• Petrol, diesel and various hybrids available
• Most people probably best off with petrol
• PHEV is useful for company car drivers

Petrol engines

The DS 4 is no longer available to buy new with straight, non-hybrid petrol engines, but three were previously available that you can now buy used. There’s the 1.2-litre, three-cylinder Puretech with 130hp, and the 1.6-litre, four-cylinder Puretech with 180hp or 225hp. All three have an eight-speed automatic gearbox.

There are smooth and quiet engines, though the 1.6s don’t really provide the performance their power suggests they should. The 1.2 was much more popular largely because it’s more economical and was quite a lot cheaper to buy. Again, performance is rather relaxed in outright terms but it’s responsive and muscular enough in the vast majority of circumstances. For most people, it’s the best choice.

You can find the exact details for all the engines discussed here by clicking through to our specs pages.

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Diesel engine

It’s very rare that a mid-size hatchback is still available to buy new with a diesel engine, but the DS 4 is. It’s a 1.5-litre, four-cylinder BlueHDi unit that produces 130hp and comes with an automatic gearbox. We’ve not tried it in the DS 4, but we have in the Peugeot 308 where it was quite noisy and left lethargic. Still, it’s motorway fuel economy and long range make it a good option if you rack up a lot of miles.

Mild-hybrid powertrain

The Hybrid 136 is the current prime engine option in the DS 4 and it’s what powers my long-term test car. Its name might lead you to think it’s self-charging hybrid like the Toyota Prius, and we’re describing it as a mild-hybrid; in reality, it splits the difference, a mild-hybrid-plus, if you will.

The system combines a 1.2-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine with a small 48-volt battery, a belt-driven starter, and an electric motor. In a conventional petrol car, the engine powers the on-board electrics via the alternator and 12-volt battery. Here, the 48-volt battery does much of that work, easing the strain on the engine to improve fuel economy and emissions. There’s also enough juice for a couple of hundred yards to fully electric driving.

I’ve tried this powertrain in a number of cars and the DS 4 is the best application of it I’ve used. It’s reasonably muscular for overtaking, it’s smooth, the synthetic engine noises piped through the stereo when accelerating are amusing, it’s perfectly quiet the rest of the time.

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But it’s not especially responsive. It doesn’t help that the six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox doesn’t change down while braking and takes ages to do so when you press the throttle again. On the motorway in particular, that can lead to you driving along in surges of acceleration, rather than a smooth flow.

Plug-in hybrid powertrain

The plug-in hybrid DS 4 (badged E-Tense or simply Plug-in Hybrid) has a 180hp 1.6-litre petrol engine with a 12.4kWh battery and a 110hp electric motor. Working together they produce a combined 225hp. There’s adequate performance running on electric power alone, but the engine rather strains against the PHEV’s 200kg of added mass over a petrol DS 4.

Battery power cuts in and out smoothly, the eight-speed automatic gearbox is responsive. With engine and battery delivering their all together, performance is pretty peppy. Really, though, there’s only really any point in getting the PHEV if you’re a company car driver and can take advantage of the tax benefits.

What’s it like to drive?

• Lovely ride quality
• Responsive steering
• But ultimately less than athletic

The DS 4’s comparatively high ride height means it has more suspension travel than the likes of the Audi A3 and Kia Ceed, and that translates to a lovely, smooth ride. Most of the time. When you encounter a really rough road surface, the bumps and holes can become quite jarring, though not to the same extent as happens in certain rivals. Some models of DS 4 have clever adaptive suspension that smooths the road further, but you can only buy them used now and they’re quite rare.

Responsive steering allows you to confidently aim for suddenly appearing gaps in town traffic and slot into difficult parking spaces. On faster roads, you have confidence that the car will go exactly where you point it. On motorways, it feels absolutely safe and stable.

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It has its limits, though, largely because of the ride height. Body roll in corners is well controlled most of the time, but there comes a point when it isn’t and that effects how the car goes through a corner. I often find that, when I turn into a corner at high-ish speed, the car’s weight shifts over the offside front wheel. That pushes the car into taking a wider line around the corner than I wanted. There’s another issue, as well. Drive over a heavily scarred bit of road and you can feel the car’s back wheels move a few inches to the side, like their following the edge of the scar.

Those characteristics aren’t dangerous in any way, but they interrupt my thought process and break up the flow. The DS 4 is a car that demands you take a relaxed approach to driving. And that will suit some people down to the ground.