No contest when it comes to innovation

More than 300 000 DS3 have found happy owners since 2010. Why? It synchronises with their particular approach to look and feel, and indeed even smell and sound.

To add to this, the latest Kinsey Report, published in the spring issue of the AA Traveller, the spunky three-door was found to have the cheapest “basket” of all in the important Supermini segment, at nine cars one of the most voluminous and toughly-contested categories of the survey.

The Kinsey Report has become an essential tool for savvy motorists who seek to calculate the real cost of owning a car, and for the past 20 years has been lifting the lid on what franchised dealers charge for parts.

In this survey, the prices of 35 parts across three categories (service, maintenance and “crash”) are compared. The Citroën scored a fourth in service parts, a third in maintenance and was a runaway winner when it came to replacing parts that would typically be needed after an accident. Overall, it finished well clear of the rest of the pack.

In 2013 the DS3 wasn’t evaluated but in 2012 it was third in the category and in 2011 the C3 was fourth in the same class. Last year, the C4 Aircross just missed out on a podium in the crossover segment – with 15 cars from different brands easily the most competitive segment of the market at that time.

“The perception that Citroën parts are expensive still lingers unfortunately, but hopefully this latest success will end that, once and for all,” commented Francis Harnie, managing director of Citroën South Africa. “The fact of the matter is that – in the Supermini segment – the DS3 is a parts pricing winner and of course when you add style and innovation to the equation, it really is a case of no contest…”