4 Speed Auto DS3 Okay for Motorway Driving?

[zlez93]

Hello,

So I am looking to buy my first car, don't know much about cars myself but the model is: 2014 Citroen DS3 Dstyle Plus Vti 120, 1598CC Petrol, 3DR, Auto. The car is an insurance write off which has been mostly fixed except for the windscreen. It's going down to a garage for a mechanic to look at it so I don't get ripped off on any obvious issues.

From my understanding this model only has 4 gears and I might be doing a 200 miles round trip once or twice a month. Does anyone have any experience with this car/gearbox? Is it any good or will it struggle to get up to 60/70 mph? Will petrol be expensive for long trips too?

[zlez93]

Edit: I should mention I'm not expecting 60 mpg but would 45-50 be realistic on a motorway if I cruised at 60 mph?

[BenS]

Do you only have an auto license? Because if not I don't advise it. There are much better auto gearboxes out there than this one, and you can get a better manual DS3 for the same money. The diesel DSport Plus (HDI 110 or 115 engine) is good for long trips and has better seats for comfort, or the manual version of the petrol DStyle Plus which is more capable than the auto. Avoid the petrol DSport (THP engine) as it has known reliability issues and isn't great for a first car and/or someone who doesn't know much about cars.

The 4-speed has no problem doing 70, but I doubt you'd get much over 45mpg. On a long motorway trip in the manual version of the same engine I got 47mpg overall at 65ish. All fuel is expensive now, but diesels could get you 70mpg for the same trip - but costs more than petrol, so really it's not much different in the end.

[zlez93]

Do you only have an auto license? Because if not I don't advise it. There are much better auto gearboxes out there than this one, and you can get a better manual DS3 for the same money. The diesel DSport Plus (HDI 110 or 115 engine) is good for long trips and has better seats for comfort, or the manual version of the petrol DStyle Plus which is more capable than the auto. Avoid the petrol DSport (THP engine) as it has known reliability issues and isn't great for a first car and/or someone who doesn't know much about cars.

The 4-speed has no problem doing 70, but I doubt you'd get much over 45mpg. On a long motorway trip in the manual version of the same engine I got 47mpg overall at 65ish. All fuel is expensive now, but diesels could get you 70mpg for the same trip - but costs more than petrol, so really it's not much different in the end.

I'm going with an auto but the only reason I am interested in this car is because of it's low price (due to being an write off). What auto gearboxes would you recommend?

[BenS]

Anything German. The best automatics are mated to expensive cars. Toyota has decent budget ones, as they are a different type of gearing system. Renault has a bit of a clunky one, but better than the old Citroen one. Outside of those not got much experience myself.