11–20 of 571 posts
it's a great vehicle, and I applaud the french approach to cars.
I still see these running in rural Spain and France, usually held together with wire and hope, clocking like what 400k+ km? The XUD diesel engines are practically unkillable. They have no ECU to brick, no adblue sensors to fail and put the car into limp mode and thankfully none of those DRM locked headlights.
The argument for the countryside need of a modern SUV usually cites reliability and safety, and in 2026, modern complexity is the enemy of reliability. If your C15 breaks down in a field, you can fix it with a wrench. If your Range Rover breaks down in a field because a sensor in the air suspension noticed a voltage variance...you are stranded until a tow truck takes it to a dealer.
I have "repaired" one that was used to power a small fishing boat (it came out of a Xantia, and the hydraulic pump was used to operate the shooting gear). The boat sank and the engine compartment was flooded with sea water for about a week. It started up and ran quite happily after draining what was approximately a 50/50 mix of sea water and sludgy engine oil and putting fresh in, then removing the injectors and cranking it to blow the water out of the cylinders.
It never quite ran right after that and was hard to start, and five or six years later the boat's owner replaced it with another Xantia engine, this time the turbocharged version.
The C15 represents a time when a vehicle was a tool. I feel vehicles want to turn into a subscription service these days. I still see these running in rural Spain and France, usually held together with wire and hope, clocking like what 400k+ km? The XUD diesel engines are practically unkillable. They have no ECU to brick, no adblue sensors to fail and put the car into limp mode and thankfully none of those DRM locked…
No, you just reset the ECU and get on with your day.
He forgets the part where because of emissions requirements the C15 can't be driven in that scourge the people the author defends call "low emissions zones".
Could you expand on why?
He forgets the part where because of emissions requirements the C15 can't be driven in that scourge the people the author defends call "low emissions zones".
Good so the car won't be killing people due to high noxious emissions.
This is why forklifts run on gas, instead of petrol or diesel.
We could have had incredibly clean air in our cities 25 years ago, if the government hadn't decided that pushing "scrappage schemes" to get people to buy "cleaner greener diesels" was cheaper.
Today, Citroen's equivalent offering is the Berlingo. Starts at 26k, not as much of a tank as the other cars but still way more massive than the C15.
The C15 represents a time when a vehicle was a tool. I feel vehicles want to turn into a subscription service these days. I still see these running in rural Spain and France, usually held together with wire and hope, clocking like what 400k+ km? The XUD diesel engines are practically unkillable. They have no ECU to brick, no adblue sensors to fail and put the car into limp mode and thankfully none of those DRM locked…
I wonder how differently cars would be built, if instead of maximizing for value extraction and crap nobody needs, they instead were optimized for utility and maintenance (and sure, fuel economy, aerodynamics and some sane environmental stuff). Like take the C15 and add 2-4 decades of manufacturing and safety improvements, while keeping it simple and utilitarian.
He forgets the part where because of emissions requirements the C15 can't be driven in that scourge the people the author defends call "low emissions zones".
If you want to live in polluted areas there are plenty of places available on Earth for that, I believe most people would rather not. Low emissions zones are mostly in very densely populated areas where the impact of pollution is higher, not sure why you consider that a scourge. Could you expand on why?