Citroen C4 2011 Review

Citroen C4

The best evidence of the level of competition in this segment is pricing and equipment levels. Gone are the days when consumers took for granted a few points’ price increase with each new generation of any model. Now, more for less is the order of the day.

Gone, too, are the days when Euro brands could trade on continental cachet alone. Volume European players like the C4 and Volkswagen’s Golf are mixing it, not just with the well established Japanese brands, but an up-and-coming group of fast-learning Koreans.

Although it hasn’t had the likes of Toyota or Mazda quaking in their boots in the local market, the C4 has broken new ground for Citroen internationally, reducing the average age of the marque’s customer base and delivering more women buyers. It’s also provided an immeasurable boost to Citroen’s brand equity by dint of an immensely successful WRC rallying partnership with Sebastien Loeb.

For 2012, the company has given the C4 enough of a makeover to call it all-new. The bare bones underpinnings remain the same, but above and around it, the lineup has seen a complete overhaul.

Equipment levels are better and prices are generally lower -- especially down the entry end. At $22,990, the base-spec Attraction hacks $4K off the old C4 entry price. At this end, it even comes in $1K cheaper than the recently revised C3.

The only hiccup for Citroen fans? The two-door C4 coupe is gone, to be replaced shortly by a four-door ‘coupe’ carrying the premium DS badge.

The base-grade Attraction comes with one drivetrain: an 88kW, 1.6-litre naturally-aspirated petrol four with a four-speed auto transmission. For $22,990 plus on-road costs, you get what’s become the minimum buyers expect at this end of the sector: remote central locking, front power windows (with rear wind-ups), remote central locking, air conditioning, cruise control (here with speed limiter), six-speaker audio with auxiliary input, six airbags and the usual underbody alphabet of antilock brake and stability control systems. Wheels are 15-inch steel.

Things get more interesting and competitive in the mid-spec Seduction. For a start, you can have it with a five-speed manual for the same $22,990 they ask for the auto Attraction, or with a four-speed auto that takes it to $24,990. The HDi turbodiesel with a six-speed manual is $26,990.

You also get some useful extra kit: 16-inch alloys, Bluetooth phone and audio connection, electronic auto handbrake, foglights that look round corners, cruise control memory function that allows you to save commonly used settings, a leather steering wheel and electric rear windows with tinted glass.

For just $1000 over the conventional oiler, you can option up to the e-HDi micro-hybrid diesel with the imaginatively named Electronic Gearbox System (EGS), Citroen’s six-speed sequential transmission, in place of the auto. More about this shortly...

The top-spec Exclusive adds climate control, folding mirrors with blind-spot monitoring, front-seat massaging, auto headlights and wipers and a host of comforts and conveniences like auto-dimming rear view mirror and upgraded reading, ambient and instrument lighting. There’s a choice of three drivetrains here: a 115kW turbocharged petrol with EGS ($31,990); the HDi with six-speed manual (also $31,990); or the e-HDi with EGS ($32,990).

Useful in Aussie summers is a climate control supplemented by a variable-intensity function, allowing you to maintain the fan power that normally drops off when most such systems hit the set temperature.

The new lineup offers C4 buyers a choice of three powerplants: 1.6-litre naturally aspirated and turbocharged petrol engines and a 1.6-litre HDi turbodiesel. At different points in the lineup they’re available with four-speed auto, five and six-speed manual and PSA’s six-speed EGS robotised manual transmissions.

The base Attraction model gets just one combo: the 88kW naturally aspirated petrol engine with a four-speed auto. Move up to the midspec Seduction and you get a choice of atmo petrol or HDi diesel power, while the top-shelf Exclusive comes with either HDi or turbocharged petrol. With the latter two comes a choice of either six-speed manual or six-speed EGS transmissions.

The launch program offered only a limited look into the lineup – a mid-spec Seduction with the atmo petrol engine and a five-speed manual, and a top-spec Exclusive with the HDi and a six-speed manual.

