Peugeot 408 2023 long-term test
A hatchback? A crossover? To us, the Peugeot 408 is simply appealing, practical transport
*Why we’re running it: *To see if Peugeot can refresh the family car market with an innovative mash-up
-Month 3 - Month 2 - Month 1 - Specs-
-Life with a Peugeot 408: Month 3-
*Some améliorations des performances arrive over the air - 29 November*
Nothing is real any more. An exaggeration, fine, but as our world turns from physical to digital, it seems to me that its workings are becoming abstracted.
It’s the difference between hardware and software: even a non-techy person can look at a computer and see it’s composed of physical components, but the programs running on it aren’t tangible or understandable. Thus when something software-related goes wrong, we have no idea of why, we can’t look into the problem and we sure can’t fix it.
I find this abstraction very troubling, especially in situations where there are no workarounds.
Heated seats, say: when they’re on a rocker, they usually work, and if they don’t, the switch is broken, or some wiring is. When it’s an icon on a screen that won’t be tapped, what can you do? Turn the car off and on again – but if that doesn’t work?
As autumn fell, I found that these icons in my Peugeot 408 were about as willing to work as railway staff: fingers crossed every day then exasperation on half of them.
At least the climate control never followed suit, as it did in my old Seat Leon. Now that was beyond the pale.
I also occasionally suffered from some linkage issues with the 408’s wireless Apple CarPlay, through which I listen to podcasts and music and get sat-nav. The audio stopping and not restarting is very frustrating, and being left without live traffic information potentially ruinous during rush-hour commutes.
I was therefore pleased to learn one evening that the 408 could get over-the-air software updates – still novel and a fantastic innovation.
The touchscreen said the update would take just 11 minutes, so I sat in to watch it being downloaded and installed. (Note that you can’t use the car during the process.
Happily it can be deferred.) Eleven minutes it indeed took, but I was dismayed to find that, rather than fixing the few annoying niggles, it had added a few simple games. For when I was bored while waiting in the car, it said. I mean, I have a book and a phone for that.
The next day another 11-minute update came, but as once more its name was merely ‘amélioration des performances’ (thank William of Normandy for cognates), I’ve no idea what actually happened.
Then came a third – although this one was due to take around 25 minutes. I’m assuming it was slower because I was at football, not at home, where there’s a 5G data tower not 100 yards away.
Anyway, again I couldn’t work out what had been ameliorated, but it seemed the CarPlay link was if anything actually shakier. To be clear, the 408 has one of the better touchscreen systems that I’ve used recently.
It’s usually pretty easy to find what you need, it has a row of large shortcut icons on a secondary touchscreen below and, while I would infinitely rather have physical climate controls, the ones on the screen are at least big.
But when it comes to digital-only features, they really must be 100% reliable. And as anyone who uses digital devices knows, that’s never the case. Read between the lines...
I don’t think it’s acceptable that studios now release imperfect video games – some are truly unplayable at first – and then ‘patch’ the issues wirelessly.
We can’t let this method seep into the car industry. Heated seats are trivial, but we’re racing into a future in which the abstract ones and zeroes control everything.
*Love it *
*Winter warmers*
As ever, I adore feeling nice and warm on cold mornings without having to choke on cooked air.
*Winter warmers*
I just wish the seat and steering wheel were controlled by a switch, not a temperamental screen icon.
*Mileage: *4612
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*The 408 is a handsome car, both to the public and our chief sub editor - 15 November*
It’s not just me who thinks the 408 is a looker: it has attracted an unusual number of turned heads and even a few questions. Some are shocked that it’s a Peugeot (not just because of the logo change), others that it’s not electric (indicative of what nonenthusiasts now assume when they see ‘new’) – including a cashier at a petrol station. Brain on, mate!
*Mileage:* 3272
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-Life with a Pegueot 408: Month 2-
*Red versus blue: is the plug-in hybrid worth an extra £8600 over our turbo petrol? - 18 October*
When we had a plug-in hybrid Peugeot 408 in for a road test the other week, I took it for a spin to compare with my pure-petrol 408 – and what surprised me wasn’t how different they felt but how similar.
The Obsession Blue car was in the same range-topping GT spec as my Elixir Red one, meaning it had the same sporty look, Alcantara and leatherette interior trim and every piece of equipment possible.
