The Croissant

This is the car I affectionately refer to as The Croissant – a cheap reference to its French heritage, I know.

We bought the car in October 2024. So what is it?

Officially, this is a DS Automobiles DS5 2.0 HDI Sport Anniversary. Let’s decipher that.

2.0 HDI refers to its diesel engine. Yes, I bought my first diesel. The Sport bit refers to the fact that it’s the higher 180hp model, with a full 400 torques. And the ‘Anniversary’ bit refers to the fact that it’s a 2015 model that celebrates the 70th anniversary of the original car that the brand is named for – the Citroen DS.

DS Automobiles is Citroen’s attempt at a Lexus. Or Inifiniti. Acura. Genesis. Or whatever ‘premium’ brand you’d like to come up with in relation to a mainstream brand.

The modern DS line of vehicles entered Citroen’s lexicon around 2009 and the brand was spun off under its own name in 2015. Hence, my 2015 model is badged as a DS on the front and rear, where earlier DS5’s feature Citroen’s original double chevrons.

DS Automobiles started with a bang. They sold as amany as 120,000 cars in just their third year. That was largely on the back of the small DS3 compact hatch. Sized similar to a modern Mini, the DS3 won a bunch of awards at launch, and still looks pretty good today. It was actually the DS3 that first got me interested in the brand. They were easy to spot in Sweden, and came in a very sporting DS3 Racing variant – designed to celebrate Citroen’s rally success of the era – complete with funky suspension, bigger brakes, a body kit and a BMW-derived 200hp engine similar to contemporary Minis of the time.

DS5 Design

The DS5 was reasonably well received at launch for its avant-garde styling and its generous equipment levels.

The front end tends to polarise opinion, but I hope you agree that overall, this is a pretty handsome thing. The rear three-quarter view is my favourite. it has a stance to it that gives it a sense of intention. It’s not full-on sporty, but it’s definitely forward-facing. If that makes sense.

And while the brand name might be retro, the design is the complete opposite. We live a world full of homogenated design, where legislation threatens to make all cars a similar shape. So many 3-box sedans and SUV’s look similar to their competition. The shapes are the same. Only the faces are different. You can’t accuse the DS5 of looking like anything other than a DS5.

The styling is very modern, inside and out. It’s not as iconic as the original DS. Nothing is. But it’s definitely distinctive.

Modernity continues on the inside. There’s a touch of elegance with the leather ‘watchband’ seats. The rest of the cabin is quite Star Trek. There are plenty of angles in the console, the cluster, and the overhead controls. Even the buttons have an angular sharkstooth thing going on.

DS5 Equipment

The DS brand is Citroen trying to break into a more upmarket category. It makes sense, then, that they include plenty of goodies to lure people in. And they do. My DS5 was pretty much the flagship of what they were offering at the time and it comes with:

• Those gorgeous ‘watchband’ leather seats, which are electrified, heated, have memory and massaging
• Denon hi-fi system, including subwoofer
• Laminated double-layer side windows – it’s pretty quiet in there
• Heads-up display
• Blind spot monitoring
• Rain-sensing wipers
• Auto stop/start
• 6-speed auto with manual shifting
• Cruise control with speed limiting
• Power everything except tailgate
• Keyless entry, start and keyless locking (just run your finger over a notch in the door handle as you walk away)
• Glass moonroof with electric screening inside
• Full climate control
• Bluetooth, DAB, Aux, USB, iPod control (but not Carplay)
• Factory Satellite Navigation (that’s rather crappy by today’s standards).
• Chilled glovebox
• Directional headlamps – just like the original DS!
• Lots of beautifully textured materials inside – leather cluster surround, patterned materials around shifter, etc

Driving the DS5

The DS5 was less well received because of a relatively harsh ride – very un-DS-like – thanks to a chassis deriving from Citroen’s less luxurious family hauler catalogue.

I can attest.

Citroen took the initial criticism of the DS5 on board and completely re-tuned the suspension for the 2015 model year. People say that the 2015 model rides much better than its predecessor when equipped with its standard 18-inch wheels. Unfortunately, the guy who bought my example specced the bigger 19-inch wheels and their lower profile tyres, which completely negated the work done on the mechanical bits to make the ride smoother.

While the acceleration in my 180hp model is adequate, the steering is not keen. The car might look contemporary and sporting, but the driving experience isn’t, sadly. It’s comfortable and you’ve got all the gadgets you’ll ever need, but don’t look to take this car canyon carving.

What it excels at, though, is effortless cruising. Fill the spacious rear hatch with all your gear, hit the highway, and you’ll get 1000kms per tank of diesel all day long.

This was one of my priorities when we arrived back in Australia. We’re 2,000kms away from my family and, potentially, many hundreds of kilometers away from clients I might serve. I have to be able to carry my gear and cover long distances economically and in some comfort.

The DS5 does this pretty well.

DS5 Reliability

Let the mocking commence. Are you done? OK.

We’ve had some things to do on our DS5, it’s true. And because we’ve taken it to its original dealer to get work done, it’s been expensive. Half of that work is routine maintenance – servicing, front and rear brakes, etc. But we’ve also had to do a few annoying things, too.

Air Conditioning condenser. Not cheap.

Battery control module. Not crazy, but not cheap.

And while brakes are consumables, its highly recommended you always do discs and pads together (as with many modern cars). So that ends up at around $1000 per end at dealer prices.

All up, we’ve spent around $5k on getting work done this year. And we’ve still got more to go. Next week, I’ll be booking it in to get a wheel bearing, CV boot and a NOx sensor replaced. (We’re going non-dealer for this work. The dealer wanted $1500 for the Nox sensor alone. I picked one up for $130).

It’s been OK, really. While French car companies are ridiculed sometimes for having lots of engineers but none of them electrical engineers, our electrics have been 100% fine. Likewise, the mechanicals. No parts aside from the aircon and BCM have just given up randomly. The issues that happened are mainly 10-year-old car issues.

It’s just a pain that we copped them rather than the previous (initial) owner.

Conclusion

You can get a DS5 pretty cheap here in Australia. We paid $12K, which in Australia’s post-Covid car market, is pretty good. The maintenance costs I’ve just mentioned, as well as Citroen leaving Australian shores a few years ago and a general underappreciation for the marque, are the main reasons why they’re pretty affordable. It’s a LOT of car for the money and when all is well, which is 99% of the time, it’s excellent.

That 1% can be expensive, though.

We’re a little wary of more surprises bobbing their heads up in the next 12 months. We have only one car, and only one full-time salary at the moment. As good as the croissant is for the vast majority of the time, I think we need to cut our losses.

So once the CV boot, wheel bearing and Nox sensor are done – all are required for a roadworthy certificate here – the croissant will go in the display cabinet and be offered for sale.

It’s only my second French car, and my first diesel. It’s added to my vehicular experiences in a positive way. And for that, I’m thankful.

We’re still a little restricted by circumstance from getting something else way more interesting potentially flawed, so I think we might have to aim for something a bit more reliable. But hopefully also a bit more intentional.