EV battery CITROËN DS5

Honestly at 5.5k I'd be fuming too! Had a similar battery issue on my mate's Peugeot 3008 hybrid (basically same battery as your DS5). He ended up finding a refurbished unit from a breaker for around £1.3-1.5k. Took about 3 weeks of ringing around but saved him a fortune. Worth checking places like BreakerLink or specialist hybrid battery companies.

My neighbour's got the exact same car, 2013 DS5 hybrid. His battery packed in last year at 68k miles and he was livid. Found someone who rebuilds them - they basically replace the cells inside the housing rather than buying a whole new unit. Cost him about £900 with warranty. Not as good as new but way cheaper than what the dealer wanted. Company was based in Netherlands but they ship to UK.​

DS customer services are absolutely useless mate, wouldn't expect anything different from them. The battery cells in these hybrids (DS5, Peugeot 508, 3008) are all interchangeable which gives you more options. I'd try the second hand route first - seen units going for £1300-1500 from breakers. Just make sure they test it properly before you buy.

Don't pay 5.5k! That's mental for a car that age. There's specialists who repair the high voltage batteries - they diagnose which cells are faulty and just replace those rather than the whole pack. Mate of mine used a company called BNA Battery for his Peugeot and they sorted it with 6 months warranty for under a grand. Mobile service too so they came to him.​

@VR46 I'd push back on DS harder tbh. 55k miles is ridiculously low for a battery failure - these should last way longer. Try mentioning Consumer Rights Act to them, sometimes works when you bring up the legal stuff. If the battery's failed prematurely it could still be covered under consumer law even after warranty expires. Worth a shot before shelling out thousands.

here - paid for a "refurbished" battery couple years back and it only lasted 18 months before same fault codes came back. Ended up having to get another one. If you go second hand make sure the warranty is decent and from a proper company, not just some bloke in a garage.​

@l.johnson.27 Good shout on the legal angle. At that mileage the battery really shouldn't have failed. I'd write a formal complaint to DS citing the Consumer Rights Act 2015 - goods need to be of satisfactory quality and last a reasonable time. 55k on a hybrid battery isn't reasonable by any stretch.​

Have you looked at getting just the cells replaced rather than the whole battery pack? The housing and electronics usually last ages, it's just the individual cells that go bad. New cells with installation runs about £2k which is still a lot but better than 5.5k. Companies like Hybrider or Pro-Lithium do this kind of work.​

@NoahT That's what I was gonna suggest. Mate had his DS5 cells replaced instead of buying complete new pack - saved him over 3 grand. Still not cheap at around £2k fitted but the blokes gave him 2 year warranty on it so felt more confident than buying a used pack from a scrapper.​

Whatever you do get multiple quotes. Prices I've seen range from £900 for refurb to £2k for new cells to your dealer's ridiculous 5.5k. Also check if any of the Peugeot specialists near you work on DS5s since they share the same battery system. Sometimes they're cheaper than going through DS network.​

@VR46 Also before you commit to anything, might be worth getting an independent diagnostic done. Sometimes it's not actually the whole battery pack that's knackered, could be the battery management system or cooling pump. Would be gutting to spend all that money on a battery when it's something else causing the fault code.​

@george.evans Spot on. Seen that happen with a DS5 where the cooling system for the battery had failed and cooked it. Diagnostic showed battery fault but actual problem was the coolant system. Fixed that for few hundred quid and battery was fine. Always worth double checking before droppingopping big money.​