French Cars

From the Slate article "So, You Wanna Torch a Peugeot? How French hooligans set cars on fire."

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French cars are supposed to be easily combustible. :p
 
Pressurized struts pose the greatest danger to bystanders or firefighters?the cylinders that help pop open a hatchback or a hood can heat up and explode, sending rods flying dozens of feet from the car. Struts that normally provide shock absorption for the bumpers can also shoot out of the car.
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:eek:
 
I have owned a 405 in my list of cars and it was not great but in no means bad, and a 309 that was just awful. Never owned a Citroen, or a Renault although I was tempted to get a Megane Grand Scenic but opted for a VW instead, although the French car looked "prettier" but the equipment level sucked example A/C was a expensive option. I do like the 407 stange it might look but I like it.
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*shrug* give me neg rep pple, I like it.
 
I think the 407 Coupe is an extremely good looking car!
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I heard the whole burning the car thing can be an insurance scam in France.
because lots and lots of cars get burned, there, there is a special fund to repay people who had this happen to them. AFAIK every "victim" gets atleast 4000?, regardless of what type of car you have.

So what people do is buy a crap car for 50? (doesn't even have to run), have a friend burn it, and collect 4000? insurance

edit: also, I have driven Peugeots, Renaults and Citroens, and can confirm that some are utter shit (Pug 405,306, Citroen C3) while others are OKish (Pug 406, Citroen Picasso, Renault Megane - the large ass model)
 
"When you get up in the morning, all your luggage has been stolen from the boot and your car's just a burnt out shell, you'll know you're in France anyway." - James May, 8x02.
 
Well, at least here in Finland, French cars have always suffered from bad reputation for reliability, thanks to some of the mingers they've produced over the years. And i have to agree that they haven't got that much of a quality feel to them when compared to say, German cars. For long-term reliability, i don't know, never having owned one, nor has there been one in the near family. But as i said, i haven't really heard too many positive things about their reliability.

A friend of mine actually almost suffered the "French Car Syndrome", he had a 205 until last year, after which he sold it to somebody for a few hundred and after a few weeks with the new owner, the whole car spontaneously burnt to the ground. Apparently it had shorted somewhere, thanks to the quality french electrics and wiring.
 
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Mum owned a Megane for the past few years and the only two gripes I had with it were the poor rear visibility and the right headlamp burning out every few months. And if you ever had to change a headlamp bulb on a Megane, you'd know why that's a big problem... :rolleyes:
 
IceBone said:
Mum owned a Megane for the past few years and the only two gripes I had with it were the poor rear visibility and the right headlamp burning out every few months. And if you ever had to change a headlamp bulb on a Megane, you'd know why that's a big problem... :rolleyes:
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Yeah. The local version of Auto Bild (i'm not sure whether it was translated directly from the German magazine though) did a test on how easy it is to change the bulb on different models of car, they did find the Megane (and Renaults in general) to be very hard work and suggested that if you own one, you should take it to a main dealer for changing should the headlamp bulb fail. One of the less celebrated pieces of French design.
 
You have to either take the front wheel off or turn it to full lock, then take off a flap in the wheel arch, ram your arm all the way in there and do everything by feel. The first time it took me 2 hours. The second only 45 minutes. The last time (the day it was sold...) only 10 minutes.

Funny how it takes less than a minute on mine or dad's. :rolleyes:
 
my family has owned 205 -84,206 -01,405 -89,406 -96 and a 406 -01 face-lift estate.. they have their faults but these faults have been mainly minor annoyancies. also i have owned a citroen visa -87, plus dad owned also talbot 1509 -84 and talbot horizon -82.

So with long experience with french cars i have to say that they arent so unreliable than most of people think they are.. catastrofic failures are missing.. for example the only car which has died during driving is my visa.
 
I'm surprised you didn't see tons of fiats and skoda's too, last time I went through France they had a good following.
 
Renaults are excellent cars (not-being biased here :p)

Yes I did have some electrical faults (a certain fuse blown every few months causing the fuel pump to stop working).
Yes the interior build quality is not great (the top facia on the dot-matrix display fallen off along with the door card).

But the essence of small car motoring is all captured in the ride and handling.

If you add more power in the mix with a sorted chassis which gives plenty of feedback and grip (like my Clio 182) it would give high-end sports cars a scare when going in tripod mode :D

Try a 205 GTI/Clio Williams and you see why every other "sports" car out there has to have all the power
 
Frenchies used to be all about cool cars, now they're all about homely crap. They sure don't build cars like they used to. Actually, no one builds cars like they used to. Other than maybe perhaps Morgan.

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public said:
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Yes, it's a French tradition to put cars on fire at demonstrations or on New Year's Eve.

So I guess people rather see a Peugeot or Renault go up in flames, than a Merc or BMW... Much less of a loss, too.

Also the French have a much more relaxed relationship to dents and scratches. Never park your car with the 1st gear in or the handbrake on, because it's likely that your car is pushed forward or backward by another car to make room. And if it doesn't easily move then, well... let me just say, that the French can get rather sultry in such a situation.
 
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MacGuffin said:
Also the French have a much more relaxed relationship to dents and scratches. Never park your car with the 1st gear in or the handbrake on, because it's likely that your car is pushed forward or backward by another car to make it fit into the parking space and if it doesn't move, well...
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It depends where you park, I never had any problem with the handbrake and 1st gear on. Then again, I don't live in Paris (which is not really France anyway :-D).
 
My family has owned 3 Peugeot 504's and 2 505's.

While they were nice, comfortable cars, they were far from 'good'

There was a green diesel 504 that just quit running, a red 504 that did much the same. A silver 505 that blew a radiator AND a transmission in less than 5 years, and the interior completely self destructed. The gold 505 never gave up, but the entire car was made of rust by the time it was sent to the 'yard. The brown 504 was the most catastrophic in that it actually burned to the ground. Nothing left.
 
MacGuffin said:
Also the French have a much more relaxed relationship to dents and scratches. Never park your car with the 1st gear in or the handbrake on, because it's likely that your car is pushed forward or backward by another car to make room. And if it doesn't easily move then, well... let me just say, that the French can get rather sultry in such a situation.
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I've never seen a French person park well. And I lived there for a year.

The main things to watch out for are number plates with the last two digits 9x, where x is anything, as that means the car is from Paris - bad parkers even by French standards.

Most hire cars end in the same two digits, too, but I can't for the life of me remember what region it is that is used.
 
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