Range Rover 2014 - Kia Proceed 2013 - Citroen C4 Picasso (Part 2)

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It has also been a well behaved car of late. It has had two sporadically recurrent electrical issues. One is the stop-start system failing to restart unless you waggle the gearlever, which wakes up the sensor at its base, and the other is a central locking system that doesn’t always do its duty when commanded from the key fob. But lately it has been totally obedient.

Otherwise, the Kia continues to endear itself with its mix of polished convenience and quietly satisfying style. Despite its many qualities, this seems to be an undeservedly rare car on Britain’s roads. The only time I get to admire one is when I use my own.

Citroen C4 Picasso

A knock upsets our C4’s sensors, and the all-in-one controls still irk

Citroen C4 Picasso Exclusive e-HDi 115 Air dream

This is the first time that I’ve spent an extended period with a French car since a Peugeot 306 GTI-6 in the mid-noughties. That hot hatch was mechanically strong but was beset with trim falling off. Ten years later, I was pleased to see that the Citroën C4 Picasso had what appeared to be a far stronger constitution.

But even that proved fruitless against a hit-and-run parking-space basher who managed to scrape the front offside corner of the car. That’s annoying, not least because the whack scraped off the paint so the bare black plastic bumper became visible. No amount of T-Cut - surely the best friend an urban-dwelling car can have - would repair the damage.

The legacy of that knock made itself known a week or so later when I started the car and was met with a loud buzzer and a ‘parking system fault’ message. More worryingly, the service light lit up and wouldn’t turn off. Fortunately, the rear park camera still worked, but given the way that the bonnet slopes away, it can be hard to judge distances out front.

It turns out that the scrape had rendered the outermost parking sensor inoperative, and it took a while for the system to fail. Citroën’s people say it’s a safety feature, and they have a point. It’s all too easy to rely on such systems, and should it continue to function with a blind spot, it could lull the driver into a false sense of security. Nevertheless, a lick of paint and a new sensor should cure the problem.

The only other issues have been short-lived. The buttons for the massage seats failed for a time, but repaired themselves after a couple of weeks and now work perfectly. The infotainment system has crashed occasionally, too, after which the system takes a couple of minutes to restart. My suspicion is that it’s a software glitch, but so far Citroën has been unable to replicate it. I’d be interested to hear if any owners have experienced something similar.

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In Citroen’s defence, it says that the car was one of the first off the line. And early-build cars have long had a reputation for bugs, irrespective of the manufacturer.

On a more positive note, the Picasso has proved to be an extremely comfortable and quiet car to spend time in. Having spent the past few years mainly in C-segment hatchbacks, it’s amazing the difference the car’s seat height makes to installing child seats and loading luggage into the boot. The car’s huge glass house, meanwhile, makes other cars feel enclosed and claustrophobic by comparison.

I’m still less convinced by the arrangement of touchscreen controls for the ventilation, satnav and audio, but it’s still early days and I’m hoping that familiarity will bring favour.