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dieselnutjob

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oh dear

 

For me the biggest mistake that they made in the 2000s was not doing a 607 estate.

When it first came out 2.2HDI autos were as good as anything else on the market, and I think that the V6 was quite good as well, but they needed a 505 estate replacement and the 607 should have been it.

 

The 207, 307 and 407 were all disasters compared with 206, 306 and 406.

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The top gear thing had me in stitches tbh, and it is very true! I have no interest in pug at all tbh anymore, would class an early 206 as new as I'd go.

 

What was wrong with jeremy convertible to make it spark like that. (I normally assume all that stuff is rigged but TBH modern French electrics etc...)

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The 308 is one of the ugliest mainstream cars of the last 20 years, whereas the 306 was perfectly proprtioned

 

I'm thinking you mean the pre.facelift 308, the current one looks fairly normal after all the blobfish grills of the past. About which - designer, field, baseball bat.

 

New 308

Peugeot%20308%20(2).jpg

 

Old 308

Peugeot%20308%20Facelift%20(3).jpg

 

Man with mouth full of snooker balls.

pool-ball-mouth1.jpg

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Basically when it comes to Peugeots...

 

If it's something 04 it will be solid and dependable

If it's something 05 (or a 309) it will be a bit flimsy but brilliant to drive and either fast or very cheap to run.

If it's something 06 then it's probably not so good to drive but stylish and comfy.

If it ends in 07 then it will be much uglier than its predecessor with electrics that Alfa would be ashamed of.

08s haven't made it into our territory yet and probably won't survive long enough to.

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607s not such a bad looking car, although the grille gives a hint of the insanity to come.

 

406 + XUD is a good combination. They don't seem to screw up electronically any more than any other cars of the time. Sometimes I suspect PSA are being dragged down because they're French and so is Renault.

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I admire TG for daring stick their noses out so far. Having pissed off whole countries, they've at last realised it's more fun to start acting like CAR magazine did with Volvo back in the early/mid-80s and royally fuck-off a car manufacturer making less than competitive products. It was a carefully put-together piece and correct in neartly every respect.

 

Question is, why did the Lion lose the plot at the end of the 90s? The 405 was awesome, the 406 a really good car. Medium-sized cars were as good and the 205 is a legend. Were they terminally distracted from trying to make sure side-kick Citroen didn't upstage them even when forced to use the same parts and sell their cars cheaper (they managed that reasonably effectively) or has it been the drip-drip of the EU and its constant bribes and obfuscation?

 

Farmers are well paid by the EU, loads of them are in France and plenty buy Peugeot with the handouts. In fact, there's a worryingly high percentage of farmers around here using their benefits cheques to buy more Peugoet. Does constant subsidy affect your judgement?

 

The one person I know who's in a position to know about these things is my MoT man. He loves Peugeots, he says, because they're always needing parts, and he doesn't give a toss that they're nastier to work on than other cars because he's paid for every hour he spends repairing them.

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I believe that the exact point in time when they lost the plot was when they replaced the 306 with the 307.

The 306 was a fairly tough, good handling car and with the HDI it had one of the best engines.  The GTI6 was also highly regarded.

The 307 was an unreliable over complicated boat.

 

In every case where the new model was inferior it was largely down to

a: degraded handling

b: a dramatic increase in electrical complexity

 

The good Peugeots had discrete ECUs to control different bits of the car.

The bad ones had multiplexed wiring and ECUs that talk to each other before agreeing to doing anything.

 

If they can sort the handling and get the electronics reliable maybe they can be good again.

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I quite enjoyed the TG feature although it was a bit over done as usual, I thought the history of Peugeot was interesting and you can't deny that they had a good point about the new cars having lost their way.

 

How good did that 505 GTi look though, Seeing that they aren't expensive yet I'd be quite tempted by one of those.

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I believe that the exact point in time when they lost the plot was when they replaced the 306 with the 307.

The 306 was a fairly tough, good handling car and with the HDI it had one of the best engines.  The GTI6 was also highly regarded.

