All New Peugeot 208 – Let Your Body Drive Test Drive Story

All New Peugeot 208 – Let Your Body Drive Test Drive Story

Lately there a quite a number of Peugeot 208s moving around the Penang island road, most of the cars are driving by ladies. Anxiously, me and my friend  are a bit  ‘kepo’ and want to know  more about this all new Peugeot 208 with its motto of ‘Let your body drive’.

After we had our lunch at Taman Pekaka, Penang, we proceed to the new Peugeot showroom at Sungai Pinang.

When I stepped into the Peugeot showroom,  we were greeted by the friendly salesman. Then I saw the white 5-doors Peugeot 208. The first impression of the car was not impressed me.  The Peugeot 208 doesn’t look attractive in 5-doors and cap rims. Personally I am prefer the Peugeot 208 is equipped with 16″ Two Tone Helium alloys (5 doors) or 17″ Two Tone Oxygen Alloys (3 doors), that car look much better. They don’t have Peugeot 208 coupe, leaving us no choice but to test drive this 5-door Peugeot 208.

I proceed to pass my IC and license to the salesman for photocopies.

The new continental car, Peugeot 208 exterior design are simple and plain with classy feel. Unlike those Japanese and Korea car nowadays, those cars looks stylish and sporty.

The salesman told us the Peugeot cars chassis at below are coated with anti rust agent. That meant if we are accidentally scratched or dented the bottom chassis, the bottom chassis would not be rusted. Well, something new for me.

We can see there are some rough surface on the bottom chassis with blended with the car’s body paint color. The rough surface is the surface that treated with anti rust agent. Another thing that we discovered is, Peugeot cars bottom chassis are fully covered and protected with chassis cover. This will prevent dust, stones, sand, rats from getting into the engine bay. My car don’t have bottom cover for the engine bay 🙁

Once the salesman done photo copied my IC and license, we proceed for the test drive.

The car interior is furnished fully in black color included the seats and dashboard. The dashboard design looks neat and simple. The panel meter cluster and the audio player with Interactive HD Color Touchscreen seem popping out from the dashboard. Perhaps, that how continental designs are. The design don’t fit me and my friend cup of tea.

Though it is not an great design but the location are great which allow the driver to navigate between driving while checking the panel meter and display in no time. The interactive HD color touchscreen and panel meter located on top of dashboard which minimize the driver eyes movement from the front windscreen.

Peugeot 208 driver seat is comfortable for us with height at below 175cm. The driver seat and front passenger seat come with 6 ways adjustment manually. The seats come with  Semi-bucket Moonlight Fabric Seats.

The Peugeot 208 has a good legroom on the rear seats.  We don’t feel the cramp when we sitting at the rear seats even though the front seats have taken a lot space.

The 5-doors Peugeot 208 come with many features such as digital dual zone auto air conditioning, rear parking aid with audio visual assistance and 4 sensors,Arkarmys 3D sound system with 6 speakers. The quality of sound is much better than my original ICE Toyota Vios. The bass’s sound is deep enough with crystal clear treble. We have no complain over the in car entertainment system.

The automatic air conditioning is powerful enough as the air conditioning able to circulate the cold air in the Peugeot 208 cabin very fast and effectively.

Peugeot 208 do come with armrest which is one of the accessory I love using it but hardly be found on compact car. Compact car, like Perodua Myvi and Suzuki Swift don’t come with armrest. Though Peugeot 208 come with armrest, but I found out that the armrest actually blocking me when I wanted to pull/release the hand break.

The Peugeot 208 gear knob come with elegance design that refined with chrome finishing.

Now is time to head down to the road and rev around the city with the new Peugeot 208. We were routed to the Lebuh Sungai Pinang, according to the test drive route from the showroom. The route is quite short for us to really push the car, and we tried to negotiate with the salesman for longer and better route but we failed to convinced him.

The route is fixed by the showroom, and our obedient salesman leaving us no choice. We proceed our test drive on that short route.

Peugeot 208 move effortless upon I step on the accelerator pedal.  The accelerator ratio from the gas pedal of the car is precise and easily to control because I can easily deliver smooth acceleration of the car from standstill without making the car jerking , and the steering feel is firm and solid.

Upon hit on the straight and empty road, I give the Peugeot 208 a harsh try, by slammed the accelerator pedal stick to the the floor. The Peugeot 208 packed with 4 Inline Cylinders, DOHC 16 Valve, VTi (dual Variable Valve Timing & Lift) 1.6CC which capable to deliver Max Horsepower (122ps@6000rpm) with Max Torque (160Nm@4250rpm) did not turned us down.  The car accelerated powerful and smooth even though the car was loaded with 3 adults.

Peugeot 208 equipped with 4-speed, Auto Adaptive Gearbox with Tiptronic and Sport Mode gave us the smooth gear changing even on harsh acceleration. I barely feel the gear changed during the ‘Drive’ mode.

Then we tried out the ‘Sport’ mode, which giving the car more power by allowed the engine to rev at higher RPM before shifted to the next gear. Under ‘Sport’ mode, I can feel the car is jerking each time the gearbox is changing the gear due to shifting at high RPM. Driving Peugeot 208 around the city was fun, especially the with the ‘Drive’ mode which allow us manually change the gear through Tiptronic according to the driver desire.

Meanwhile, ‘Sport’ mode do not have Tiptronic manual gear changing feature as ‘Drive’ mode and Peugeot 208 will only automatic shift the gear when at higher RPM, which is around 4000rpm to 5000rpm.

The car performance is much powerful than my Toyota Vios. I’ gotta admit that 🙁

Handling of Peugeot 208 is impressive as well.  The electric steering is very responsive , firm and keeping us in control and confidence. We get to try few sharp turns at high speed, the car seem solid and good stability without over-steer . Thanks to MacPherson struts up front with an anti-roll bar and a cross member axle at the back.

Peugeot 2o8 give us a comfortable ride. The seats offer good seating posture, there certainly wouldn’t be too much fatigue over long distances.

Overall, Peugeot 208 is a compact B-segment car, that give us comfortable ride yet packed with some performance and fun drive mode. Pricing at RM85, 888 for 5-doors while RM95, 888 for 3-doors. After the test drive, we proceed to test drive Volkswagen Polo 1.2 TSI.

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