Itchy Driving Feet

[pat40]

The modern diesels really are outstanding engines - I've had mine a couple of days now (110 e-hdi) and I love it - it's remarkably strong for a 1.6 and pulls strongly through the gears.

The stop start is a bit disconcerting to start with - just feels very odd when the car just cuts out but it starts immediately when pressing the clutch so it doesn't impact on your driving at all. Perhaps if I was keeping the car longer term (2 year lease) then I'd be a little worried on how all this stop starting puts stress on the various part of the engine but as I'm not it's a great feature!

From what I've heard, the cars with stop start have a more durable starter motor.

[DS3X2]

On the Stop-Start models the starter motor is only used for initial start up. After that it is a special 'reversible' alternator that is actually used to re-start the engine as it can spin the engine up much quicker than the starter motor. In practice the system works brilliantly on my wife's C3, only stopping when it knows it can re-start. When we were stuck in heavy traffic it would stop and start until it reached the point where there wasn't sufficient charge in the system, then it didn't operate until the necessary charge had built up again

[Markm49uk]

The stop start thing - does the engine switch off whenever you put the handbrake on, or do you have to put the car into neutral?

Into neutral and clutch out - works very well and it's surprising how long you actually spend stood still while commuting etc

[Markm49uk]

From what I've heard, the cars with stop start have a more durable starter motor.

As posted above its a whole different starting process when in stop start - starting almost immediately without the delay you get when using the key to initially start the car.

The battery is also a special type that can only be changed by Citroen (or so it says in the manual)

[Human after all]

Into neutral and clutch out - works very well and it's surprising how long you actually spend stood still while commuting etc

Sounds interesting. I am able to avoid rush hour usually, so I probably wouldn't get to use it that much. It sounds like a useful feature to have though.

I'm going to test drive a DS3 on Saturday. Looking forward to it.

[jsr]

Well I hope you enjoy. My wife loves her DS3 (bar the small engine niggle at the moment) which is the Dsport Plus 110HDI, and she reckons it's her favourite car of many over the past 5 years (Abarth 500, Clio 182, Megane R26, Toyota MR2 - basically all powerful petrol motors (well, apart from the abarth!)).
The diesel engine feels really perky at lower speeds, very responsive and nimble, although a bit gutless at higher speeds. MPG is very good though, on longer journeys it has done up to 65mpg, but on her daily commute of part dual carriageway and part stop start crawling she gets 50mpg combined, and the cars still only done 3,400 miles - my Insignia's MPG didn't start to improve until after 5,000 miles.

I can't say I agree with some of the statements above - definitely not the best for comfort or build quality... Mini is much better imo, Audi A1 even better, but for the money it has a decent feel although some materials feel cheap (floor carpets, dash plastics etc).

Reliability is like most manufacturers, some models will be more prone to issues but it won't affect every car. I saw a brand new 12 plate lexus in the slow lane of the A45 with the hazards on the other day, and the tyres all looked fine so something else had gone wrong... just luck of the draw!

We went for Elect3 to finance it because it worked out cheaper than any loan we could find when you factored in the depreciation etc at the end of 3 years. We put down a larger deposit and pay £189 per month, and got the list price down by almost £2k which all contributed towards the lower monthly payment.
Also, the dealer said they couldn't match the online deal we found so we walked out. 10 minutes later the deal was done at the internet price by said dealer.

Although the dealer has already let us down so won't be going back there again... After sales service is a bit hit and miss

[Human after all]

Thanks for the detailed post, jsr. Very helpful.

I really like the idea of the 110hdi for the reasons you mentioned. I don't do much motorway travelling, so lots of pull at the lower speed is exactly what I'm looking for.

I take it that your wife is going to hand the car back at the end of the agreement?

[jsr]

Yeah most likely. I'm going to make her have my insignia when the term is done as that has a lifetime warranty, then I'll get another new car lol!!

And the tax is only £20 a year, and insurance £300 fully comp for us both (both 27 but 5ncb)

[Bigfeet]

...the dealer said they couldn't match the online deal we found so we walked out. 10 minutes later the deal was done at the internet price by said dealer...

If this is the dealer I think it is than the reason being is that your DS3 was most likely put through under a fleet code is order to get 'around' certain requirements by Citroen UK.

[Human after all]

I went for a test drive in a DS3 110 e-hdi yesterday. It was very nice. The biggest things I initially noticed were how quiet it is, how comfortable the ride is, and how nicely it handles around bends. I drove onto a dual carriageway with no other cars on it, and thought 'This isn't very fast', then I looked down at the speedo and saw that I was doing a much higher speed than I though I was.

I'll put that down to how quiet the car is compared to what I'm used to. I remember the opposite thing happening when I learned to ride a motorbike; there was a lot more road noise so I initially thought I was going faster than I actually was.

Overall, it's a really nice car and I think I am going to order one.