No need to sugarcoat it, the average buyer is terrified of French brands.

The general consensus is that their vehicles are powered by wizardry and replacement parts cost an arm and both legs being made out of that rare material called unobtainium. Compound this by the average mechanic guessing what’s wrong and we have the ingredients for a perfect storm.

French cars were extremely popular in South Africa before our apartheid policies led to large corporations exiting the countries for fear of retaliation from other markets and imposed sanctions. Often well made and reliable, legions of Renault 5/9 ,Citroen DS/ID and Peugeot 404/504 fans still remember these vehicles with nostalgia. They were easy to fix, rugged and gave a foreign charm over the standard staple of Ford/Toyota/VW/Nissan which were SA’s staple diet of vehicles at the time.

Post 1994 many of the manufacturers returned and reinvested, bringing with models that were unknown in terms of technology and maintenance. These vehicles were more advanced to what we were used to and needed to be maintained accordingly in order to ensure reliable operation. Once the replacement of associated components was carried out at the correct intervals the reliability increased ten fold .

I have personally worked on many Peugeots that have exceeded 300 000kms in operation with no untoward break downs , and have been very reliable vehicles provided they have been correctly maintained.

So? Time to think out the box and commit?