Urban 1.4 8v 5dr Hatchback

Cheap way to get teenagers through early driving career

My partner likes Peugeots, they're normally a comfortable ride and somewhat sporty. This one isn't sporty - nowhere near enough bhp's or foot-pounds for real fun, but it is light, grippy and comfortable for 5 real people. And its Group 3 insurance. Not much is less. Various of our teenagers have loved learning and driving it.

Fuel economy not stunning - late thirties in town at best. Better on a run but not a fuel-miser.

Around town it's a hoot. It's bearable long distance, though the two-speaker stereo struggles to overcome the engine and road noise at speed on motorways. It looks nice like all of the 20x's. Gearbox and clutch are light and quite sweet. Cabin is a nice place to be, controls all in the right places and feel solid. All of us can get good driving positions (we range from 5'0" to 6'2" so that's no mean feat).

The manual door mirror adjusters and door handles are in the wrong places so you always knock the mirror out of place when getting out.

HJ is spot on about the rear doors on the 5-door. They feel like they're made of Bacofoil and you worry about having deformed them the noise they make when you shut them. Despite that they seem sturdy enough.

Shortly after we bought it, the front brakes started to "pulse" and became noisy. Local garage looked at it. The entire inside faces of both brake discs had corroded. He'd never seen the like. Pads and discs changed and ok since then.

Had a few gremlins with engine management, stalling when revs dropping while braking, spurious engine failure messages on dash readout and accompanying fault light. Mostly cured by firmware update under (entirely justified) recall, stalling seems to have stopped, still get occasional engine failure message at startup but it no longer trips the OBD light.

We've just had a head gasket go at 22k miles. Luckily for us it was picked up a month before the 3 year Peugeot warranty expired and Lookers in Cardiff sorted it gratis. They gave the car a very tidy wash and valet for our trouble which was appreciated. From conversations while booking in and picking up, head gasket failures on this engine are by no means a rare occurrence. This one just bled oil over the front of the engine rather than mixing it up with the coolant, but it would have been a hefty bill if we'd had to pay it ourselves nonetheless. Hopefully the gasket has been redesigned so we don't get another visit in future.

Without the need for teenage insurance, my partner would go for a (bit) meatier engine and go up the spec ladder to get more speakers next time. I'd go for a Toyota instead. The Pug's got character (usual French quirkiness) and we all love driving it, but I worry about the costly failures that we and other owners have had.

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