2017 DS DS3 Prestige

Another thing I've always wanted on my car, I had briefly in 2021 with the DS3 in the form of CarPlay. It doesn't matter how bad your cars system is when you have this to use and interact with. It was £100 and a guy on eBay was offering it for Citroen / Peugeot models. You sent him off the headunit (a faceless one in these cars) and he'd modify it or exchange it for one that was configured with CarPlay. I think he had some kind of access to a Citroen system that can allow it. DS / Citroen state you can have this added at a dealer, but my local one being pretty much open to Mobility customers only.. wasn't interested and told me it couldn't be done and was in fact, impossible......

Unfortunately no such mod exists for my Toyota unless I throw the baby out with the bathwater and go full-Chinese system and wheely bin plastic fascia plate but my experience with those from my first Panda wasn't great so not convinced on that one.

Well, it ultimately turned out to be a waste of time as I got about two weeks out of this upgrade. But I ordered and fitted a Chinese heated seat kit. I put the switches on either side of the centre control area / footwell sides. The install went without too much of an issue but it took me the guts of a day, both seats out and stripped to a scary level then refitted... the heat was FANTASTIC. Big issue, which ruined them for me, was that they worked when the car was OFF. Very dangerous in terms of running the battery down. The wiring info was hard to understand and basic. The seller didn't speak good enough English to understand what we were asking and at that point, I didn't know enough about electrics or soldering to find a better solution, though I'm sure one does exist. I've debated this on my Avensis, I ordered and even took out the seats last August but decided against it given my issues with the ambient lights at times. The Avensis seats are also a hell of a lot more complicated in how they're put together compared to the DS3. I really-really-really-really want heated seats in my car.... maybe I'll reconsider.

My DS3 was out of warranty when I bought it. After no joy with my local dealer (at the time was a DS Showroom / dealer - since lost that for not upholding its standards, replaced by a Hyundai..), Citroen / DS customer care eventually honoured my request to have these replaced. Four new alloys. Although they did tell me it would certainly happen again and to enjoy them while I could... It was nice to have new alloys - but a lot of pressure to know that any damage from that point on was squarely my fault!

A local bodyshop returned the DS 3 to me like this in 2021.... After a lot of unprofessionalism from a cowboy repair centre near me, it was later put right by the outstanding Charles Hurst ARC in Belfast. They had even snapped / broken the bumper supports so it didn't sit right. Local businesses in NW NI have no competition and this is the cost to the consumer. I sold the car after it was gone for nearly 3 months because of this.