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Hatred of French cars


Shedking

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8 hours ago, motorpunk said:

As @St.Jude asked, a mate of mine was boss of a large Peugeot dealership in the Midlands c.2000-2010. They were owned by Peugeot, not a franchise. He'd worked there for many years before being the boss. I'll go light on details as it's personal stuff. He likes a drink and is a miserable bugger, and I enjoyed his tales of doom, so take this with a pinch of salt;

The biggest headaches he had were twofold. One was customer expectations. The other was warranty work. 

Customers, he said, had unrealistic expectations. They did not expect a new/newish car to break down. All cars break down, he would say. This is not my experience with other marques, but I never argued the toss. I did say that customer's expectations are set by the marketing people. They show shiny cars and happy people and charge a lot of money for a new car - so people were right to have certain expectations. If they were honest they'd say, "your car will, statistically, probably break down at least every 6 months because it's a Peugeot 307", but that doesn't sell many cars. He said that Peugeot customers were "not car people". They didn't understand a diesel shouldn't be used for short journeys in cities, for example. It's worth noting that Pug didn't make many exciting cars in that era, it was bread and butter stuff to pensioners, family cars, that sort of thing. People tended to ask "how much is that to tax? What is the MPG?" and then sign the finance papers. And then they got a Peugeot. And maybe that Peugeot was not best suited to their actual needs. 

Warranty. Maybe this is the same for others manufacturers, but warranty claims nearly drove him mental (he was a full-on alcoholic by this point). Lots and lots of cars came back for warranty work. His first line of defence was to blame the customer. Maybe that's valid in some cases, I dunno. Electrics, diesel bother, there was no pattern to it - just lots of unhappy customers. In the cases where he could not blame the customer, he would charge the work to Pug HQ. They have a book showing how many hours is expected to perform each task. If the technician doing the warranty work took longer than expected, they would throw out the claim in its entirety. If his handwriting was messy and/or the fault not described in terms they liked, they would throw the claim out. If there were more claims for a certain failure than their expected average, the claim would be thrown out. There were lots of other reasons and my mate went insane trying to keep the place profitable and customers happy. 

He got fired in the end and, I think, is currently unemployed. He now drives a VW and I am no fan of Peugeots of a certain era. Which is a pity as an uncle had a 505Gti as a kid and it's still a dream car for me, today.

EDIT FOR SHAMELESS PLUG - My book on quality control cock-ups in various car factories, including Ryton before they closed it, based on my personal experiences is on Amazon here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Confessions-quality-control-balls-ups-factories/dp/1532719795

WAIT WAT!? It was YOU who wrote that book? It's fantastic!

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Surely most of this is academic because we've had centuries of hatred for the French? I've had numerous conversations over the years with people who still hold that view and will never buy one because "it's fucking French!" Telling them that the 405 I'm driving was made in Coventry always confuses things. That stigma is always going to be washing around somewhere in the background.

I've had ZX's, a 205, 306's plus a sedan and have just bought my 4th 405 as a replacement for my 10 plate V50.  It does everything I need a car to do/be, comfortable, frugal, good performance/road holding, excellent visibility etc.

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Mustard mitt I was a bit anti french for reasons of blinded by bullshit in my early driving career. Then I bought a 205 off here with a blown head gasket. Fixed it and ran it for a year or two then sold again on here. One of my big regrets to be honest, loved that car and they’re always on my watch list.

309 followed, derv lump that ran mainly on alternative fuels. Nice car didn’t gel with it the same as the 05. Turned out to be a needy bastard of a vehicle though only in the usual any old car ways.

405, Felt a good old barge though had suffered used chip oil leakage over the boot carpet and rear seats which I couldn’t shake. Flipped it fair quick as stank though mostly as didn’t really need it at the time.

Mk1 Clio again diesel flavour. Clean as whistle though had engine issues. Spent very little money though a hell of time before throwing in the towel and bridging the fucker when the head cracked.

