Category: Large Family 
Price Range: £16,095 to £27,295
Good-looking; well-equipped; option of conventional steel-spring suspension; improved handling; serene driving feel and quiet ride.
A relatively conservative and unadventurous Citroen; residual values may still be poor; poor reliability record of last C5.
One of the more appealing large saloons around - as long as the company is paying.
The 2001-2008 C5 scored very poorly - near-bottom - in a number of reliability and customer satisfaction surveys, and seems to have suffered a wide variety of problems and glitches. These include faults and failures of both manual and automatic gearboxes, the self-levelling suspension, brakes and clutches, locking systems, particulate filters in the diesels plus a myriad of electronic and electrical issues.
However, to give the C5 the benefit of the doubt, many of these faults should have been ironed out by now - most of its components have been thoroughly tried and tested in a series of Peugeot and Citroen models, and there's not too much all-new here.
It also feels finished to a higher standard, with better attention to detail in the cabin and with its fixtures and fittings, although one C5 tested did have a creaky dash and rattling seat structure. The softer-touch plastics and the upholstery are improved, too.