I love the look of the 19in Graphite alloy wheels on my car, but the 20in Monolithe set on the PHEV are yet more eye-catching, looking like motion blur even when static.
So as I settled into the PHEV and started looking around, the sole differentiator was a blue-on-black theme to the infotainment touchscreen and digital dial display, rather than my green-on-black on
(although I’m sure that could have be changed), and when I turned it on, some electricky readouts and graphics and the option of EV mode.
I also noticed that the i-Toggles – essentially big touch icons that act as shortcuts for the touchscreen – were different (but again, these could have been changed around).
The PHEV defaults to hybrid mode, and when I got moving, it really didn’t feel that different to my petrol – which, I should say, is very pleasing indeed.
The power difference between the two models isn’t enormous, at 50bhp (although there is a 222bhp PHEV as well), and the blending in of the electric motor didn’t have a notable effect on the urban driving characteristics.
As I hit faster roads, I did notice a couple of things: the PHEV felt heavier in the way it rode and was a little less willing to quickly change direction (although it still was thoroughly enjoyable for what is a mainstream family car), while the
brake pedal felt less definite. The former was entirely predictable, the difference of the motor, battery and other ancillaries amounting to 304kg.
That’s two adult passengers – if they were both a Tonga prop, that is, and you’re definitely going to feel that... The latter felt such a minor difference, though, that I doubted myself and was relieved to see our road testers use the word ‘spongy’.
I recall first driving a PHEV about seven years ago and being dismayed that it did very few miles on electricity alone, and then only at low speeds, before returning rubbish MPG on the motorway section of my journey home. The breed has come a long way since.
The 408 felt great when I selected EV mode – and assuaged my guilt of driving an ICE car through choking London.
With the motor supplying 109bhp itself, the PHEV was a mere 19bhp short of my petrol (yes, it has 128bhp, not 178bhp as I stupidly wrote in my first report) and it had no qualms about continuing in EV mode onto an A-road.
It even returned an electric economy figure nearing 4.0mpkWh, which would equal a range of more than 40 miles – the official maximum.
I didn’t have time to do a full economy test, but our road testers averaged 37.9mpg – actually a tad more than my petrol did on its last tank. And if you only drive around town and charge at home, I suppose your MPG ceiling in the PHEV would effectively be infinity.
The problem with the PHEV – and it is a big one – is, as I mentioned in my first report, the price disparity: £34,825 and £43,450 to buy or £414 and £598 per month on Peugeot’s PCP finance scheme.
It’s hard to say how long it would take to earn that back through fuel savings, but it ain’t gonna be next week. With that said, if you’re a company car driver, it will cost you far less in benefit-in-kind tax, at 8% rather than 32%.
PHEVs have always seemed to me like a rarely reached answer on one of those ‘yes/no’ flowcharts. But if your branch does end with ‘PHEV’, please do consider the 408, and not just for its fabulous styling.
*Love it *
*Pleasant noise*
I’ve always liked the growl of the Puretech triple, but the near silence of the PHEV in EV mode reduced my stress levels in traffic.
*Loathe it*
*Annoying noise*
Until I lowered my window, that was, because the motor squealed under acceleration. It made me yearn for an angelic synth tone
*Mileage: *1989
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-Life with a Peugeot 408: Month 1-
The 408 has had a baptism of fire – or rather of furniture, bags and plants – delivering my girlfriend’s and her mate’s stuff from flat to flat. We hired a Ford Transit to move the sofa, but nothing else was too big for the hatchback once we folded the rear seats. It took 10 trips to shift all the gear, but it might have been 100 if we had used his Hyundai i10.
*Mileage: *1131
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*Welcoming the 408 to the fleet - 13 September 2023*
It’s a saloon... It’s an SUV... It’s a Peugeot 408! When a car maker says things like it’s “introducing a novel silhouette to the market” and “reinventing the hatchback”, it can be tempting to snort at the hyperbolic puffery, but in this case such assertions are hard to argue with.
The 408 came out before the closely related Citroën C5 X, and while there’s a whiff of Polestar 2 about the shape, there’s a lot more ground clearance, because the extra body height isn’t due to a floor-mounted battery.
Aye, this is a good old-fashioned petrol. Or rather I should say new-fashioned. It strikes me that Gilles Vidal and his team were very clever here in essentially designing a big family car of the Ford Mondeo ilk but sitting higher off the ground and adorned with some other SUV-esque design touches to almost trick the great uninterested away from all their Nissan Qashqai-a-likes.
