Living with the Peugeot 2008 – Review

In January we were invited to review the Peugeot 2008 Crossover.

The 2008 packs a lot of driving features into its robust yet elegant compact frame. The 2008 takes style cues from the 208, but adds a distinctive SUV twist with Allure and Feline engines to tackle tough road conditions and therefore perfect for those who are adventurers, and spend a lot of time outside, just like us!

I was super excited when it was delivered as not only does it look great, we had a lovely Emerald green one, but it is packed full of technology which my geeky husband got to grips with straight away, including bluetooth so he could play his music from his phone, parking sensors to make parking easier and grip control which was an added bonus when we had a particularly icy night.

The Peugeot 2008 Crossover puts economy at its heart, using the latest generation engines with PureTech and BlueHDi Stop & Start technology to save even more fuel and achieve EURO 6 emissions standards which was perfect for driving on a trip to London where we seemed to get stopped at every single traffic light on a day trip to The Shard. It does take some getting used to though as the engine switches off completely when you take the car out of gear and put the handbrake on – it starts again automatically when you touch the clutch.

We have a Peugeot 308 and the 2008 was roughly the same size, although does have slightly more boot space and a higher roof. What really struck me though was how much lighter the 2008 was to drive and although the 1.2L didn’t have quite as much power a pulling away as our 1.6L 308, it was still nippy about town and gave a smooth and fast drive on the motorway.

One of my favourite features was the multi-function colour touch screen that sat in the centre of the car between the driver and passenger seat which puts everything at your fingertips. Sadly in my model it didn’t have the sat nav, however it did have DAB radio, bluetooth and could even show pictures from our phones. The screen was also where the parking sensor and grip control functions could be seen and if your phone doesn’t have bluetooth it also has a USB input for an external audio device.

We made good use of the grip control too. We had the car during two very different changes in the weather. We experienced the coldest night of the year on the evening we decided to head down country roads to a quiz night and used the snow and ice setting, plus we also had some awful wet weather later in the week and ended up parking in a very wet and muddy Moors Valley. Having these settings was an added bonus and I felt confident driving the car in both conditions.

The interior of the car was very classic and practical, with black seats with a contrast emerald stitching, of which was also present on the steering wheel. The internal door had a lovely silver trim with electric front windows, ‘one touch’ for driver, and a tool to easily adjust the wing mirrors too.

The only issue I had with the car was the fact that it did not have three full seats in the rear of the car, instead like most smaller cars it had 2.5 seats. Although we managed to squeeze three adults in the back without car seats, with the addition of two full car seats poor Isaac was wedged in between them with barely any room to move.

For us this would be an ideal second car as it is a good size, practical and brilliant on fuel consumption (360 miles on a full tank of petrol) and I would recommend this to smaller family or one with at least one child not in a car seat.

Whether you’re off on a weekend away or simply for a bike ride, the Peugeot 2008 is ideal and offers an array of driving features that can only really be explained if experienced!