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What’s it like?
The Citigo was born out of a collaboration with Skoda’s fellow Volkswagen Group companies, VW and SEAT – who sold the same vehicle, albeit with a few subtle styling differences and badges, as the Up and Mii, respectively. The Citigo was true to Skoda’s principles of being simple and effective transport, serving as its smallest model on sale for nine years. Obvious rivals include the similar triumvirate of co-developed city cars, the Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 107/8 and Citroen C1, while Korean companies Hyundai and Kia turned out the excellent i10 and Picanto as well.
Which model to go for?
This is a remarkably simple job: you are almost certainly going to find the 1.0-litre MPI three-cylinder petrol engine with 60hp and 95Nm, all going through a five-speed manual gearbox to the front wheels, when searching for used Skoda Citigo models. Although there was a turbocharged 1.0 TSI option in this Volkswagen Group family trio, it was reserved for the Volkswagen Up and so the only real alternative to the 60hp Citigo is a 75hp variant, which had the same torque and gearbox.
Either way, performance is going to be slow if you’re driving out of town or on motorways, but the Skoda is more than zippy enough to get about in urban traffic. It should also cost peanuts to run, as the engine is very fuel efficient.
There was even an all-electric variant called the Citigo-E iV, with an 80hp motor and a 36.8kWh battery, supposed good enough for around 258km of range. However, they’re incredibly rare finds here in Ireland and your best bet is possibly tracking down an imported model.
Does anything go wrong?
Having spent most of their time in the hustle and bustle, start-stop conditions of city driving, the key things to look out for on a Skoda Citigo are that its clutch isn’t badly worn, and that the body panels are as straight and unblemished as they can be. Watch for a high biting point on the clutch pedal or even slipping from the clutch when changing gears to avoid expensive bills further down the line.
Skoda issued six recalls for the car in its lifetime, but one of those pertained specifically to the Citigo-E iV, so the other five were for airbag issues; one for the front panel of the sunroof; another for a potentially defective towing eye; and the last for the manual lever in the child-proof locking system. The electric model’s recall was for a short-circuit fault in the propulsion battery, with a possible risk of fire.