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Citroën UK loaned me a car to
test and this was delivered to
me from Coventry. The chap who
delivered it was very pleasant
but I was surprised when he
mentioned “hydro-elastic
springs”. Following some
of the apparently questionable
decisions made by Citroën, this
confirmed my preconceptions;
that the company has no concept
or knowledge of its own
heritage. And then, to my
surprise, it transpired that he
works for a company that
delivers press cars to
journalists. So Citroën UK
cannot be held accountable for
this.
I drove him to the local railway
station and over the course of a
six mile round trip that I do
quite often, another
preconception was
shattered. This thing has
an excellent ride. More on this
later…
When I got home, I delved into
the 119 pages long handbook and
thought to myself, do I really
have to read this in its
entirety in order to be able to
take advantage of the car’s many
features? This is one of the
things I find intensely annoying
when driving a hire car
(especially when abroad and the
handbook is written in a
language I do not understand)
and I have often thought it
would be a good idea for
manufacturers to supply a
‘getting started’ guide.
Underneath the owner’s manual
(which is entitled ‘basic
guide’) was a service and
maintenance book and lurking
underneath that in the wallet
was a 12page ‘Ready To Go’
booklet. Hooray! Another
preconception proved wrong… But
the 119 page ‘Basic Guide’ is
not the full version – that is
to be found on-line.
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As with all modern cars, the
Cactus has very thick screen
pillars and while these
undoubtedly improve a car’s
crash-worthiness, they do
restrict visibility. Many is the
time people have pulled out in
front of me and I have found
myself wondering why. The
answer, of course, is that they
didn’t see me because their view
was obstructed.
In order to see properly when
pulling out of a side road, it
is necessary to lean forward and
both my wife (who is 5’7” or 170
cm) and I (who am 6’ or 183 cm)
found that our heads made
contact with the sunvisor.
Lowering the seat might prevent
this from happening but we both
prefer a high driving
position, especially in a
car with such ahigh waistline,
and were it not for the glass
roof, the interior would be
rather claustrophobic. To
counter any residual
claustrophobia, the interior
makes effective use of light
colours.
The high waistline also means
that both the front and rear
screens are quite shallow and
the view in the interior mirror
is restricted.
Fortunately, when manoeuvring,
the ‘tablet’ displays what is
happening behind. The car is
also fitted with a blind spot
monitoring function which would
be unnecessary were visibility
better.
The wipers, front and rear,
are also very small but the
front pair cover the screen
effectively.
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The seats are very
comfortable, albeit firmer than
one has come to expect in a
Citroën and there is plenty of
room inside with lots of
cubbyholes and storage spaces.
One oddity was the asymmetric
air vents –there is but a single
one for the front passenger but
the driver gets two. However,
the aircon was very effective in
both front seats. I did not test
its efficacy in the rear.
The car is very quiet, apart
from a slight whistling around
the screen pillars at speed.
When extended, the engine noise
is noticeable, but not at all
unpleasant.
I disliked the non-round
steering wheel but suspect I
would get used to it in time. My
wife thought that the steering
was over-light and I disliked
the strong centring action but
again, I would probably get used
to it. My wife approached the
steering from the viewpoint of a
Xsara Picasso driver – her car’s
steering is a bit heavier than
this car’s. I came to it from a
C6 where the steering is very
light at low speeds. The Cactus’
turning circle is excellent.
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The car was thrown very
slightly off course when I hit
some unavoidable standing water
during a torrential downpour but
the electronics cut in very
quickly and corrected its
trajectory.
Again, probably in order to meet
safety standards, the sills are
quite high. An elderly neighbour
who suffers from reduced
mobility said she found it
difficult to get in and out of
the car. The boot too suffers
from a high sill. We used the
Cactus to do our weekly shop and
it was not very easy to lift
heavy bags over the sill. Dog
owners might find that the high
boot sill rules the Cactus out.
The boot is, however, very
roomy. The tailgate is very
light indeed.
The Lane Departure Warning
System (LDWS) seemed
over-sensitive; it sounded when
the white line had not been
crossed and the triggering speed
is, in my opinion, set too low.
This is especially irritating on
country lanes where one
frequently crosses the line. I
would deactivate it if it were
my car. The LDWS on my C6 is far
less irritating although road
markings such as direction
arrows do catch it out. I did
not notice this with the Cactus.