The 307 was an unreliable over complicated boat.

 

Spot on. 2002 was the start of the end for the decent built cars although the 206 came out in 1998 and i always thought that was pretty wank.

 

I'd say Peugeots only saving grace was the fantastic diesel engines and their prices.

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The top gear thing had me in stitches tbh, and it is very true! I have no interest in pug at all tbh anymore, would class an early 206 as new as I'd go.

 

What was wrong with jeremy convertible to make it spark like that. (I normally assume all that stuff is rigged but TBH modern French electrics etc...)

307s love to melt the heater fan wiring loom so was prob that that was on fire

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We've got a 207 SW so I feel compelled to reply to this thread. It's not that it's a bad car, because it's not, and when we compared it next to a Golf it ticked a lot more boxes and was quite a bit cheaper second hand. The problem is, now we own it, it does everything ever so slightly unsatisfactorily. These ever so slight things are so slight that you'd never even notice them the first few times, but they start to creep up and it flips me into a rage every time I drive it.

 

Here is a list of a few of them:

-Steering wheel is too high and too far away. Adjusted as low and as close as it will go is still not enough.

-When steering wheel is adjusted as low and as close as it will go it obscures all the dash lights and the speedo between 25mph and 120mph. This is not useful.

-Seat adjustment is on a ratchet with a lever, not on a roller, so it's slightly too upright or slightly too laid back. No in between.

-Radio controls are complicated as fuck, like absolutely cannot work them out complicated and, as a scientist, I'd consider myself quite clever. It has iPod and other USB connectivity but it won't play anything in track order and it's utterly ridiculously complicated to set it to play by album.

-Heater controls. Where to start. Ok, hot/cold control is on two knobs that look like they came out a 1992 Fiat. Digital control so you have to look at the dash to see what you're doing. Fan speed is an up/down push button which you have to push all the way in until it bottoms out otherwise it doesn't operate. Same for the windscreen/car/footwell fan adjustment. Impossible to adjust while driving; in fact, I'd say it's dangerous.

-Brake is an unpredictable on-off switch. It has WAY too much power assistance and it's impossible to pull up smoothly without concentrating HARD on it. It's tiring driving like that. I thought I was going crazy at first, but the braking varies a bit on weather conditions, speed, which gear it's in and engine temperature. I'll come out some mornings and it simply won't have any brakes at the end of the road until it warms up and it'll scare the shit out of you.

-Autobox. Wasn't exactly expecting much out of this because small autos are generally pretty poor but this one takes the biscuit. Revvy VVT engine with a super short first gear doesn't mix and it's jerky and uncontrollable if it's slippery. It's also completely inconsistent in gear changing points. Same bit of road, same conditions; one day it'll change out of second at 28mph, another day it'll change at 20mph and straight out of 3rd into 4th and bog down. It's annoying that most of the time it doesn't change out of 2nd until 28-29mph, so round down it's always hanging in second gear at nearly 3000rpm.

-Throttle delay. I'm guessing it's got a fly-by-wire throttle but the delay can be alarming. Try to slot into a gap in traffic and sometimes it just sits there and does nothing, but you can't change your mind and hit the brake instead because the engine will gun right up as you take your foot off the pedal and won't come off before you've hit the brake.

-Fuel economy is embarrassing. It's a 1.6 and rewards us with an average of 36mpg. It'll do between 22mpg and 27mpg if I use it on my commute and I drive it like an old man.

-External dimensions. It might as well be twice its size because that's what it feels like. It's impossible to park and you can't judge where the corners are. Just pick a big space.

-Auto wipers aren't particularly automatic because you have to turn them on and, as soon as you come to a halt, the car turns them off.

-The car switches the battery power off to the cabin after about 5-10 minutes if it's not running. You can't have the radio on if you're cleaning the car. So I don't clean it.

-Steering is way too twitchy. It's not a nimble car, so it doesn't need steering like that.

