1,0 Active 3 cyl 5 door

Quirky car with r****** engine

Good points are the pretty good fuel economy (up to 70mpg on rare M/wy trips), ease of parking, modest service costs and lack of (so far) road tax. It is also reasonably comfortable and, unlike my wifes earlier Ger-Mini, can accommodate a rear seat passenger who is not a double leg amputee.

The quirky bits are the fact that it has i**** lights to tell the driver when to change gear... designed by someone who has never encountered the hilly terrain of the Welsh borders! It also has a dash light that suggests a tyre pressure is low... appearing twice when nothing was actually wrong. To add to the annoyance, the kill button is hidden in the glove compartment. Despite regular front wheel tracking checks (we live in an area with Third World roads plagued wih deep potholes) the tyres display very poor wear properties acress the tread face. Our local garage confirmed that our 108 is not alone in this and suggested that the design of the geometry is slightly flawed.

Whilst it has those quirky i**** items, it does not have either a rev counter or, even more importantly, an engine temperature gauge. Build quality is generally poor... as an example, the cover over the rear wiper motor assembly has never remained in place. As with many cheap modern cars it also has a very flimsy strip metal dip stick that can be easily misread. Older cars often had a flexible metal rod with annuli that offered a more reliable reading... and costing just a penny or two more. A general niggle is the fact that many broadcasters are moving or have moved exclusively to DAB radio with car makers following suit. It's bloomin' useless in the UK west of Kidderminster, Worcester and Ludlow!!

However, the serious down side is that the engine cam chain, sprockets and guides are NOT fit for purpose. Whilst one expects to change cam BELTS at, say, 60k miles, the need to change a chain based system at only 52k miles indicates that the engine is a piece of junk, (designed I believe, by Hyundai). We are now faced with a bill for about 25% of the purchase cost to keep the car on the road. Would we recommend this car to a friend? Nope, only enemies!

To sum up, this Pug 108 is a serious disappointment. Our previous experience of Peugeot products was with a 2.0L 405 Mi16 as well as 1.6 and 1.9 205 GTi's and a rocket ship GRDT shopping trolley. They were wonderful cars. How things have changed.

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