As many Citroën owners have been noticing over the past couple of weeks, some of this French marque's dealerships have been closing, leading to concerns that the brand could be leaving to South Africa. However, this is not the case.
Starting early next year, Citroën will essentially "relaunch" itself in South Africa with a brand-new dealer network - often twinned with Peugeot, but with each of these PSA brands retaining their own personalities. According to Citroën South Africa's managing director, Frédéric Chapuis, the new company will be called Peugeot-Citroën South Africa. Citroen's new slogan "Créative technologie", debuts with its new badge, and essentially an all-new product line-up.
Current owners who have concerns about service/maintenance plans and service centres during this switch-over process are encouraged to phone the company's new Helpline at 0860 211 112 or e-mail customer@citroën.com. Chapuis acknowledges that Citroën needs to change customers' perceptions about not only Citroën, but French cars in general. The focus, he says, will be centre heavily on customer satisfaction and service.
The new dealer network kicks off early in 2010 with 10 outlets, but this will grow to at least 16 by year-end. South Africa will be one of the first countries in the world to have an all-new dealer network operating under the new corporate look.
In terms of product fans of the marque also have lots to look forward to, with the launch of the quirky C3 Picasso scheduled for January, along with a facelift to the C1 city car. Coming soon after is the C4 facelift in February, the all-new C3 in March and the DS3 in May.
The new upmarket DS line-up will grow in the coming years, too, with the DS4 scheduled for 2011 and the DS5 in 2012 - DS5 could introduced Citroën's hybrid technology in South Africa. The C5 saloon, of which a few examples sneaked onto local dealership floors in the past year, will be properly launched early next year, too.
Citroen and Peugeot have sooo many unhappy customers, only the truly gullible would actually be stupid enough to buy their products. The warranty, service, spares and car issues I've heard of through friends who have owned these vehicles, is enough is enough to drive anyone mad. Most of them spent the best part of the year resolving outstanding warranty issues. A friend purchased a newPeugeot from the dealer, 6 months later her aircon packs up. They tell her that is wasn't covered in the warranty. I told her that's non-sense, and called them myself. Eventually I got it out of their workshop, that they don't have any means on checking or repairing faulty aircon units and that it was actually still under warranty. He advised she take it to an aircon repair agent and claim the money back from the dealership. A year later and she is still waiting for her money. I had the same problem buying from Citroen, who sold me a used car. As I started the car to drive it off the showroom floor, the engine light came on. They advised me this was the same as the service light on a BMW and that they would arrange for it to be turned off in that week. I called them later that week and everytime I spoke to a receptionist, and left a message. A week later and they will still ducking and diving me. Eventually a week later I got hold of their Dealer Principle and he told me that they had closed up shop. I'm currently sitting with a repair bill of R45000 as of now. Sure I'll buy a Peugeot/Citroen again as soon as they refund my money... which we all know is never.
Oh and for future purchases, be careful of dealing with Phil West in Somerset West. Both of the dodgy salesman who'm I purchased the car from are now working there. Steve Ebing and Gordon Boshoff.
