[JES]

Has any one else had an issue with their brakes?

My 19 day old Cactus is in the garage today, for the second time, with the brakes not working effectively it is an intermittent fault with suddenly the breaks peddle being very soft and the breaks only engaging when the peddle is fully depressed, fortunately I was doing less than 30 mph and managed to not hit the car in front stopping for a red light, very frighting!

The issue happened on three previous occasions but recovered straight away before but yesterday the issue persisted much longer, but the brakes recovered after the car was stopped for a while, then it happened again as I drove it to the garage, with the AA following me.

Any help or suggestions welcome.

.

 

[BristolRich]

With regard to suggestions there isn't much to add really as its in the garage with a warranty .

It could be a number of things. If the pedal goes soft and depressed it would suggest either air or fluid leak - within the system or at the master cylinder. If the pedal went hard then it would indicate a servo or vacuum leak.

The reason the brakes apply at full depression I would guess is the emergency brake function engaging but not ideal and assumes you have fluid in the system!

Be sure to report back any findings.

 

[JES]

Up - date

The Citroen engineers in France are now involved, as no one can work out why its happening,

When it went into the garage the first time after a weeks use and three occasions with issues with the breaks, they could not find a problem said it was all fine, 'it was working with in the normal ranges'.

They said it was the way I was driving - Really!!!

This time when the breaks failed at 19 days old, They said I was putting my foot on the break too early and releasing the vacuum - Really!! Really!!!!!

The AA engineers eyebrows raised very high when I told him what they said!!!

Then

As I understand it; the 'Master Tec' has replicated the issue and they eventually took me seriously but they still don't know why the breaks are failing to work properly, nothing obvious!

I don't want the car back!

 

[Gisolly]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - ADVICE NEEDED!!!

Hi Jes,

Today I had would what was miraculously not a fatal head on collision with another car.

Like you, my brakes failed me - they went soft. To avoid colliding in to the slowing traffic ahead (the car in front), and after trying desperately to break for several seconds, I took the split second decision in the end to avoid hitting the car in front, and I swerved on to the other side of the road. It was then that I smashed head on into a Range Rover. God knows how but we all walked out of our cars relatively un-injured.

I came across your forum post this evening and breathed a breath of relief as I knew I wasn't going mad when I felt that in hitting the break, nothing happened but in fact the gap in front of me was closing at an even faster rate - obviously because the car in front was reducing speed, whilst I wasn't able to AND we were driving down a steep hill. I am and was absolutely terrified!!!

My car, which is brand new and a lease car, is a complete write off. I have only had the car 2 weeks!!!! It's brand new!!

I leased it directly from Citroen and will inform them of the incident tomorrow, along with my insurer.

Would it be possible to speak to you to understand your whole experience with the investigations?? I am so utterly distressed that the passengers of the other car and myself could have died today.

If anyone else can offer any advice in regards to steps I should take with Citroen and the insurers then I would be very grateful to hear it. This brand new car failed me and now I am seemingly responsible for this horrific incident. It's not right and your experience Jes is the same as mine but thankfully with a better ending.

Please contact me as soon as possible if you are able to.

Thanks in advance for any response.

J

 

[Mrsstuzilla]

Just reading the two accounts has shaken me. Can I ask which models you both have/had?

 

[Gisolly]

Hi Claire,

Yes, I had the C4 Cactus Flair, Blue HDi 100 Manual.

Be warned. I loved the car until this happened. I am so devastatingly disappointed and shocked.

I am so grateful to be alive right now.

Janine x

 

[Vacuman]

Wish I had rather not read any of this. I guess I'll have to be ready to pull like a mad thing on the hand brake at any time. To be fair to Citroen, it's not as if car brakes are that complicated compared to other car technologies. The same calipers, cylinders, servos, fluid etc. as used 40-50 years ago. ABS, split-bias etc. are not that new either so I can see why they might be at a loss for explaining this and, for commercial reasons, ignoring the risk to life and limb until they know what might be the cause.

 

[JohnYoung]

Crikey this is bloody scary..... I hope this is an isolated (although terrible ) incident and not some inherent fault.

 

[Mrsstuzilla]

Hi Claire,

Yes, I had the C4 Cactus Flair, Blue HDi 100 Manual.

Be warned. I loved the car until this happened. I am so devastatingly disappointed and shocked.

I am so grateful to be alive right now.

Janine x

Eek. Same as mine. I imagine that if the car has done 16000 miles this would have shown itself by now. :shock:

Glad you're ok. So so scary.

 

[JohnYoung]

Hi Claire,

Yes, I had the C4 Cactus Flair, Blue HDi 100 Manual.

Be warned. I loved the car until this happened. I am so devastatingly disappointed and shocked.

