Peugeot 3008 Full Test Drive Review!!! A Great People's Carrier!!

Another weekend has passed and what a great weekend to be spend with an all new Peugeot 3008 courtesy of Nasim Sdn. Bhd, the official distributor of Peugeot cars in Malaysia. The Peugeot 3008 is basically an SUV, MPV hatchback version which sits on the 308 hatchback chassis which also spawned the recently launched Peugeot 408 thus I truly believe this car will be a very fun car to drive with since the chassis of Peugeot 3008 is a very able chassis which can provide good ride and handling due to its chassis rigidity.

Honestly to me, the best view of this car is the aircraft style cockpit design when you are sitting on the driver side of this vehicle. More of this will be explained on the later part of this review. First of all let’s review the creature comfort of this car. The Peugeot 3008 seats are all covered with soft Black/Grey leather which matches with the dark interior trim of the car that uplift the sense of luxury to this car. The chrome accent on the air-cond vent, the toggle switch at the centre instrument panel and at the gated shift panel also makes this Peugeot 3008 truly a luxury car. To add the airiness of the ambience of the car, Peugeot has added a panoramic sunroof with anti pinch safety feature and electronically controlled curtain. This panoramic sunroof is tinted and it is good at filtering the UV rays and blocking the hot sun from spoiling the coolness of the interior.

Speaking of coolness of the interior, the 3008 has been equipped with an automatic dual zone air conditioning with AQS (Air Quality Sensor) on the front row of the car and also a rear air cond vent for the passenger side of the car. To spice of the joy of driving this car is the MP3 CD player which features the World in Peugeot Sound that blasted six speakers: 2 at the front, 2 rear speakers and 2 tweeters. Basically the setup of this ICE is the same as in Peugeot 308, but to me the sound reproduction is less crisp as compared to the Peugeot 308 where the sound stage is more clear and involving. I don’t say the sound is bad coming out from this ICE, but it lacks the final clarity to the sound that completes the whole journey in this car. To control the ICE is rather easy as Peugeot has added a finger tip audio remote control at the back of the steering wheel thus you don’t have to switch your driving vision when you want to change the channel of your radio.

Speaking of easiness, the engineers of Peugeot has added very novel features to this car which is the automatic electric parking brake. The operation is very easy actually as you just need to toggle the switch when you want to activate the parking brake and when you want to continue driving, just tap on the accelerator pedal, and the electric parking brake will automatically release the parking brake. This feature is truly remarkable when you are driving on the hilly route and with this feature, you can really focus on driving the car during the stop and go situation without the feature of the car rolling back. Another novel feature of this car is the Head Up Display (HUD) which projects the travelling speed of the car and also the auto cruise speed that you have set on the system. The features is rather neat actually as you can focus your eyes on the road in front of you while driving thus eliminating the need to switch your focus to look at the travelling speed and also the auto cruise speed that you want to set. This HUD display can be switch on or off based on your preference and you can also set the height of the project display to match your preference.

In terms of storage, the Peugeot 3008 features an ample amount of storage facility where the boot space is measured with 512 litres of space and this boot can be maximise with its versatile 3 level boot system. The boot system features a split tailgate where the tailgate opens in two parts i.e. the upper tail gate can be open as like a normal car, and the lower tail gate can be open when you want to put in heavy object and you can slide the object towards boot without the need of lifting the object higher off the ground. To enhance the boot space, the rear seat can be folded with its 60:40 arrangement thus you can easily fits in any object in the boot. Beside the boot space, the front centre armrest also features a rather unique amount of space with its 13.5 litres of cold storage facility.

In terms of safety, the Peugeot 3008 structure is reinforced with ultra high and high tensile steel to protect the occupant of this car and it has been awarded with 5 star Euro NCAP tests which were done in the year 2009. To further add safety to this car, the car features six airbags which is on the driver side, a front passenger airbag with deactivate switch, driver and front passenger side airbags and also two curtain airbags. Other safety features includes Dynamic Roll Control (DRC), Peugeot Hill Start Assist, Electronic Stability Program (ESP), Anti Lock Braking System (ABS), Electronic Brake Distribution (EBD), Emergency Brake Assist (EBA), Anti Skid Regulation (ASR) and Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) which helps the driver to safely manoeuvre this car when driving. Besides that, the car also features an anti whiplash front seat headrest which protect the head and neck during accident, a front seat belt with Pretensioner and force limiters, a rear 3 point seat belt with force limiters and 2 ISOFIX location points on the rear seat where you safely mount your child seat to the car.

In terms of the engine, the 3008 feature a familiar engine as other car in the Peugeot stable. The car is powered by a 1.6 litre twin scroll turbo high pressure (THP) engine with direct petrol injection, 4 inline cylinders, DOHC 16 Valve with variable valve timing. This engine churn out 156bhp and blasting 240Nm of torque mated to a six speed auto adaptive gearbox with Tiptronic and Sport mode selection.

So how does the Peugeot 3008 feels on the move. First of all, the pulling power of this turbo engine is not as potent as when you drive the Peugeot 308. This may be due to its higher kerb weight as compared to the 308, but for an SUV, MPV car, this engine is sufficiently enough to pull all the people on board of the car with all the boot space fills up. Once the initial turbo lag diminished the car can easily propel to century sprint in 9.5 seconds which is quite amazing for a people’s carrier car and it will blast away until its maximum speed of 202km/h before the ECU kicks in to limit the speed.

Amazingly for this car, which is quite tall than normal car, the car feels so stable at high speed. It’s all about how brave you are to attack the corners, but I can safely say that, this car can truly handles well on corners with slight accelerator pedal ease off, control the steering to where you want the car to point at, let the body settle the slight roll, and you are back on accelerator and there you go. That’s how easy to handle this car at speed on corners. The electro hydraulic variable power assisted steering is very direct on corners and provide much feedback when you needed the most and amazingly, the steering feels much lighter to handle as compared to the Peugeot 308 where the steering sometimes can feel quite heavy especially during the low speed manoeuvres. In terms of braking, Peugeot has supplied with a very assuring braking system to stop this car, and it can handles well to provide a very good grip and assuring brake when you needed the most. In terms of ride comfort, Peugeot engineers has setup the suspension on the neutral side, which not that firm as compared to the Peugeot 308 Turbo, and not that soft like any SUV, MPV out there.

  

On the of the gearbox performance, I have mentioned during my previous reviews with Peugeot 308 VTi and 308 Turbo, the gearbox remains as the missing link to the refine engine, but amazingly for the 3008, this missing link has been address by the Peugeot engineers. Even though it is basically the same gearbox as in the 308 Turbo, the engineers of Peugeot has manage to calibrate the Transmission Control Unit (TCU) with a very refine and able gearshift selection. To me the gearbox is almost spot on where the gear shift at the right gear most of the time when you needed the most, either during low speed town driving, on an extra burst of acceleration during hill climbing.

In terms of driving position, as an SUV/MPV car, the car sits slightly higher than the normal car, with the large glass area and cockpit style dashboard, the driving position provides you with a very commanding view of the car in front of you thus it’s certainly helps when you want to manoeuvre in tight space area.

To sum it up, I can say that the Peugeot 3008 is a very able people’s carrier car, with its large and ample storage facility, great power train and drive train, this car can simply fits as a family car as it provides the extra engine oomph’s when you needed the most while still providing the extra space of a family car. There are five colour pallets to choose from and as like any new Peugeot cars now, the 3008 features a 5 years unlimited mileage warranty and the OTR price of RM 146,888.00. Finally for this car, I rate it as

Auto Insider Malaysia (AIM) Rating: 4.5/5 Stars