True to its official 0-100 acceleration time of 12.2 seconds, our petrol test car was adequate if unexciting on the flat with two grown-ups onboard and needed a bit of stickwork on hills – enough to suggest it would struggle with a rear seat full of adults.

Citroen is not shy about the C4’s place in world rallying at the hands of the all-conquering Sebastien Loeb (Even if the car Loeb now campaigns is a DS3!). But any correlation with this end of the range, is drawing a V-E-R-Y long bow. Trudging across the 0-100km/h line in an official 13.9 seconds, the auto is as leisurely a drive as this sector offers.

The floaty-soft suspension – MacPherson strut front end and flexible transverse beam inherited from the outgoing C4 – suggests that’s just how Citroen means it to be. A sports car it ain’t.

The HDi is livelier both off the mark and in motion, hitting its peak torque of 240Nm at a fairly low 2000rpm. At 11.3 seconds to 100km/h, it’s no dragster either, but it’s a happy marriage with the six-speed manual, very amenable to gear skipping to boost performance and fuel economy when the moment’s right.

The turbodiesel imparts a sense that it would have no problem pulling a carload of people and things over any hill you point it up. The mid-gears deliver loads of freeway pulling power for overtaking.

We didn’t have a chance to sample the 115kW turbo petrol engine or the EGS transmission that comes standard with it. But with 240Nm on tap from a very low 1400rpm, and pulling just 1350kg plus people and stuff, it’s likely to be a touch more lively.

Although it’s not a twin-clutch, from the driver’s seat EGS functions a bit like Volkswagen’s DSG. It’s a manual that opens and closes its clutch electronically, rather than via a pedal. In such systems, the gearshift is effectively a switch rather than a manual cog-swapper, meaning it’s working at the speed of electricity rather than your left arm and leg.

Although it has an auto mode, it’s designed to be used manually; Citroen has given it a switchable sport mode for snappier shifts. The company claims a fuel consumption advantage in the order of three to five per cent over a conventional manual.

We didn’t get a look at the micro-hybridised e-HDi oiler either. Equipped with an auto stop/start system, it supplants the starter motor and alternator with an all-in-one unit equipped with a capacitor that stores electricity from the car’s regenerative braking system. Pull up to a red light, knock it into neutral and the engine goes to sleep; put it in gear, press the go-pedal and the capacitor releases a surge of power to kick it back to life.

Commanding a premium of $1000 over the conventional diesel, the e-HDi package cuts combined-cycle fuel consumption and emissions by up to 15 per cent, to a claimed 4.2L/100km and 109g/km in the combined cycle. It even has a little eco display on the dash that adds up the engine’s downtime each journey.

That said, all the C4 drivetrains boast impressive fuel economy figures. The normal manual-only HDi is good for 4.6L/100km and 119g/km combined. The petrol engines’ 95 RON PULP requirement is mitigated by excellent fuel economy and emissions figures: 6.2L/100km for the atmo manual (6.9 auto; 143 and 159g/km respectively) and 6.4L/100km (148g/km CO2) for the EGS-only turbo.

Gone, for example, is the novel fixed-hub tiller; in its place is a conventional one. There’s a sensible explanation for this. Advances in airbag technologies in the last few years have allowed Citroen to replace the old asymmetric airbag with a normal one, saving 3kg and doubtless helping the cause of affordability. Not that they’re ditching oddness completely – it is, after all, the source of all the marque’s brand equity. But to get with the architects and professors these days, you have to buy into the costlier parallel DS universe.

The C4 is not devoid of more generic appeal, however. It’s nicely proportioned and interesting enough in the sheet metal to draw a second glance. The interior is attractive if relatively conservative, and the only grumble I could find with the ergonomics was in the difficulty I had finding the steering adjustment lever. Bluetooth pairing was quick and easy.

The front seats, height adjustable both sides, are the most comfortable I’ve sampled in this segment. The dash plastics have a classy softness about them, but I couldn’t help wondering what the heavily padded door trim elements might look like in a couple of years’ time.