I’m all for anything that brings the average height of cars on our roads back down, and especially so when the result looks fantastic, as I believe the 408 does from every angle. Its sharpness speaks of Peugeot’s slight drift upmarket – as does its newly redesigned logo, which several people have said looks quite Ferrari but to this football nerd is rather more FC Sochaux. Oh, hang on...
Having learned to drive in my grandad’s old 406 SW and then bought a 206 as my first car, I dearly want Peugeot to win. But it will need to play out of its skin to do so, because it has taken on a tough challenge with the 408.
It seems everybody wants to ‘go premium’ these days, but that’s far easier said than done, and many who have tried have fallen short – except in eye-widening price rises, of course.
We’ve gone for GT trim – the priciest of the three – which takes our car to £34,825. Swap its petrol engine for the slightly punchier plug-in hybrid powertrain and you’re looking at £43,450. Sheesh!
On first impression, though, Peugeot has justified these lofty numbers inside. Its i-Cockpit dashboard configuration continues to look futuristic, even after a decade on the market, and it has now been enhanced by the introduction of larger digital ‘buttons’ called i-Toggles.
The seats are deep-set, supportive and trimmed in decent faux leather. And the other trim materials include Alcantara, soft-enough plastics and bits of aluminium. I like the stitching, too, in the lime green of Peugeot Sport Engineered - as seen on the Le Mans hypercar.
Also on the standard list is six-way electronic adjustment, heating and a massage function for the front seats; heating for the steering wheel; ambient lighting; dual-zone climate control with a purification filter, a 10in, 3D-effect digital dial display and a 10.0in touchscreen with sat-nav and smartphone mirroring. I mean, goodness, my 206 didn't even have air-con!
Away from comfort features, there’s also adaptive cruise control; lane-keeping assistance; blindspot monitoring; three selectable driving modes; a powered tailgate with a foot sensor; keyless entry; and LED matrix headlights with automatic full beam.
I’m grateful for the added option of a 360deg parking camera in addition to the standard beepers, and for the tremendous premium paint, but I would rather have the Focal premium stereo (because the standard one is pretty puny) instead of the wireless smartphone charger (because all these ever seem to do is cook your phone) and Peugeot’s Drive Assist 2.0 system (because all such things ever do is wind me up).
That petrol engine, by the way, is the 128bhp version of the PSA Group’s (so nowadays Stellantis’s) turbocharged three-cylinder 1.2-litre unit, called the Puretech. This has been much lauded over the years, and I rather liked it during the pandemic days inside my 2008 crossover, as it was eager, was economical (45mpg) and emitted an appealing growl.
There’s no diesel 408, and I’m the worst imaginable candidate for a PHEV, having no home charger and a 140-mile daily motorway commute. If you’re a company car driver, even one with a similar use case to me, you might want to know that it’s a 1.6-litre system with a 42-mile EV range, reducing BIK tax from 32% to 8%.
Any criticisms? Well, I strongly disliked the driving position that the small, rectangular steering wheel of the i-Cockpit forced when I had my 2008, and it's much the same story in the 408, but I won't start banging on about that again now. I knew what to expect and it's a subjective rather than objective issue, clearly, when millions around the world seem to have no problem with it.
This 408 seems to tick (almost) all the right boxes for me, then. Let's see how many I scrub out in the weeks and months to come.
*Second Opinion*
I was immediately impressed by the character and punch of the 408’s tiny three-pot: it’s more than enough for a car of this surprisingly generous stature. I hope it suits Kris’s lengthy commute, though, because over 300 miles with me on the motorway, it failed to crack 40mpg.
*Felix Page*
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-Peugeot 408 1.2 Puretech GT specification-
*Specs: Price New* £34,825 *Price as tested* £36,725 *Options *Elixir Red varnish paint £850, Drive Assist 2.0 £500, 360deg Vision £450, wireless smartphone charger £100
*Test Data: Engine* 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol *Power* 128bhp at 5500rpm *Torque* 170lb ft at 1750rpm *Kerb weight* 1392kg *Top speed* 140mph *0-62mph* 8.3sec *Fuel economy* 48.1mpg (claimed) *CO2* 133g/km *Faults* None *Expenses* None
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