Test drive Peugeot 5008
The salon of a business van, a home sofa, an airliner cabin, a point of attraction, a children's bus, a gadget on wheels and other associations that are caused by an unusual seven-seater crossover from France
In our market, the French call the Peugeot 5008 a crossover, but in terms of layout and convenience it is more of a cross-country minivan. Cars of this format are in limited demand, but those who have tried the 5008 at least once fell in love without a trace.
The price of $ 27 prevents the car from conquering the market. for the basic version of the Active with a petrol turbo engine with a capacity of 495 horsepower. A diesel of the same power raises the bar to $ 150, and the most expensive Peugeot 29, which has been in the hands of AvtoTachki editors, costs $ 198. So much is a really big seven-seater car with a convertible interior and a bunch of gadgets.
As a person who grew up in the city, I have always disliked the rural way of life, but as I got older, I got a family, children, a house a hundred kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road and a crossover, so that it would be more convenient to drive to it. In the end, I got tired of Moscow with its overpopulation and the constant traffic of cars and people, but life outside the city did not become ideal for me either.
And now I'm waiting for my colleagues on one of the streets of the Kurkino metropolitan area between pretty two-story houses, where children are quietly running along the road with zero traffic, and I begin to understand exactly where I would like to settle. This is the ideal: a quiet country life five minutes from the city, with all the city amenities, no parking problems and a very peaceful environment. Four-wheel drive is definitely not needed here, because the asphalt in Kurkino lies and is removed all year round.
Colleagues linger, I fold the back of the front seat, sit comfortably in the back, stretch my legs and take out a book. Okay, it was a phone, but the essence is the same. The Peugeot 5008 salon now looks more like a business van's box, but it is extremely cozy, soft and, if you like, fun. None of the surrounding people looks askance - a beautiful car has arrived in a beautiful area, in which a man of an intelligent-looking person is calmly reading a book, and this is almost a cinematic picture of an ideal world.
By all the external attributes, the Peugeot 5008 is a beautiful car and is made in a very correct urban crossover format. It is interesting externally and unusual inside, it is pleasant to drive it and even more pleasant to load it. More precisely, fill it with people, luggage, gadgets. There are dozens of interior layouts here, and you’ll surely lose something not too important in these endless boxes and boxes, but overall, this is a story about a car that should be enjoyable in every aspect of its use. Much the same as a dream home.
But there is always something that instantly explains why here and now you cannot satisfy all your needs. This is the cost of solutions, and it is high. A house or townhouse in Kurkino is estimated at tens of millions of rubles, incomparable with the price of a Moscow apartment. Peugeot 5008 is much cheaper, but for its cost in Russia you can buy a more packed and more traditional car, and in the existing system of values and compromises, the monetary difference turns out to be quite large. And in any case, it will not have the all-wheel drive, which is sometimes needed in imperfect places in our life.
The newcomer to the Russian market Peugeot 5008 is almost a copy of its younger brother with the 3008 index. But, unlike the latter, it easily accommodates seven, and three of them will sit in the second row. Even if all three are children, because this car has Isofix mounts on all second-row seats. Outwardly, the car looks more like a minivan, but the French managed to make the car attractive: they look at it in the stream, ask about it at gas stations. Because it is new, interesting in appearance and quite affordable, if we talk about a large seven-seater car with a diesel engine.
True, not everything of this voluminous beauty is actually voluminous. A large trunk and a seven-seater salon are incompatible things here. We'll have to choose either one or the other. When the third row of seats is unfolded, the 5008 has virtually no trunk left. A backpack and a shift - that's all you can use to support the backs of the third row. The mentioned Isofix mounts save the situation a little, because if there are three children, then all car seats and boosters will stand on the second row and then the third can not be laid out at all.
This car has a lot and all sorts of different technological gadgets. One of them is reading road signs of speed limits. Another thing is that the French engineers could not perfectly adjust all this. In Russian reality, the system reads one of five characters. But the lane tracking system keeps the car in the lane very efficiently. The system gently steers if the wheels start to touch the markings.
There is also a braking warning system in the Peugeot 5008, which is triggered with some delay, when the foot is already pushing the brake with might and main. Although this is, perhaps, only the sensations of a person who is not able to completely rely on automation. But the sound insulation really disappointed, especially in comparison with other European brands and Koreans.
But personally, as a mother of two children, it is not beauty and uniqueness that is important to me, but a more practical part of exploitation, namely costs. So, diesel fuel Peugeot 5008 in the city consumes only 7,2 liters per "hundred". And this is the case when you fill up a full tank and then drive for so long that you forget when and where you stopped at the gas station before.
The Russian market is rich in family cars, but the Peugeot 5008 will not get lost here. Such a bright, large and practical car is difficult to ignore. Its purchase can hardly be considered rational, but fans of French brands will definitely love this car. Everyone else needs to at least try, and scrapping prejudices about French cars is a job for marketers.
I fell in love. Otherwise, you cannot say about the three days that I spent at the Peugeot 5008 company. The car not only liked me, it has always remained in my personal collection of the most vivid car impressions.
French cars with a lion on the grille have not been in my field of vision for a long time. I distinctly remember how in 2013 I got behind the wheel of the then newest Peugeot 208 and was shocked by the technological leap that the brand made in just a couple of years. A year later, there was an acquaintance with the 2008 semi-crossover and the almost reference 308 on the new EMP2 platform. Even then, I became a real fan of non-standard ergonomic solutions that were systematically introduced into all new Peugeot models.
Low seating position in cool buckets, an almost vertical small handlebar with a chord and instruments on top of the steering wheel rim. Why didn't they think of this before? It's very convenient. And now five years later, driving a Peugeot 5008, I again begin to experience similar sensations. In a huge crossover under 5 m long, the landing is no longer so low, but still, in a passenger way, it is comfortable and comfortable. And the dashboard on top of the steering wheel feels even more comfortable.
Sorry for the trivial comparison, but the interior of the 5008 itself is designed like a spaceship from Star Trek. Despite the futuristic decoration, you get used to the location of the controls and all buttons and sensors in just a couple of hours. In addition, the Frenchman also pleases with excellent sound insulation, which other Germans may envy. I know that my colleagues did not like it, but this is a matter of reference points and the roads where the car is operated. For my suburb, it is more than comfortable.
Maybe your colleagues found the diesel noisy? He certainly does not bother me, especially since the motor is just excellent, pleasing with good traction and economy. Peugeot-Citroen has always been in perfect order with diesels, but when a perfectly matched automatic is relied on a diesel engine, it turns out to be a real dream unit. And as for the lack of all-wheel drive, this is generally not the thing that is necessarily needed in the city.
