Our data suggests the average lifespan of a Citroen C1 is 8 years and 22 days. Diesels tend to last longer than petrols. This is based on an analysis of over 140,000 Citroen C1s registered in the UK between 2006 and 2022.
The Citroen C1, like its identical brothers the Peugeot 107 and Toyota Aygo has sold in huge numbers since it was released in 2005, thanks to incredibly reliable running gear, handsome interior and exterior styling and frugal fuel efficiency, making it an ideal first car for the thousands of new drivers on the road every year.
Citroen ceased production of the C1 in January 2022, so if you’re looking to purchase a C1 now, you may be concerned about things like parts availability, or long-term reliability. In this article we’re going to go through the kind of life expectancy you will get out of your Citroen C1, as well as things to watch out for and preventative maintenance you can take to ensure your C1 lasts as long as possible.
What to consider – not just age
Of course, how long a car lasts isn’t just determined by its age – mileage is very important too. For example if you’re looking for a 2017 Citroen C1 and you find one that’s done 150,000 miles for sale, it’s highly unlikely to last as long as a 2017 model that has only done 24,000 miles, and that’s simply due to wear and tear on the components.
However, even if yours is a low mileage example, there are a few things to think about when considering the longevity of a Citroen C1.
Timing belt (where applicable)
Most petrol C1s come with a timing chain, which, with regular servicing, should last the life of the car – they don’t tend to stretch or cause other problems that would require them to be replaced. However, of course, if you don’t service your car regularly you may find you need to budget for a timing chain replacement at some point while you own the car.
The diesel models use the very reliable PSA HDi engine (which was also fitted to many Ford, MINI and Volvo cars). These do have a timing belt which needs to be replaced at 100,000 miles or ten years. Don’t delay getting the timing belt changed – budget for it and get it done on time or even early if possible. It’s likely only something you’ll need to do once while you own the car, and if it snaps, your car is likely going to be uneconomical to repair as it’ll need a new engine.
Regular servicing
This goes without saying for any car but you need to make sure you have your Citroen C1 serviced at the recommended intervals – which should be one year or every 10,000 miles. This will go a long way to preventing larger mechanical problems as your car gets older and will also ensure your car lasts as long as possible.
You need to be particularly mindful of this when buying a used Citroen C1, especially if it’s done at least 30,000 miles, as you need to be absolutely sure the owner has had it serviced properly at the recommended intervals. Even if you service it regularly, a lack of maintenance in its first life can come back to bite you later on down the line and may mean the car doesn’t last as long as it otherwise would have.
Common issues with the Citroen C1 you need to watch out for
A couple of things you need to be mindful of with the Citroen C1 – the front footwells tend to leak water, and if not addressed this can cause mould and mildew as well as corrosion issues. There is a dealer modification to fix this, so you will want to check this has been done (this is basically just another seal above the door).
Additionally they require clutch adjustment on a regular basis – this should be part of routine maintenance for this car and the Citroen dealer will know what to do and when it needs doing. If you don’t do this, the car’s biting point becomes exceptionally high – up to the point of the last few centimetres of pedal travel. You may also be replacing the clutch early – thinking that your Citroen C1 needs a new clutch when actually it just needs a pedal adjustment.
Of course, this doesn’t apply if you have an automatic C1. These however come with their own set of problems, and we’ve written an article about common Citroen C1/Peugeot 107 automatic gearbox problems that you may want to take a look at.
Checking that the car has been serviced properly, and that these common (but minor) issues have been looked at will go a long way to ensuring your Citroen C1 lasts as long as possible.
Life expectancy data
We’ve pulled this data from howmanyleft.co.uk, which is a brilliant site that uses UK Department for Transport data detailing how many cars are licensed and how many are SORN’ed (declared off the road) at any given time.
This data doesn’t immediately tell you how long a car lasts – only how many are still on the road or declared off the road. As such, we’ve had to do some modeling and calculation in terms of how long we might expect a vehicle to last. We’ve had to look primarily at the first generation of the Citroen C1 in order to work this out, as they’ve been on the road the longest and therefore there is more data on them.
To explain our methodology – we went through each individual variation of the C1 we could get accurate data on that has ever been registered in the UK. We took the total number of registrations for that particular variant. We then took the figure in Q2 2022, which was the latest data available at the time of writing, and we calculated the percentage of cars that were on the road at this time compared to the higher figure.
For example – let’s take the Citroen C1 AIRPLAY.
Total registered in the UK: 614
Total still on the road in Q2 2022: 410
Therefore – 410/614 = 66.8% of the cars registered in Q4 2007 are still on the road in Q2 2022
Therefore any given Citroen C1 AIRPLAY on the road in 2007 had a 66.8% chance of still being on the road in 2022. We then did a simple calculation of 66.8% x 15 years giving us a total of 10.02 years, or 10 years and 7 days as the average lifespan of this particular variant.
We’re aware that there’s a flaw in our methodology in that we don’t consider mileage, only age. Unfortunately this isn’t really something we can do anything about as aggregated average mileage data doesn’t really exist on this scale. Therefore we can only do this exercise based on age.
We then repeated this data modeling exercise across as any variants of the Citroen C1 where adequate data exists, which gave us the following results:
| No. of Citroen C1s in the dataset | 141467 |
| No. of Citroen C1 variants analysed | 36 |
| % of Citroen C1s on the road in 2022 | 86.8% |
| Average lifespan of a Citroen C1 | 8 years 22 days (8.06 years) |
Citroen C1 life expectancy – some insights
Of the 141467 Citroen C1s we analysed, 122740 are still on the road (86.8%).
The vast majority (98%) of Citroen C1s still on the road are petrol powered. Only 2% are diesel powered.
The diesel powered C1s have a longer average lifespan than petrol ones – 7 years and 11 months for petrol vs 9 years and 8 months for diesel. It’s worth noting however that the registration dates for most diesels date from around 2006 – 2010 so this may be skewing the data somewhat.
One of the first Citroen C1 variants launched in 2005, the Rhythm, gives us an interesting story – of the diesels, there are 58% still on the road in 2022 vs 76% of the petrols. This lends some credence to the theory that the C1 petrol is more reliable than the C1 diesel – or it could be argued that the diesels likely did more mileage and reached the end of their useful life sooner than the petrols.
All in all there’s a lot of conclusions that can be drawn from this data. If you want to have a copy for yourself, leave a comment below and I will email you the data I have gathered to come to these conclusions.
Check out some more of our articles on the Citroen C1/Peugeot 107/Toyota Aygo!
About the author
Marcus Brown is editor-in-chief of The FatMech and is a mechanic with ten years' experience based in London, UK. Having worked for major dealerships for many years, Marcus now works for a local independent garage and has experience working on nearly every make and model of car. Marcus also has a passion for writing and teaching, which is where the idea for The FatMech came from. In his spare time, Marcus enjoys playing golf, doing home renovations and gardening. He lives just outside London with his wife and son.
I have had 3 c1 s now all over 14 years old. They are really reliable workhorses. All petrol 1.0l, at this age there is the inevitable suspension arm or brake disc etc but the parts are cheap and they always start. 100 plus thousand miles still going strong. One has a bit of piston slap others fine. Average 58 mpg on e10 and i dont spare the horses.