our main family car. As for performance, well you're unlikely to get much more than 110mph tops out of this motor but then it's hardly built to blow away Porsches at traffic lights. The Saxo is a nice drive with decent cornering. Braking is OK albeit I wasn't entirely happy with the brakes on this car. As it turned out, the discs were a little corroded as opposed to anything more sinister. Of course, you shouldn't have this problem with a new car.

OK...so how much was this baby? Well..I got it for £5500 and really couldn't be bothered to haggle (I always remember the "shekels for beards" sketch in the Life of Brian so refuse to be caught out). New models start from £6695 on the road and, by all means, check out Citreon.co.uk for the latest deals and special offers from the manufacturers themselves. Alternatively, if you are looking at used then you could do worse that check out autotrader.co.uk which compliments the popular magazine brilliantly including an online Parker's guide which will give you a feel for a fair price based on condition, make and model, mileage, etc. This Saxo had only done approximately 16000 miles so I figured she wouldn't give me any hassle for a while (unlike my..erm..that joke's too obvious).

If you're looking for a car in the kind of Corsa/Ford Fiesta type bracket then you could do worse than get a Saxo. It's a busy market with all manner of competition and seems to be typified by folks looking for their first car or those that aren't fixated by looking for cars with size or national speed crushing monsters. It's reasonably priced, economical to run, will be kind to you in terms of tax and insurance and looks nice enough. I'm happy and, whilst hardly an expert, will give
it 4 stars.

Thanks for reading

Marandina

Teccie stuff:

Cubic capacity 1124cc
Bore & s
troke 72 x 69
Compression ratio 9.7:1
Cylinders = 4 in line
Max power DIN (hr/rpm) 60/5500
Max torque DIN (lb/ ft/rpm) 69/3500
Engine cooling system: Liquid & electrically operated cooling fan
Fuel system: Monopoint fuel injection
Steering: No. turns lock to lock = 2.98
Turning circle between kerbs = 10.5
Manual transmission & clutch
Fuel tank capacity 45l (9.9 gallons)
Suspension: Anti roll bars front and rear, front - Macpherson strut/coil springs. Rear - independent trailing arms/torsion bars
Brake types: Servo assisted, X-split circuit front discs, rear drums, VTR and VTS ventilated front discs, rear discs, four sensor ABS standard on VTS
CO2 emissions: 145g/Km

Useful websites: http//www.autotrader.co.uk http//www.citreon.co.uk http//www.carshop.co.uk

Summary: