Peugeot 207 1.4 m:play Hatchback: A worthy little French number

Please note this review is of the Peugeot 207 1.4 without the 'm-play' option. (Socket for MP3 players)

  

Front end looks a bit 'gawky' but the rest of the car is fine.

When I think of French cars I think of stylish, fashionable & chic designs & from expierence of working on them, I think of shoddy build quality & unreliability. Put it simply, they don't have the solid build quality of German cars & no where near the reliability of Japanese cars. However, put them all in a showroom together & it will be the French car that gets all the attention, they have so much showroom appeal.

If there is a back to front, upside down way of doing things the French will do it & call it flair & imagination, for any poor sod who has to fix them, French cars are simply downright awkward to work on.

I will put all these prejudices behind me while I review the Peugeot 207, my partner for five recent days whilst I was in Ireland working. The new 207 is the successor to the old 206, a popular & good looking car often among the best sellers in the UK.

Not an ideal position to mount door mirror but you get used to it.

Looks are a subjective matter but on seeing this silver 1.4 207 for the first time I have to say it didn't do much for me. I don't like the gawky looking front end which looks like a big plastic mouth; it doesn't blend it with the rest of the cars looks. From the side & rear it looks fine but from some angles it doesn't impress me much.

Its standard of finish does, the doors close with a nice solid 'thunk' & not a 'clang' like many modern cars. The difference between a 'thunk' & a 'clang' is very important with car doors. As an example a large bank vault door would close with a nice solid 'thunk' but a shed door with garden tools hanging on the other side would close with a 'clang'.

The gaps around the 207's doors were even & tight & the paintwork finish was exceptionally good. The key provided allows for keyless entry if required, the key portion can be stored within the plastic housing & press a little button (like a flick knife) & the key blade pops out. There are two buttons on the key housing to lock & unlock the car.

Chrome edged dials & aluminium effect dash not a good mix,
radio CD control can be seen close to steering wheel.

As I sat inside for the first time I was amazed at the amount of room for such a small car. Five adults could sit in a 207 without much problems as long as they weren't 6'.5" basketball players, there is ample shoulder & head room with the rear leg room just a little tight.

Finding a comfortable driving position is another matter, the seats at first appear to be comfortable but getting a perfect driving position is much harder. The driver's seat features a bar at the front base to slide the seat forward & back with a side mounted lever to raise & lower the seat & another handle to recline the backrest. Once that is set, you can raise or lower the steering column but I found that my legs were perfect with the pedals but I needed to stretch my arms excessively to hold the steering wheel. 

Just great if you are a chimpanzee with longer arms but for a normal 5'10" human, it's not so good. On top of that the footrest next to the clutch pedal is so wide that my size 10 shoes often caught the footrest when depressing the clutch pedal.

If that's not bad enough, the front windows have small quarter windows similar to what is fitted to most rear doors on modern cars. It means the two door mirrors that look like an after thought, have been fitted closer to the middle of the door to avoid an obstruction from the quarter window pillars (see picture). It means that when you are driving the car you need to look further back than normal to view the door mirrors, not so good at speed or in bad weather.

Once driving the car for a few hours it became apparent that the driver's seat had very little lumbar support for the base of my back which started to ache. This seldom happens when I drive other cars.

Inside the 207 the general fit & finish is impressive, the distance from the drivers head to the bottom of the windscreen is about one metre. It means that you don't see the front corners of the car sitting in a normal position which may put off some potential buyers,

The dash is large to say the least but made from a rather nice soft feel material. The dials in front of the driver look quite cool with their chrome outer bezels but in certain light the dials attract reflections & look a bit odd next to the fake aluminium effect on the centre & outer dash fittings.

A large centre section of the dash is wasted for a small display showing time, outside temperature, radio display & milometer along with a trip meter. Why can't it be fitted in front of the drivers view beside the main dials? There is also a rather OTT display of seat belt reminders for each passenger when they are seated. Rather unnecessary when a 'chime' or 'buzzer' would suffice.

There are plenty of odd shaped cubby holes around the cabin, what looks a large glove box is actually a rather feeble effort with the fuse box behind. To make amends, the door bins are large & many of the cubby holes are lined in rubber to stop items falling around. Also inside is a rather good quality radio CD with decent sized buttons & a steering column mounted control for volume & switching channels, it's hard to find at first tucked behind the steering wheel (see picture).

Start the car up & as soon as you move off the doors automatically lock a handy feature to stop car jackers & thieves stealing goods from your car when parked at traffic lights.

The clutch travel is quite high before the clutch bites; it takes a while to get used to it as does the slightly light steering. Power steering is good for tight manoeuvring but this is a just a 'tad' too light for me.

The 1.4 litre engine is brisk & reasonably quiet at most speeds, it recorded 38.9mpg during my brief five day spell according to the 'on board' trip computer.

One disappointing feature of the 207 was the brakes, they are just too sensitive. Even light application would send you through the windscreen if you weren't belted up, it makes driving smoothly difficult until you get used to them. The car handles well & always feels safe & secure on twisted corners; at speeds the steering does feel more positive & not so light.

For such a small car the boot is quite large & easy to load, two cut outs on the inside of the tailgate assist closing. The tailgate closes without much effort with another solid 'thunk'.

Under the bonnet the usual weekly checks on oil, water etc are easily accessed & painted yellow for easy identification.

Some good points, when you start the car up & the outside temperature is low you get a warning of 'ice risk', this may just save someone belting down the road & hitting black ice one frosty morning. Also a neat little coin holder which is lined is situated in the front doors close to the door pull, if on the continent you are continually using coins for toll booths they can hold a few coins to save time rummaging through your trouser pockets or handbags at the booths.

Less impressive is the bonnet release, the French have decided not to move it to the opposite side to suit UK drivers & you have to stretch over to the passengers side to release the bonnet. However you have to open the passenger's door before you release it as the handle is obstructed by the door. When you pull it, it has a rather vague & brittle feel about it.

The Peugeot 207 is not perfect but is still worthy of a look, it's not for me simply because I don't like its looks, or the compromised driving position or those dreadful brakes. In the back of my mind is the fact that Peugeot have still got to resolve many reliability issues as their products still come out close to bottom in most customer satisfaction surveys.

Basic technical & equipment details:

1360cc (1.4) 4-cylinder engine

Uses unleaded fuel

5-speed gearbox

Urban fuel consumption 33.6mpg

Mixed driving 56.5mpg

Emissions 150g/km

Equipment include: Air conditioning, alloy wheels, electric front windows, electric door mirrors, central locking, Radio / CD & tinted glass.

No reversing sensors, no MP3 connection & no dimmer for the instrument lighting.

Sourch Peugeot 207 1.4 m:play Hatchback