58 plate megane 2? Gifted by my parents. Handbrake fell apart as did the scrap yard replacements. Key cards died needs to be started with a spoon and the windows stopped working. Stripped another that gave it new lease of life for a few years never really wanted for anything other than consumables, clutch drive shafts, brakes. Played cam belt roulette and thrashed it mercilessly it still lives though now used as a shed.

Write off a Peugeot boxer. That’s was my fault not it’s. Binned it off the motorway at 80 and lived to tell the tale. I’d say it was a good bus. 
Never had a Citroen. Need to rectify that as used to enjoy borrowing my mums Ax before I passed my test. Head touched the roof driving it when I was fourteen but was very chuckable and had a decent handbrake. 

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Can't hate French cars! You can hate French electrics but not the whole thing. I've had GS, GSA, 2CV, 3 CXs, ZX, Traction Avant, DS, Megane Scenic and my Scimitar had a Peugeot engine. They all rust (not the Pug engine) but so have my Triumphs. I crash tested a couple of those listed and found them to be quite good. The Scenic was made of KitKat wrappers but went like stink until the gearbox died. The ZX was very competent but a little dull. Design for maintenance is not always a strong point but they don't seem to need it any more frequently than other nations' efforts. 

But what other nation has come up with so many interesting cars for the ordinary homme in the rue. The Renault 4, 5 and 16. Citroen's Traction Avant, 2CV, Ami, DS, GS, CX. And Panhards! Innovation, style, character in spades. 

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I've had a few frenchies now and they're pretty much exactly as you described in the first post, tough, rust free, cheap to run and maintain and usually fun and perky.

What I don't get are alfa romeos and all this "you must own one in your lifetime" bollox. I did and it was once of the most underwhelming cars I've ever had, as bad as a mk3 golf gti, Gregg Grimley gof Grimsby bad. 

Amazingly to me, one of the easiest I've ever sold though oddly, thought I'd be stuck work one forever. 

The French make a great diesel as well as the prices of 306d turbos are reflecting 😬😬😬😬

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6 hours ago, vaughant said:

I've had a few frenchies now and they're pretty much exactly as you described in the first post, tough, rust free, cheap to run and maintain and usually fun and perky.

What I don't get are alfa romeos and all this "you must own one in your lifetime" bollox. I did and it was once of the most underwhelming cars I've ever had, as bad as a mk3 golf gti, Gregg Grimley gof Grimsby bad. 

Amazingly to me, one of the easiest I've ever sold though oddly, thought I'd be stuck work one forever. 

The French make a great diesel as well as the prices of 306d turbos are reflecting 😬😬😬😬

I don't get the alfa thing either, they are good to look at (some of them anyway) and I'm sure that they made some nice engines but they also made a lot of humdrum cars as well. Maybe it's people repeating what they've heard on top gear or read in a magazine.  According to them you can't  call yourself a real petrol head until you've owned one (complete bollox) and that all German cars are fantastic and all French cars are made from  merde,  sweeping generalisations made by people who haven't got the first idea what they are talking about. 

 

 

 

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I don't understand the hatred for French cars. Sure there have been some bad ones, but there have been some very good ones too. My brother in law owned 3 German cars, two old Mercs and an Aldi. A few years ago, we had a family holiday and they turned up in his dad's Laguna II. He spent the entire holiday moaning about "French Shit". I don't think that anyone would claim the Laguna II as a high point of French engineering, but I asked him why they hadn't bought any of his "wonderful" German cars. "They are all broken" said my sister! That's it really, two of his "wonderful" German cars spent many years rotting away on their drive, but they were obviously far superior to our French cars that worked every day. 

I've (obviously) got a 2cv. I'm not going to pretend that it never has problems, but it's 36 years old and nearly always starts first time even when it hasn't moved in months. It's mostly original and still going strong.

The Clio is 19 years old. Again mostly original. Back in daily use for commuting, nearly 100,000 miles. Still drives very well. Only petty faults in recent years (failed reverse light switch etc)

The Dacia isn't technically French, but it's basically a modified Clio. 5 years old, no faults yet. Would happily buy another.