I am so grateful to be alive right now.

Janine x

Eek. Same as mine. I imagine that if the car has done 16000 miles this would have shown itself by now. :shock:

Glad you're ok. So so scary.

Yeah same as mine to but I would also think all the cacti have the same brakes so might affect any/all of them if there is a fault.

Like I say hope its a an isolated incident and all cactuses aren't time bombs :shock:

 

[cactusjack]

This is not good news to start the day, one can only hope its fairly isolated ( not for those that are affected though ). I can't imagine the feelings you all went through, but this seems to be the case on anything mass produced, there will always be a small percentage that fall short of the mark. The knock on effect can be huge and I imagine we will all be getting a bit jittery. Here's hoping when the fault is found they will do a recall just to check across the board and put back the confidence.

 

[Spikey]

I'm glad everyone is OK.
This is a serious issue and extremely dangerous and I do hope that you will press hard on Citroen to really look into this so that no one gets hurt!

 

[JES]

Hi All

Just to say that I managed to conclude my situation by the dealership with persuasion from a senior Citroen Customer Services manager, they refunded me all of the costs of my car, it was a Flair 1.2 .

I have spoken with Janine, separately and will give her the details I have. So sorry this has happened to her, Trading Standards are aware of my issues and the Citizens Advice service told me it could be listed as a criminal failure as the breaks are a safety feature of the car....

Re my car I understand that the engineers could not work out the fault, but accepted that the car had a fault, the dealership said the diktat from Citroen Paris was no one was to drive the car, as it was not safe!

The last time I saw the car, the guts of the computer system were hanging out in the front passenger foot well. They were talking of replacing the whole braking system, but with out knowing what the fundamental flaw is with the system, I had no faith that a new breaking system would not have the same issue as before.

As the Cactus is based on a C4 which other models have had issues?

There is obviously a fault that needs proper investigation before someone gets killed.

Drive safely
Judy
Now a Ford driver!

 

[JohnYoung]

Its all very strange and scary ..... I have Googled it and found nothing else (thank God) about brakes failing on a cactus. But as you say these brakes will be used in other cars so surly this has been seen before in the citroen range.

If it was just one we would think - damn that was scary but at least its a one off fault that slipped through but thank God no one was hurt. But now another - that gets alarm bells ringing

I wonder if both these cars had something in common that others don't - did they come from a certain assembly line, or batch of cars, did they have different components - pads, disks, fluid etc.

It just makes you wonder have the rest of us either been very lucky that there is no fault or VERY lucky it hasn't happened YET :?

 

[Flairplayer]

Read the above with concern. I picked up my new Cactus on 17 November. Have only travelled around 500 miles so far.
I noticed that this fault had been reported to Citreon in June 2015. This afternoon I spoke to the dealer who sold me the car. He knew nothing about this issue. I demanded that he read the posts, investigate the issue and get back to me with an email response. Nothing heard so far after 4 hours. I'll be on the phone again first thing tomorrow!
Anyone with more information please share.

 

[Gisolly]

Hi there I know this is the Cactus forum but I found this lady who again had a very similar experience to Jes and myself.. Read the first comment by Rosalind..

https://carrecalls.co.uk/citroen-problems-listed/
Janine

 

[Guest]

That's interesting. Someone earlier in the post stated the Cactus was based on the C4 but in fact although called C4 Cactus I am pretty sure it is actually base is the C3/DS3. platform and parts

 

[Mrsstuzilla]

It worries me that there have been 2 cases just on this one small forum.

 

[JohnYoung]

That's interesting. Someone earlier in the post stated the Cactus was based on the C4 but in fact although called C4 Cactus I am pretty sure it is actually base is the C3/DS3. platform and parts

Yeah I think you are right

 

[FrankBullitt]

That's interesting. Someone earlier in the post stated the Cactus was based on the C4 but in fact although called C4 Cactus I am pretty sure it is actually base is the C3/DS3. platform and parts

Yeah I think you are right

The C4 Cactus is based on the C3 Picasso chassis which is different to the regular C4/ DS4.

There was an issue in the C3 Picasso some years ago caused by the conversion to Right Hand Drive meaning the whole braking system was set up for LHD with a 'bar' across to the right and the brake pedal; the mechanism still sat in the passengers footwell and the passenger could activate/ interfere with the brakes - Citroen did a recall on the cars affected.

Brakes are naturally quite simple in terms of the mechanism - if people can 'feel' a lack of resistance when this issue occurs that sounds like a temporary lack of pressure somewhere in the system - can't be leaking fluid as this would be easily visible.

Lodge instances with Citroen UK and your dealer - Citroen, to be fair, have a history of doing a recall on their cars if required.