Citroen DS3 1.6 VTi | Shed of the Week

Citroen's Mini rival had a lot going for it at launch - 15 years later, does it make for good shed?

Welcome, or indeed bienvenu, to another Shed of the Week debutant, this Citroen DS3 1.6 VTi. Shed has had his eye on this car for the last few weeks.

As you may recall Citroen launched the DS3 at the 2009 Geneva show as a customisable ‘luxury supermini’ that they hoped might chip into the Mini’s runaway sales success. You could have it with a range of engines, or one of them anyway. The one being claimed here is the 1.6-litre THP direct injection turbo. With leather and a fancy stereo, Shed reckons that makes this car a DSport.

Aided by a low curb weight of 1,090kg, the 155hp 1.6 would propel our shed through the 0-62mph run in 7.3 seconds, well ahead of the Mini Cooper and not that far behind the Cooper S. The maximum torque of 177lb ft chimed in from just 1,400rpm and kept on coming until 4,000rpm so you didn’t have to give it the berries to get it moving along at a smart rate. The official combined fuel consumption was 42mpg. High 30s were easy to achieve in the real world and the road tax bill today should be a very reasonable-sounding £180 a year, although as usual Shed takes no responsibility for the accuracy of that figure because he’s not very good with websites.

The six-speed manual gearbox was very nice, much nicer than the five-speeders in many DS3s, and the overall drive was surprisingly refined with nicely weighted steering, plenty of grip, a ride that was sweeter than a Mini’s and powerful, feelsome braking. You could turn the ESP off too. Driving dynamics wise, some reckoned that a sporty DS 3 was the best small French car since the 205 GTI, quite a statement considering the chassis’s humble C3 heritage, albeit with tweaked suspension settings and a lower stance. One well-known UK mag hailed the 1.6 THP ‘comfortably the most convincing performance car from Citroen in a generation’.

All of which makes you wonder why this 94,000-mile example has been hanging around on PH Classifieds for a few weeks now despite its appealing £1,995 price tag. Maybe there’s an inbuilt distrust of small French cars, some sort of fear that they might crumple when struck a glancing blow by a passing bluebottle. In fact, the DS3 had a five-star crash rating. Maybe folk are thinking it’s got a 1.2 or a diesel engine, not realising it’s actually got the THP motor. Or maybe they are realising it has got the THP motor and giving it a swerve because of that. There have been reliability issues with some of these. Misfiring could be a thing because of dodgy coils or insufficient fuel pressure caused by insufficient fuel pumps. Pre-2014 cars like this one could also have problems with stretched timing chains and heavy oil consumption.

If Shed was going in for this particular car he’d be wanting to check that it really does have the 155hp THP engine. Then he’d want to look at the paperwork. The MOT history plus its location in Manchester suggests it may have had a tough life crashing around busted city streets. It’s had a good bit of suspension work done in its life and the last test in December suggests it’ll need some more doing in the future, specifically the lower front suspension bushes and maybe one rear brake disc. As noted earlier, the brakes are very good but the pads aren’t cheap to replace.

DS3 interior storage space was quite poor, as were the cabin plastics. Button surfaces rubbed off over time, glovebox lids became disillusioned and fell off, as did the centre armrests, and ignition keys broke. On the plus side, parts were cheap, the seats were big and comfy, and thanks to the extra space that Citroen put between the C3’s axles the DS3 was a good bit longer than the Mini and therefore a good bit roomier in the back. The boot was a lot bigger than the Mini’s too, though still hardly large at 285 litres.

Shed thinks the DS3’s looks have held up well over the last 15 years. He likes the LED strip lights inset into the front wings and the abbreviated B-pillar feature that, depending on your paint colour choices, could either be striking or stealthy. He isn’t so sure about the heart motif on the driver’s side carpet, although when it was rotated through 180 degrees in front of him a couple of things sprang to attention, one of them being a mental image of the postmistress from behind.

Shed’s rug-based observations in this regard led him to surmise that the last owner of this DS was a member of the fairer sex. Back in the day ‘lady owner’ was something that Shed always included in any car ad (whether it was true or not) because people thought it meant the car had had an easy life. Nowadays however with so many ladies looking scarier than the bouncers on Shed’s village pub door on bingo night he doesn’t bother putting that in any more.

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