As a driver of an automatic, I
found six gears were too much
like hard work but there is a
dash indicator saying when to
change up/down which, in the
absence of a rev counter is a
good idea. The gear lever is
spring-loaded to the
third/fourth plane but despite
this, I sometimes found myself
in the wrong gear or unable to
remember which gear I was in.
(This is probably more a
criticism of me than of the car
since my wife had no such
difficulties.)
The engine is very torquey
right across the rev band and,
coupled with the six speed box,
makes the car quite quick, and
presumably economical. Economy
is undoubtedly helped by the
Stop/Start system which is
intelligent enough to start the
engine when traffic lights go
green – provided the camera can
see the light. The Stop/Start
system was unobtrusive in
operation, unlike that fitted to
a Skoda I hired in the Czech
republic. The same cameras read
speed limit signs and display
these on the instrument panel.
One piece of C6 technology that
sadly hasn’t made it into the
Cactus is the Head Up Display of
speedo and other information.
I did not check the Active
Safety Braking because I could
not find a volunteer to step out
in front of the car and because
I do not have absolute faith in
electronics and did not want to
damage the car should my lack of
faith turn out to be
justified. For the same
reason, I did not test the Park
Assist feature. The Hill Start
Assist worked perfectly.
I also tested the Driver
Attention Alert system which
warns the driver when it detects
lateral movement relative to the
road or lane margins and this
too worked.
A recent study by the University
of Michigan investigated how
drivers used blind spot warning
systems and, unsurprisingly,
discovered that people driving
cars with blind spot detection
systems frequently changed lanes
without ever checking for other
vehicles on their own. This
would seem to indicate that many
drivers use safety systems as a
primary source of input rather
than as a backup. I prefer to
make my own judgments and
decisions and find many of the
driving aids irritating and/or
distracting. But all
manufacturers are fitting them
and Citroën can’t afford to be
left out.
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I had some difficulty
programming the satnav; I was
unable to discover how to enter
numbers. All was revealed when I
looked at the manual. But I
happen to think that it is bad
design if one cannot use it
intuitively. I must admit I
approached the ‘tablet display’
with some trepidation but satnav
aside, found it generally
intuitive to use. I did,
however, find that when in
Satnav mode, the continual
changes to the display as it
re-orientates itself were
obtrusive, unlike the C6 unit
(which suffers from lag) and my
Garmin which seems just about
right. The Cactus’ satnav talks
with a pleasant, albeit slightly
plummy voice unlike the Garmin
which sounds bossy and the C6
which schizophrenically speaks
with two voices. The Cactus also
made a better job of pronouncing
place names than either of the
other two satnavs mentioned
above. The ‘tablet’ is a great
improvement over the ergonomic
disaster that is the C6’s dash.
Staying with electronics, we
take an elderly and deaf
neighbour to church and she got
into the Cactus and said there
was a loud whistling coming
through her hearing aid. This
suggests to me that the
electronics are not properly
shielded. And this is not new
because every time I drive past
a local army base, my C6 beeps
at me as a message comes up
saying ‘suspension fault’ which
Lexia says is a temporary fault.
The base is next to the Museum
of Army Flying in Middle Wallop
and I have been told that
visitors to the museum have
found themselves locked out of
their cars; cars unlocked when
they had definitely been locked;
failure to start; inability to
release electric parking brakes;
alarms going off for no apparent
reason; and lots of other
electronic glitches - so this is
not peculiar to Citroën. Citroën
UK said no-one else had reported
an issue with hearing aids in
any car in the range. The
whistling may of course be a
problem with her hearing aid -
she said it only affected the
left one - or it may have been
caused by the car and my iPhone
trying to pair with each other –
unsuccessfully until I
deactivated and then reactivated
Bluetooth on my phone.
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Handling and grip were beyond
reproach at normal and legal
road speeds. The steering loaded
up nicely on a very tight radius
slip road off the A303, offering
plenty of feel and little body
roll.
So, what of the ride? I touched
on this in the introduction.
Citroën’s press release makes
the following claims: Citroën's
expertise in the field of
suspension is undisputed. For
98 years, suspension comfort
has been embedded in the
brand's genes. Over the years,
customers have grown attached
to Citroën’s renowned comfort,
which is unique in the market.
Drawing on its expertise and
the know-how of its engineers,
Citroën has developed the new
suspension system to further
improve the ride quality that
is so typical of the brand.