The Peugeot Vclic (moped) Alright, it's basically dead now, but was a £1000 moped that I caned the shit out of on the commute every day for 10 years and only became unreliable in the last few months of it's life, having been treated badly and barely serviced for most of it's life. 

My Dad has a Scenic (his third), my siblings both have Dacias. One of the Scenics got unreliable at the end, but other than that, we've been very happy with French cars. 

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I admit I haven't read the whole thread, but you have to admit the French came up with some great innovations and some superb cars. Some were a bit too clever for their own boots, hence a tad unreliable, and some (Renault - I'm looking at you here) had appalling reliability for some model years. Though so did some other nations manufacturers, so a bit harsh to pick on them.

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Having worked at dealers for BMW, Saab, Skoda and Peugeot. I am happy to say they all seemed to have warranty issues, Peugeot didn't really seem worse than anyone else. I can back up Motorpunks tale in that claiming back warranty work was a bear at Peugeot though.

I have only had one French car a Citroen ZX which was a dependable old thing even if it had a pretty hard life before I bought it. I kinda miss the old lump, would have another. The irrational hatred of anything French annoys me. 

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Tried to fit outer sills on a Renault 12 decades ago , like trying to weld two fag papers together with a blow lamp ,Also tried fixing my stepdaughters Clio 172 - everything that needed undoing was rusted solid .Then there was my stepsons Laguna 2 that grenaded its engine on the M5 ( Launching  a cambelt at 70mph was a bit naughty as it had only done 18,000 miles .
 ive not tried one since however a 505 GTI is / was a stunning looking motor and il get one one day .

 

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My Clio 172 was nice but I just don't get them. If I want something that's not that fast I'd rather be comfortable and quiet.

My wee £160 Megane MK1 on the other hand was the best car I ever owned. The worst thing that happened was that the emissions light came on once a year. It was far far better than any Ford or Vauxhall I have driven from the same era. There was literally nothing I didn't like about it.

 

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On 2/10/2022 at 5:01 PM, St.Jude said:

Every argument I've had about EVs being the future involves this, and when you raise it as a point it's just brushed aside as something that wouldn't happen now. Not with these Schrödinger's Batteries, which are better than those batteries you speak of while simultaneously not being as good as the mythical battery tech that isn't here yet.

I hope you aren’t being negative about Electric Cars there! Someone will be along with array of pie charts and studies conducted that will show that you are wrong. 🤣

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I think I take my love of French cars from my dad, he always would tell me only the French can design a proper suspension.  Taking away the last twenty years when all cars morphed into each other, I have always agreed.  Still have my daily 405, and a 1999 Clio and 2006 Citroen Xsara Picasso, which is a real throwback to French cars of old.  Very comfortable, ridiculously practical and not overly complicated like its successors.

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I had two French cars, a BX and Megane II. Unlike countless Italian stuff (Fiat/Lancia) I had the pleasure to own and drive, they were utterly unreliable ungrateful ugly fcukers. The lowest point was having to replace the blown radiator fan in Megane with 30+ years old one from Fiat Uno, which, unlike the French shite, worked faultlessly even after all those years.

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I've had 2:

Peugeot 406

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A buy and sell thing. I actually quite liked it. Wouldn't mind another.

My 407 which is my current daily:

IMG-20210906-WA0006.thumb.jpg.3a74f0f8f1bb27fb903e3394ee8162d2.jpg

Not the most exciting car but one of the most reliable cars I've ever had. Took it to Brussels. Had a couple of new tyres and will get some rear tyres on payday. 

I think I've saved it from whatever fate was around the corner had it not come to me.  When I got it, it was unloved, creaky, the keys came in bits and it rattled, it was almost destined for the scrappy.

Now its had new parts chucked at it, keys refurbed, car generally cleaned out of all dust and sand as I think it had been used as a builders van at one point, trim replaced and/or repaired and now it runs like fine clockwork.

Heaters are shit as they have the flap issue and the crappy orange screen fades in and out. But those things don't bother me. So long as it drives and is fairly reliable, it suits me just fine.

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