Impressively spacious, for a start. The cabin is light and airy, thanks in part to the large panoramic sunroof that dominates the centre of the space.
The third-most row of seats are hidden beneath the boot floor, while the second row of seats can be pushed forwards or removed altogether to create more space. There’s ample room in the second row for two adults, but fitting three shoulder to shoulder here will spark complaints on long trips - such is the case with mid-sized MPVs like this.
Up front, space isn’t an issue. Both driver and front passenger get comfortable seating, while the refreshed interior of the Picasso is a real shining point.
Avoid the monochrome screen setup found on lower trim levels and instead opt for the full HD colour screen, and the central infotainment display is a real treat for drivers.
Its dual-screen layout might be a tad more distracting than the traditional instruments most drivers are used to, but it’s easy to navigate with well-designed menus and layouts.
The e-HDi 115 diesel engine we tried sits in the middle of a three-strong diesel launch range. Below it sits an e-HDi 90 Airdream engine with 91bhp and headline-grabbing figures of 98g/km of CO2 and 74.3mpg.
At the top of the range comes a 148bhp BlueHDi 150, which is Euro 6 emissions compliant and comes with a Selective Catalytic Reduction system.
The 114bhp e-HDi 115 is a strong, but quiet engine. There’s minimal noise intrusion in the cabin, and the only vibrations from the 1.6-litre unit come at idle. It’s an excellent puller, too, accompanied by good mechanical refinement throughout the rev range.
A six-speed manual transmission was fitted to our test car, but a six-speed automated manual is also available. The manual has well-spaced ratios, with none of the notchiness between first and second we found on our road test car.
Steering is a little light for some tastes, but soon firms up with speed. We’d like more feedback, but such is the common drawback of modern electrically assisted systems.
At speed, there’s also a surprising amount of wind noise from the A-pillars and around the wing mirrors, but not to a level that becomes an annoyance.
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Yes it does seem nice.
I'm not looking for sports car levels of performance when running the family around so long as the engine can deliver some midrange pull on the hilly bits and not feel underpowered when fully laden on the motorway. We had an S Max while our own MPV was in the garage for a few weeks and to be honest I liked driving it but it made the children feel sick a lot. So back to the Citroen this looks like it would fit in with our needs just fine and I quite like the styling too.
Citroen MPV
Of course if such a system had been developed it could have been applied to a full range of cars, even licensed to other manufacturers like Rolls Royce or Mercedes Benz for use on large cars.
And it could help the company image- give it a reputation for quality engineering and innovation that would be hard to match.And it would be that much prized marketing bonus, a Unique Selling Point. Any company that had ever had such a system would be foolish to give it up, it would be like Audi dropping Quattro 4wd, Subaru dropping boxer engines and 4wd, Toyota dropping hybrids, Porsche dropping sports cars or Jaguar dropping big sporty luxury saloons.
Oh well,it's not like anything that a European or specially a French maker might come up with. It probably seems more sensible to sponsor a WRC team, a string of wins and great cars in that must be more valuable than anything- look what it has done for Lancia!
No, a decent well developed self levelling hydro-pneumatic suspension system that would well suit an mpv could never be designed in France.That's something for the Germans, or the Japanese or maybe those people with the new 'designer' reputation the Koreans, even the Chinese?
Anyway, good luck on Citroen with their new mpv, it seems nice.
Does it really have the
If so, surely this is BIG news as it would mean the end to all the awful automated manuals PSA have offered so far.
As for how this car drives, and if the S-Max is a better drive, i doubt it means much to most MPV buyers. And whilst i havent driven a C4 Picasso, i have driven an S-Max, and its hardly a great drive by normal car standards even if its still the best driving MPV.