Road Test: Peugeot 208 1.4 HDI Active

Price as tested: €18,795

+ Looks, sense of quality, comfort, refinement, classiness
– Steering a touch mushy
= As chic and pleasant as a French hatch should be


As with all offspring, the new Peugeot 208 has some substantial shoes to fill, but oddly enough, those shoes belong to its grandfather, not its father, so to speak. From 1998, the Peugeot 206 was a roaring success for the rampant Lion, with more than 30,000 sold in Ireland alone in its lifetime, and millions more across Europe and the world. But its successor, the heavy, rather turgid 207 lagged behind. Way behind, shifting just 9,000-odd units in Ireland. Why? Well, odd styling didn’t help but the 207 also missed out on the crucial 1.0-1.2-litre ‘second car’ market (its smallest engine was a 1.4 and that was hardly a ball of fire), a segment that the 206 more or less made its own.

Now though, despite Peugeot itself being beset with falling European sales, financial woes and seeking changes in French law to help it climb out of its current crisis, the French are hitting back hard with the new 208, a car that seeks to reclaim the chic, small, sexy ground that was once the 206’s natural home.

Looks nice, doesn’t it? A touch snub-nosed, perhaps, but neat and neatly detailed. A little colour sensitive (please, please avoid the awful pink champagne metallic) but classy and stylish in a dark hue, or even white. The three door model even has a stylistic nod to the long beloved eighties Peugeot 205, with a small oval badge set into the c-pillar.

Inside, things look very, very different to what went before. In the 207, you got comfy seats but a massive fascia that seemed to eat unnecessarily into cabin space and cheap main dials that looked distinctly aftermarket. Almost nothing from the 207 then (or any other Peugeot model for the that matter) is carried over into the 208. All the switchgear is new, the centre-console mounted touch-screen looks nice (and is standard on all but the most basic model) and then there’s the steering wheel. Now, we’ve criticised Peugeots in the past for having massive, bulky steering wheels unbecoming of cars with a sporting mien. The RCZ coupe, without the optional Sport pack, was a particular offender. But the 208’s wheel is tiny, looking more like the wheel you get with a PlayStation driving game than one attached to an actual car. The main instruments (which are very handsome indeed and have more than a whiff of Audi about them) are actually mounted above the rim of the wheel.

Now, that sounds like a recipe for feeling that you’re sitting with the steering wheel resting on your knees, but actually, thanks to a broad range of adjustment for both wheel and seat, it only takes a moment to adjust to the new layout and once done, it feels entirely natural. The wheel itself feels really pleasant to hold; small and sporty rather than tiny and flimsy.

Sadly, it’s not attached to Peuegot’s best ever steering rack; the electrically assisted system is quick and accurate, but lacking almost entirely in road feel. It’s not bad, just not much fun. Which is a shame, because the rest of the chassis is very game indeed, resisting understeer well, cornering sharply,  and best of all; riding with a comfy, controlled compliance that leaves your backside and spine in glorious isolation. Bravo Peugeot, for resisting the temptation to bolt stiff springs and dampers for a faux-sporty feel. As ever, what is done for ride, when done well, is also good for handling.

For the rest, the cabin is spacious and comfy, the boot large and square and the overall levels of fit, finish and quality seem excellent. A shame that Peugeot hasn’t seen fit to extend its standard three year warranty to compete with the Koreans, but I guess you can’t have everything.

The engine in our test car was Peugeot’s familiar 1.4 HDI diesel with 68bhp and it’s a fine, if unremarkable, engine. It’s decently quiet for a diesel in small car, and Peugeot bucks the industry trend for such vehicles, expecting to sell almost half of all its 208s in Ireland with oil burners, rather than the more usual petrol-heavy ratio of competitors. It certainly gives the 208 some hefty mid-range punch (160Nm of torque in a car weighing just 1,050kg – some 110kg lighter than the old 207) will do that, and if you can match the claimed 3.8-litres per 100km fuel economy claim, you should be able to stretch to well over 1,000km between refills.

That said, it’s likely that the lighter, more high-tech 1.0 and 1.2-litre petrol engines will be the stars of the range though, with their light weights helping to give the 208 a more agile, rev-happy feel, but we’ll have to wait a few more months to get a taste of the petrol burners here.

Price-wise, the 208 undercuts most of its major opposition with a starting price of €14,495 for the 1.0 petrol 3-door, and out five-door diesel test car weighed in at €18,795 including cruise control and speed limiter (standard on all models), the touchscreen controller with Bluetooth phone integration and media player, 15” alloys and air conditioning. Decent value for money, that.

Peugeot’s problem will be that, while the 207 was underperforming, the 208’s rivals were doubling from just 16 similar others in 2001 to 27 now, with hefty competition not just from ‘traditional’ models like the Ford Fiesta, VW Polo and Toyota Yaris, but also hard-charging new comers like the Kia Rio and Chevrolet Aveo.

That the 208 is good enough to take them all on, on equal terms is without question. It’s a match for the Polo in quality terms, the Yaris in comfort and the Fiesta (almost) dynamically and much more stylish than the Koreans. Will it be enough to put the 208 back on the 206’s podium step? We’ll see...



Peugeot 208 1.4 HDI Active
Price as tested: €19,795
Price range: €14,495 to TBA
Capacity: 1,368cc
Power: 68bhp
Torque: 160Nm
Top speed: 160kmh
0-100kmh: 15.6sec
Economy: 3.8l-100km (74mpg)
CO2 emissions: 98g/km
Road Tax Band: A €160
Euro NCAP rating: 5-star; 88% adult, 78% child, 61% pedestrian, 83% safety assist