19 Feb 08
Prices: From £1,500, but £10,000 will get you a facelifted version (2004-).
Engines: 1.8, 2.0 and 3.0 petrol; 2.0, 2.2 diesels.
Watch out for: Hard-worked caravan-towers; suspension problems.
For: Good value for money; great ride; interesting alternative to a Mondeo or Vectra; quirky Citroen cred; five-star NCAP score.
Against: Usual glitches and build quality issues; rather bloated-looking; wallowy to drive.
Sure, the C5's not quite in the same class as the others listed here, but this thing is big. A roomy five-door hatchback, its main strength is its floating, ride-on air ride - the notorious Citroen self-levelling, levitating suspension. The diesel engines are good, too, but the best-value used option, if you don't mind paying out for petrol, is the 3.0 V6. Three or four-year-old V6s with top Executive specifications and all the options are now a fraction of their original new price and 2001/2002 examples are well under £3000.
Though more characterful than the Xantia it replaced, the C5 is still no modern-day DS, and it lacks the utter madness of the larger C6 (set to become another used-car bargain, if anyone actually buys a new one in the first place). Starts to make sense second-hand, however.
