I've a friend who does a huge commute, Bristol to London and back every day, he's on his second Peugeot 508 estate. Both cars fitted with the 1.6 diesel and automated manual gearbox. The first one went to 200,000 without problems and he's over 100,000 now in the second one with no reliability issues and the added bonus of fabulous fuel economy. When I first started posting on here, I was running a Mondeo TDCi manual estate. I was assured it would lunch it's clutch and DMF at regular intervals. But it didn't and nor did anything else go wrong with it in the 200,000 miles I ran it to. Funnily enough the same model I'd had before it had no problems either despite being run to a similarly high mileage. You have to take Internet forums with a pinch of salt. While they can give you good information and help, they do tend to stress the negatives a bit more than the positives. Of course you can keep on trying to mitigate risk, and there's nothing wrong with that or the giving of cautionary advice, but sometimes you just have to make your own mind up about what works for you. Hope you enjoy your new car ! Peugeot are making some really nice looking stuff recently.

Edited by Avant on 21/05/2019 at 22:22

I understand there are two versions of the 1.6HDi 'diesel of doom', 16 valve and 8 valve. It's mainly the former that has a propensity to 'lunch' engines when turbo gives up ghost due to clogged oil pick up strainers.

We've got a 1.6 HDi 8 valve Berlingo which has been completely free of engine/transmission issues so far at five and a half years and coming up to 90k miles. In fact only problems have been a broken joystick for remote controlled mirrors and a sticky rear brake calliper leading to need for new pads/discs at 85k.

Soooo... ive had the Pug 3008 for almost a month now and thought Id give my thoughts....

I love the driving position and split cockpit i also love the split boot and tailgate "bench". For the size of the car the rear leg room could of been bigger but its not massively cramped.

As mentioned by others on the site, the "Auto" gearbox takes a little getting used to over convential auto's, but after a few days I'd got down to an art, lifting off the gas just before gear change. The 1.6hdi-e engine is pretty decent! i thought its be terrible becuase its a fairly big car and I was coming down from 2.5 petrol turbo 218bhp car. It gets to 70 no issues, is pretty smooth and pulls fairly well in 2nd and 3rd to get up to speed. Im getting 45MPG from it, the ride is smooth, Ive had it up to Scotland on a long run and I really like the car! I'll keep her serviced by Peugeot and hopefully have a few years happy driving her. Thanks again for the input everyone. I'll update further when Ive done a few thousand miles or if things go wrong! :)

Lee

Glad to hear you are liking it Lee and fingers crossed it gives you no problems.

Re the gearbox, i have held the suspicion that single clutch automated manuals like yours are not actually that bad, you just need to learn how to get the best from it, anticipating response times, and, like you say, lifting off slightly on the changes.

What is exactly wrong with these automated gearbox ? Is it hardware design issue ? Software issue ? Maintenance issue ?

In case of the automated gearbox for Peugeot 3008, I think it is Aisin AW TF-8# SC series made by Aisin.

This automated gearbox is used by so many different marques, different models, including the likes of BMW, Mazda, Land Rover, Volvo and so on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWTF-80_SC

I don’t hear many complain from, for example, Volvo driver…..But when the gearbox is fitted to PSA or GM, it becomes problematic….

Both single and dual clutch automated manuals can suffer from jerky gearchanges and delayed response to throttle input. Pulling out on to a busy road for example, you see a small gap, press the throttle, but nothing happens, then it does, by which time the gap is almost closed!. There can also be problems manoeuvring at low speeds. especially uphill.

It seems that single clutch versions are more reliable, if for no other reason there is less to go wrong, and while the jerky gearchanges can be more exaggerated than with a dual clutch, it can be driven round by lifting off slightly on the change. The delayed throttle response can be anticipated though experience too. Unfortunately, a lot of drivers are not interested in learning how best to drive the car, and will find these characteristics an unacceptable flaw. Reading owners reviews of cars fitted with a single clutch auto, there does seem to be a noticeable split, with some drivers hating them, but others loving them.

The main problem with the dual clutch versions seems to be overcomplexity. Fine when working as intended, though as mentioned earlier, there can still be driveability issues. They are also generally faster (through effectively elimiminating the 'pause' in acceleration when you change gear, as the alternate clutch has the next gear ready to go) and more efficient than a manual. But they do seem to have a habit of causing problems, with Ford's powershift being a particularly bad example, to the extent that Ford (along with the PSA group) have reverted back to using t/c auto's.

Obviously there are exceptions and plenty of DCT equiped cars which have given their owners no problems at all, including forum members. But the potential for ruinously expensive problems, particularly on a used car outwith its warranty, means that i wouldn't chance buying a car with a DCT gearbox. I might be inclined to try something with a single clutch automated manual, but my concern is that my wife is very much the kind of person who would find it a struggle to adapt her driving round the 'characteristics' mentioned above.

How's the stop-start system working? Seen a few people with problems with theirs.

Thanks for clarifying the confusion may have caused !