The way it works is quite
simple. Whilst conventional
suspension systems use a shock
absorber, a spring and
mechanical bump stops at each
corner of the car, the
Progressive Hydraulic
Cushions™ (PHC) system adds
two hydraulic stops on each
suspension unit to replace the
mechanical stops. There is one
hydraulic stop for compression
and one for decompression. The
suspension therefore works in
two stages to match how the
car is being used.
- For light
compression and
decompression, the springs
and shock absorbers control
the vertical movements, with
no assistance required from
the hydraulic stops.
However, the presence of
these new hydraulic stops
means the engineers have
greater freedom in the car’s
set up, allowing them to
offer a ‘magic carpet ride’
with the impression that the
car is gliding over uneven
ground.
- During major impacts,
the springs and shock
absorbers work together with
the hydraulic compression or
decompression stops that
gradually slow the movement
to avoid sudden jolts at the
end of the range. Unlike a
traditional mechanical stop,
which absorbs energy and
then returns part of it as a
rebound, the hydraulic stop
absorbs and dissipates this
energy. With this innovative
technical solution, New C4
Cactus offers incomparable
levels of comfort, whilst
taking nothing away from the
car’s handling and driving
pleasure.
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On Hampshire’s pot-holed and
broken surfaces, especially at
urban speeds, it acquitted
itself very well. There was
little body roll and no pitching
under acceleration or braking.
However, on the A 3057 between
Stockbridge and Romsey , there
is a stretch with an undulating
surface where the speed limit
has, over recent years been
reduced from 60 to 50 and now 40
mph as a result of cars losing
their exhausts. I suspect that
the installation of new speed
limit signs is cheaper than
flattening out the road. On this
stretch of road, at 40 mph, the
ride was nothing special and
increasing my speed slightly led
to noticeable pitching and
yawing. I got the feeling that
the front and rear were out of
synchronisation with each other
with the rear feeling noticeably
firmer than the front. Of course
front and rear suspensions have
different jobs to do so it is
inevitable that they will have
slightly different
characteristics. However, my C6
used to glide serenely along
here at 60 when the NSL still
applied. Nevertheless, the
Cactus was way ahead of my
wife’s Xsara Picasso, which
crashes through, to the bump
stops. On less extreme surfaces,
the Cactus’ ride is excellent
although a little bit of road
noise is transmitted into the
cabin. The ride quality is very
good, albeit unlike that of a
hydropneumatic car. The
difference is undoubtedly due to
the latter’s infinitely rising
rate characteristics which
provides a unique feel. To put
this into plain English, the
harder a gas spring is
compressed, the stiffer it
becomes whereas conventional
springs maintain pretty much the
same ‘stiffness’ whether fully
compressed or not. Additionally,
there is the lack of
self-levelling to consider. I
did not test the Cactus fully
laden so have no idea how the
handling and ride changes. It is
worth adding that not everyone
likes the hydropneumatic ride
quality. A colleague observed,
“Citroëns make me feel
nauseous.” She was talking about
hydropneumatic cars and added
that she likes (sports) cars
with firm suspension. I did not
invite her to have a ride in the
Cactus since I didn’t want to
have to clean the interior…
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A friend has an ‘old’ Cactus
and we did a back-to-back
comparison of the two. Firstly,
from an aesthetic point of view,
it must be said I prefer the old
model which, with its airbumps,
has more character and is much
more distinctive. Appearance is
a matter of opinion and I think
that much of the current Citroën
range looks rather bland and
anonymous. Remove the chevrons
and they could be anything.
A brief drive in both
demonstrated the superiority of
the new suspension system; not
that the old one is bad.
Interestingly, my friend said he
prefers the frontal styling of
the new car. If this report
seems somewhat negative, this is
probably more to do with my
expectations of what a car
should be like than with any
specific shortcomings in the
Cactus. Were I in the market for
a new car, the Cactus would not
qualify; primarily because of
the high boot lip which our dog
would be unable to cope with.
And since she is a German
Shepherd dog, lifting her in and
out is not an option; I could
live with the electronics; I am
impressed by the ride quality;
and with familiarity, the looks
might grow on me.
The progressive hydraulic
cushions are what sets the
Cactus apart from other cars and
hopefully, they will be extended
across the range in due course
and Citroën will regain its
reputation for making cars that
both ride and handle well.
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