Sister's first car.

[C.A.R.]

1.5 DCi?

I had one as a courtesy car once, to be perfectly honest, there was nothing wrong with it. In fact around town it was very brisk up to about 40mph, it just ran out of steam very quickly! It was more comfortable doing 60 on motorways instead of 70.

That said, if she doesn't plan on doing many journeys over 10/15 miles, it's probably idea. I've not heard of any problems with the 1.5 engine myself, it tends to be the car the engine is attached to which causes the owners problems, so buy carefully!

Edit to add, the Clio I had did have this strange steering characteristic, where it always felt like it was trying to hard to go in a straight line. Like the castor angle was too great or something. I believe motoring journalists refer to it as a 'dead area' where the steering wheel will turn a little way without actually affecting your direction of travel! It always pulled hard back to the centre again.