Oddly enough, the premium Michelin low-resistance tyres are restricted to lower spec models with 16-inch rims only. The top-shelf Exclusive, with its 17-inchers, misses out (we’re told they’re coming). This matters because the tyres can make a difference of 10 per cent and more to fuel economy – enough that Citroen has had to test and rate them separately for official fuel consumption figures.

From the performance perspective, it matters little. Such is the suspension that you could stick 22-inch rims with rubber bands on the C4 and you’d barely feel a pothole.

The boot is a decent 380 litres with a flat, uninterrupted floorspace and a 60-40 split-fold rear seat allowing it go to 1183.

All get a full-sized steel spare, bar the Exclusive, which gets a space saver.

Tellingly, while the new C4 is about 80mm longer than its predecessor, none of this has gone into the wheelbase. That’s so they could retain the existing platform’s chassis, saving the massive development costs of a clean-sheet design.

This is a pity, because the C4 could do with an extra couple of inches of rear seat leg space. Put a six-foot driver up front and no adult will be sitting behind them for any but the shortest trip. While headroom is fine up front, it’s a bit tight in the rear too.

This might be different were it not for the pedals. The clutch takes up way too high in a huge arc, making it hard to move the seat forward and open up a bit of legroom behind.

The C4 is no bellwether but, predictably for a product that forms the basis of so much ambition, it maintains that rep with a five-star Euro NCAP crash rating and all the gear buyers now expect. All specs get the same comprehensive safety package of six airbags, stability and traction control, antilock brakes with brake assist and electronic brakeforce distribution. The Exclusive gets a useful blind-spot monitoring system – a first for its class.

It’s as safe a vehicle as you’ll find in its class, although I’m not sure they’ve got the brakes right. Like the clutch, the pedal rests too high and travels far when you hit it. It feels spongy, while at the wheel end they feel grabby, although perhaps that will settle after a bit of use.

Citroen expects the mid-spec Seduction to be the volume seller, in petrol/auto and e-HDi/EGS guises. Up against local heavyweights like the Mazda3, the Corolla and the Golf, the C4 has its work cut out. At the $30K-plus end, it stacks up well on equipment and drivetrain sophistication – markedly so on fuel economy.

Below $25K, however, the C4 looks a bit paltry against Hyundais and Kias, where you’ll likely find kit like Bluetooth and alloys not available on the Attraction.

Where the C4 comes into its own is in giving buyers something a little out of the ordinary. Local importer Ateco takes the Mazda3’s assumption of the number one mantle from the more prosaic Corolla as a sign that more buyers are looking to cars as an expression of personal style and individuality. If that is the case, the C4 shows promise.

Alongside that style thing, the C4’s other USP is in its suspension tuning: no other car in the sector can match it for ride suppleness. With its interior virtues, it brings an almost limo-like feel to its class, wafting across the landscape dispatching potholes and bumps in something as close to silence as you’ll find in this class. It’s not without road noise on rough tar but you’d have to get up a good head of steam to notice any wind noise and it’s remarkably quiet through the firewall.

The ride is all the more remarkable for how little adverse effect it has on handling. This is not a high-performance chassis, but on the winding back roads out around Sydney’s West Head and Church Point it dispatched tight corners with little squealing or body roll. Particularly under the HDi’s power, it’s an effortless, pleasant drive rather than one that demands and rewards overtly. For longer trips, it’s up round the top of its class.

The electro-hydraulic steering is reasonably direct if a bit light and relatively neutral on turn-in. Harder cornering might prove it different but with the prospect of a cyclist round every corner on the best parts of the launch route, that’s for another day.

Indeed, we’re left having to reserve judgement in fair measure for the time being. With no self-shifters available on launch day and the likelihood that the auto and EGS transmissions will significantly outsell manuals, our sample wasn’t particularly representative of the volume models.

More so with the no e-HDi powerplant, which delivers considerable benefit for little extra money.

There’s plenty to suggest that the C4 brings something new to its segment. It trumps the Corolla on individualism, the Golf in the upper spec price-equipment equation, and the Mazda3 on ride and interior serenity.

There’s room for it. Now it’s just a matter of convincing mainstream buyers.

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