Peugeot 308 review
by David Finlay (6 September 2007)
The first thing to know about the 308 is that it shares the platform and what Peugeot describes as the "semi-tall architecture" of its immediate predecessor, the 307. Having absorbed that piece of information, you might want to forget it as soon as possible, since the 308 is far more than a rehash of old material. Instead, it represents a major step forward for Peugeot's offering in the medium-sized family car class.
Semi-tall it may still be, but the 308 is actually not quite as tall as the 307 was, by a matter of half an inch or so. It's longer and wider, though, in the interests of both space and the safety of anyone who may stray into its path. Other safety features include a quite complex system of energy absorption in the event of a front impact, and the standard fitment of six airbags to all models, plus - in higher trim levels - another in the steering wheel and two more optional ones at the rear sides.
During its crash test programme on the 308, Euro NCAP was sufficiently impressed with all this to award Peugeot five out of five stars for adult occupant protection, four out of five for child occupant protection (marks were lost only for unclear marking of safety items) and three out of four for pedestrian protection (the issue here being less effective protection of adult heads than Peugeot claims).
These ratings are matched in the class only by those of the Citroen C4, Toyota Auris and Volkswagen Golf, and if you look into the results in more detail you'll find that only the C4 scored more points in all three sections.
As for the 308's interior space, the only minor gripe is that the footwell is a bit tight for tall drivers (a very characteristic Peugeot problem). Apart from that, there's a lot of space up front, and more in the rear than there appears to be at first glance. The rear window seems very close, but the back of the car actually extends some way beyond it, leaving a marginally 307-beating 348 litres of luggage room to the level of the parcel shelf. With that shelf removed and the 60/40 split rear seat completely folded, the available volume increases to 1398 litres.
Now, you might expect Peugeot to be making a lot of noise about all this in its promotion of the new car, but instead the company is focussing on something for which it doesn't have an especially strong reputation, at least in the UK: quality. If my experience of the 308 so far is anything to go by, perhaps that reputation may change.
In the discussion about quality, much is being made of the 308's interior, which is indeed substantially better than that of most previous Peugeots (though perceptions about this depend on the colour of the trim - light tan is far more effective than black). But it's the way the 308 drives that creates the biggest impression.
I've tried two cars, both in Sport trim, one with a petrol engine, one with a turbo diesel. Both were impressively quiet, even when being pushed reasonably hard. Both were easy to handle thanks to Peugeot's very well-judged electric power steering system. Both had clutch actions which made smooth gearchanging easy, and although the gearlever's shift quality was in the same league as some pretty rattly examples from Peugeot's past it still felt somehow better and more fluid. Neither car was especially sporty, despite the name, but both were agile enough for their purpose.
Best of all, in each case, was the ride. Peugeot has a habit, in its hotter models, of making the ride so harsh that you suspect someone must have inserted lengths of drainpipe where the springs should have been, but the company is very good at making its more conventional cars float calmly but purposefully over less than top-quality tarmac. And with the 308 it may just have got better; I drove "my" cars - both of them fitted with low-profile tyres on 17" alloy wheels - over some distinctly dodgy back roads in Warwickshire, and the fact of the matter is that they behaved superbly.
They were very easy to drive in town, too, though visibility isn't quite what it might be. Actually, Peugeot points out that there is a great deal of glass area, which is certainly true, especially on models fitted with the enormous panoramic sunroof. The front side windows are helpfully large too, but the windscreen pillars are quite thick, and the rear pillars, following daft current fashion, are huge and make reversing manoeuvres too much a matter of guesswork.
From launch, there are 16 versions of the 308, all of them with the same five-door body style. The three petrol engines in the range are 90bhp 1.4-litre, 120bhp 1.6-litre and 150bhp 1.6-litre turbo versions of the unit co-developed by PSA Peugeot Citroen and the BMW Group. The turbo diesels come in the familiar PSA line-up of 1.6 90bhp, 1.6 110bhp and 2.0 136bhp.
The 308 comes in five trim levels called Urban, S, Sport, SE and GT. The serious equipment starts coming on from Sport onwards, and it's also at this point that Peugeot starts adding fancier-looking front and rear bumpers so that you can make visual statements about how much money you've spent.
And speaking of money, the range costs from £12,595 for the Urban to £20,045 for the GT HDi 136 (that's £1250 more than the petrol GT THP 150, which will however be more expensive to run thanks to greater fuel consumption and Group 13 insurance compared with Group 11 for the HDi).
All this is just the beginning of the 308 story. A slightly reduced three-door range (with no SE models) will be launched in the UK in December 2007, priced £600 lower than the equivalent five-doors. 2008 sees the arrival of automatic and electronically-controlled manual transmissions, plus a petrol engine which can run on up to 85% bioethanol. Peugeot is also promising more body styles, which we can take to mean that there will be SW (estate) and CC (coupé-convertible) models in due course.
The most intriguing 308 to have been confirmed for production - albeit a long way in advance - is the diesel/electric hybrid scheduled for 2010. I can quite believe that, by then, the 308 will be well-established as one of the best cars in the ferociously competitive C segment of the European market.
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