• DS 3 is cramped for passengers and luggage
• Impractical, small boot
• Cubby spaces lacking, too

How much space is there?

You don’t sit particularly high in the DS 3, despite its SUV styling, and it’s far from a spacious car. The cabin feels quite claustrophobic, especially in the rear where the kicked-up B-pillar leads to a very narrow side window. Universally dark trim and limited headroom add to this. Six-footers in the rear will find their heads perilously close to the ceiling.

Space up front is better, with big, squashy front seats and plenty of adjustment, but taller drivers will nonetheless find that they’re sat behind the B-pillar and end up rubbing their shoulder on it. There’s also limited legroom, leaving our taller testers to do a bit of manspreading.

Boot space and storage

The DS 3’s boot, at just 350 litres, is one of the smallest in the class, trumped by the 400-litre Skoda Kamiq and 456-litre Ford Puma. An electric boot lid isn’t an option, and there’s a significant loading lip at the entrance as well as a hump in the floor when the rear seats are folded.

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Storage for smaller items isn’t much more impressive. There are a pair of capacious cupholders, but the glovebox is tiny, as is the space under the central armrest. The door bins are small but deep, suitable for bottles but not much else. The useful cubby ahead of the gear lever is entirely taken up by the wireless phone charger on top-spec models. Rear passengers get tiny door bins.

Is it easy to park?

Visibility in the DS 3 is limited in all directions. The narrow rear windscreen and enormous B-pillar limit your view out of the rear and make for a massive blindspot respectively.

All models do get rear parking sensors, and front sensors plus a reversing camera are available as optional extras on all trim levels. But they don’t come standard until top-spec Opera trim. At least the camera itself is high-res and clear.

At least the DS 3 is nicely compact by modern SUV standards, so squeezing into a tight car park won’t be difficult.

Safety

• Four-star Euro NCAP score
• Tested in 2019
• Top-spec cars get better AEB

Euro NCAP hasn’t yet crash-tested the facelifted DS 3, but the pre-facelift DS 3 Crossback scored four stars when it was assessed in 2018. Bear in mind that score was for the most basic model, too – cars with DS’s then optional now standard Advanced Safety Pack (which adds features like blind-spot monitoring and a cyclist detection system), the 3’s score jumps up to five stars.

These scores look impressive, but Euro NCAP has since tightened up its regulations with a more stringent set of crash test protocols that make it harder for cars to achieve a five-star rating. So, while we’re not saying the DS 3 is an unsafe car, newer five-star SUVs tested under the revised Euro NCAP parameters (such as the Kia Niro and BMW X1) could fare better in an accident.

Small rear doors and a tight rear seat area make squeezing an Isofix seat into the back tricky, especially with fiddly to access mounting locations. An Isofix on the front passenger seat makes life easier, especially with an easy to access passenger airbag deactivation switch in the glovebox.