 

There are some pro's:

-It was cheap, a proper depreciation monster and you'd be mad to buy one new.

-Interior space is way bigger than a Golf which is about the same size, the seats are further apart and it generally feels quite spacious.

-Comes as an SW wagon which is handy for hauling crap and chucking bikes in, which is what we do a lot of.

 

But it drives me insane and I hate it. If it wasn't her's I'd have got rid of the bloody thing a long time ago. I can't see these ever becoming Autoshite Gold, they'll just wind people up and it'll maybe the be the first piece of cheap chod that genuinely ticks all the Autoshite boxes but is actually too annoying to own.

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Define proper.

 

I think that the 306 and 406 are really good cheap cars and still plentiful. They could have bought any of them for under a grand and tried it.

 

If you mean 504 / 505 the problem is that they don't exist.  You can't buy one even if you want one.  If you want a 505 you are about 15 years too late.

 

They are totally right about peugeot losing their way but I would've preferred more screen time appreciating the proper ones and less smashing up the ones nobody cares about

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306 XUD or petrol is the newest I would go personally. A turbo diesel 306 is tried and proven as a GREAT car especially in agricultural and steam circles where I have seen many used and abused. 

Had a 1.1 petrol 106 which was OK but not a patch on the several 205s I've had. Would fuckin' love a 204, 304, 404 

A friend has had a couple of 107s from brand new which have been 100% reliable but they aren't "pure" Pug are they?? 

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Older Peugeots were fun to drive and worked well on enjoyable twisty roads.

 

They had their foibles but a good Peugeot was a laugh. Slightly daft seating position and hair trigger throttle action was part of the old Peugeot experience, along with cold start issues on any Peugeot with a carb.

 

They did indeed lose the plot.

 

I think it was a mad marketing led mission to get everyone with young children to buy Peugeot. Airbags and safety gadgets everywhere, make them dull to drive, make the steering almost Vauxhall shite, make them heavy and slow and make everything bleep until it fries your mind.

 

I quite like the Pug 406. In decent spec, other than the awful seats they're a nice enough car. I'd have a 3.0 Estate quite happily. 407? No. Not interested. I've driven a few and they aren't enjoyable, or even good.

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My 405 1.9 GRi was a seriously quick way to get from A-B, so understated and anonymous, yet on one occasion it kept a Sapphire Cosworth honest, admittedly it was on Welsh B roads in the wet at night. But if the Cossie was in front it couldn't shake off the Pug and if the Cossie started of behind it couldn't pass it. I'd like claim it was my superior driving skill, but we swapped cars during the night and it made no difference. Both cars were brand new so it wasn't a case of knackered engine or bald tyres.

Now, fast forward 25 years would a mid-range 508 keep up with even a decent hot hatch let alone whatever the modern Cosworth equivalent is ,M3?

This was why people loved Peugeots they were always good at everyday things, yet when you pushed a bit harder, they lit up.

Of course if the 405 had less than a quarter of a tank it cut out when cornering fast,which just adde to the fun,lift off oversteer is for winners.

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Now, fast forward 25 years would a mid-range 508 keep up with even a decent hot hatch let alone whatever the modern Cosworth equivalent is ,M3?

This was why people loved Peugeots they were always good at everyday things, yet when you pushed a bit harder, they lit up.

Of course if the 405 had less than a quarter of a tank it cut out when cornering fast,which just adde to the fun,lift off oversteer is for winners.

 

The 207 has got the lift-off oversteer thing, which I was surprised/pleased to find out when it did it for the first time. What should have been a look of complete surprise, panic and some bum clenching was in fact a smug grin and a calm turn of the steering wheel.

 

It'll outrun most of the VAG tdi's but you need to to give it loads of revs to do it, which doesn't mix well with a dire autobox. The manual might be better but I'll be fucked if I'll bother to find out. I don't actually care in the slightest. If you're genuinely trying to race diesel VAGs in a standard Peugeot 207 then you ought to take a look at your aims in life.

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