Practically Classics Forum

I thought the days of Peugeot ever producing a decent car again were confined to history - I worked in a Peugeot main dealers in the late 70's / early 80's when the 504 diesels had a legendry status with high mileage owners / taxi drivers etc.

To cut to the chase I was pretty nonplussed when the hire car turned up recently to replace my Hilux (In for accident repairs when some clot ran into me / new windscreen / 20k service) car in question 'Peugeot 508 estate' I did not even give it a look over and resigned myself to the fact it was only for a week or so whilst the Hilux was sorted.

It swallowed all my kit, and was very comfortable, all mod cons on board - nice build quality -equal to that of the VW golf estate that I ran for several months last year - More to the point it went like stink & cruised very well (6 speed box) - when told that the Hilux was going to take a little longer than expected - I had already covered 1,000 miles in the Peugeot so I thought I had best to dip the oil.

Up to now I had assumed that the car was 2 litre (same as the golf - as it was certainly on par performance wise) - on opening the bonnet I was very surprised to find a compact 1.6 litre diesel - this little engine is quite amazing - the car returned over 650 miles on 60 litres and I by no means am light right footed.

Only thing that would put me off would be the residual price / depreciation but if you found yourself a low mileage -18 / 24 month old one with the residual lost out of it and retained it for several years - you would not be going far wrong for a modern load lugger / family car

had a ride in one not long ago, very comfy .. i doubt if id buy one its built by the french..

Ideal as a hire car, but wait until it goes wrong.... and it will!

Just a warning as they have the same engine as Fords do, the 1.6 is notorious for blowing turbos when they get up in miles as they do not have an adequate oil feed plus they have a major sludging issue which makes it worse. When I was looking for a Focus I was warned off the 1.6 diesel by 2 different garages for these reasons. The 1.8 is totally different so is safe and the 2.0 has a different turbo which doesn't suffer.

This idea that French cars are unreliable is a mystery to me. I've had five Peugeots, two Renaults and a Citroen and they've all been more reliable than contemporary Saabs, Fords, BMWs and VWs owned by my friends. The indirect injection diesels will go to the moon and back with regular oil, filter and cambelt changes. I've only had one HDi and that got to 116,000 miles without any problems before being written off by a shaven-headed moron in a 106 last July. Maybe part of the problem is the incompetence of their dealer network, you can take a car in for a minor problem and it comes back with more. I noticed that the quality of the Peugeots improved markedly once they stopped building them in Coventry.

I've only owned one French car although various g/fs over the years have owned many. I had a Clio Williams and if the external trim wasn't falling off the internal trim was, 2x Pug 206 both electrical nightmares, Clio RT held together with glue (but went on and on and on despite lots of abuse), Clio MK3, changing a headlamp bulb required removing the front bumper. Meganne 1.6 factory immobiliser used to kill the car at random and the speedo kept pretending it was a rev counter.
For comparison my 2000 Ford has never broken down or needed much more than service items (one rear wheel bearing was done under warranty). It has had twice yearly main dealer services from new and gets washed off weekly, etc.
Saying that the RR needs work at least once a month, I wouldn't drive it every day for that reason but it motorway cruises superbly.

Everyone has their preferred brand / model and some people look after their cars better than others. I suspect if you look after a Pug properly it will last as well as anything else. I wouldn't get a 1.6 HDI / TDCI for the reasons stated above.

i remember the 80s pug diesel was indestructible.. its all the french cars we had in the family since puddles the 205 that seemed to fall apart..