PICK UP A PEUGEOT SW IN 2006
03 January 2006 - Peugeot

With UK new car sales down in 2005, due mainly to retail customers having other financial issues to worry about, you can bet your life the first few months of 2006 will be awash with deals and too-good-to-miss offers as the industry tries to establish a good start to the New Year.

A big increase in 2005 was the demand for vehicles with diesel engines. These now account for nearly 40 per cent of all UK new car sales. Not only are they more frugal but also they generally offer better mid range performance due to the higher engine torque than petrol models. I’m not talking exotic cars here, just plain and simple volume selling models.

Before the end of December 2005 certain manufacturers were setting out their stalls with aggressive January to March 2006 reasons-to-buy. Dealers are chock-a-block with pre-registered vehicles and dealer demonstrators all with very few miles on the clock, all looking for new homes. These stocks must be cleared before dealers can start registering new 2006 cars - so it’s bargain time folks.

Bear in mind when visiting a dealer, franchised or an independent or any of the car warehouses, you are in charge, they need to sell you a car and will not want you to leave the showroom without buying one. So haggle hard, they need your business.

Typical of the C segment, or medium sized mainstream offerings, is the Peugeot 307 range. Voted International Car of the Year when it was launched in 2001. The 307 underwent a significant facelift and revamp during 2005 to freshen it up. It’s main competitors are the UK’s best selling car, the Ford Focus, the Vauxhall Astra, the 307’s cousin – the Citroen C4, the VW Golf and Renault Megane. Sometimes the 307 range makes the UK’s monthly top ten sales chart, sometimes it doesn’t, but around 45,000 of them found UK homes in 2005 and 250,000 have been sold in less than four years. Fifty per cent of customers are retail buyers and fifty per cent of all sales are diesel models.

The 307 is a range I quite often recommend to people who ask what to buy when they want a safe, secure, value for money, middle of the road, roomy car at a sensible price. Nobody has been disappointed with my advice – so far.

The 307 range has numerous variants with Euro IV compliant petrol and diesel engine options. Bodystyle options consist of three and five door hatchbacks, five door estates, the elegant four-seater CC, a Coupe Cabriolet with a folding metal roof, and my favourite version, the SW or Sports Wagon.

This model is more than a five-door hatch but it’s not quite an estate. You could say it is not one thing or another but to my mind it gives you the best of both worlds. Seating for five or more with a useable and flexible load carrying space big enough for luggage for all passengers and certainly big enough to carry the largest dog. Day in day out you are not carrying around loads of unused space as you are with an estate. However Peugeot tell me 62 per cent of UK customers go for hatchback models with just 15 per cent opting for the SW. Fleet customers mainly buy the estate versions. Depending on the exact model there are up five levels of specification available. The SW range starts at a very reasonable £14,300 bought new, but I’m sure you will get a discount on that price. Top model in the range is the SE HDi 136 diesel, priced at £17,800 but diesel models do start from a more realistic £15,100.

My test car, the top of the range SE HDi 136, also had the option of the third row of seats making it a six-seven seater. This option costs a reasonable £389 and the beauty with them is they can be folded completely into the floor so you retain the load area space but the seats are there as and when needed for occasional use. All SW models have as standard a huge panoramic sunroof with a one-touch electronic shutter blind - a feature wasted on me but all models have the more worthwhile air conditioning as standard.

Part of the 307’s revision in 2005 was a complete front-end re-style. It now adopts the new smiling mouth pioneered with the distinctive 407 range. Front and rear styling changes have created a very neat package and in common with most cars in this class the interior is well laid out, there are no major issues, it does what real customers want it to do, and in some comfort as well.

On the road the handling, or driving dynamics, are not as sharp as the class leading Focus, Astra or Golf but you really have to be an expert to be put off by anything this car has to offer as far as road holding and ride comfort is concerned. The 307 SE HDi 136 has an electronic stability programme with traction control and of course anti-lock braking. The 307 SE has a four star Euro NCAP safety rating and it comes with six airbags so its pretty well equipped.

The four-cylinder 2.0-litre direct injection turbocharged diesel engine with 136bhp and more importantly 240Nm of torque developed from just 2,000, makes it a very responsive and fast car to drive. The diesel engine although noisy from the outside, is very quiet in the car. Top speed is a swift 122mph with 0-62mpg covered in just 10.8 seconds. This car is faster than most petrol engined vehicles in its class; it’s a real performer. The official average fuel consumption is quoted as 50.4mpg; my test car did almost that at 48.9mpg, very impressive.

The only niggle, and it is one I have with several Peugeot models using a diesel engine and a 6-speed manual transmission, is the fact that fifth and sixth gear are too high, especially sixth which can only realistically be used on motorways. There is too big a gap between fourth and fifth gear and in busy traffic on open roads you just seem to be always in the wrong gear mid-range. The problem is that Peugeot and its sister company Citroen design these engines and transmissions to suit European markets as a whole and mainland Europe has many more miles of motorways and traffic free open roads.

Not wishing to end on a negative note, overall the 307 SW is a great family car. It looks really smart and most models are pretty good value for money. The top of the range SE 136 would be nice to have if I could get the price down but I could easily live with the S specification HDi 90 or 110 turbodiesel versions priced at £15,100 to £16,000 - less a discount of course.

MILESTONES: Peugeot 307 SW SE HDi 136. Price £17,800 but look for a big discount. Engine: 2.0-litre, four-cylinder, turbodiesel, Euro IV, 136bhp, 240Nm at 2,000rpm. Performance: 122mph, 0-62mph 10.8 seconds. Fuel economy: 50.4mpg, CO2 148 g/km, Band C £115 RFL. Insurance group: 10D. For: Useful size, versatile passenger and load carrying layout, well equipped, good looks, diesel engine performance. Against: Fifth and sixth gears too tall, efficient drive rather than class leading.

Miles Better News Agency

www.peugeot.co.uk

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