RE: Peugeot 308 GT THP | Shed of the Week

[Ian-83d2q]

Wife's got the 150BHP version. Been quite reliable (additional cooling pump loom repair the only issue). It's got good low end torque and seems quick enough for her. Build quality is the same as most cars of this era. The only thing for me is it has a high driving position, but that's most cars now.

I had a 307 feline 180, that wasn't too bad either. The only trouble I had with that was the clutch (engine and wallet out for £990). Other than that I stuffed it into the back of a truck at 5am with low sun on a sap infused windscreen.

[Addymk2]

Loplop said:

Funny that you call it the 'BMW' THP engine when the general gist is that the Prince was a development of the TU by PSA and BMW merely lent it's Valvetronic tech to PSA so that they could secure the engine for the MINI.

Maybe I don't know enough about it?

Quick question about the graph, I feel like it needs some context. How many cars of each manufacturer are sold and on the road in Sweden? Surely it would be more prudent to compare the amount of claims against vehicles sold to work out some sort of percentage?

And no, I don't hate French cars, I like them quite a lot. I'm actively scouring for a nice GTi6 306 or a Saxo VTS as a track car. I desperately want to own an RS 172/182 Clio and I'm pleading with my father to find a nice Safrane once he's moved to France. That doesn't mean they're free from (valid) criticism.

The two BMWs I own have been subject to full cooling system replacements, I've been left stranded twice by my 540i because the gearbox spat it's dummy out and my 530 has bizarre electrical issues that mean I have to unlock the front doors on the key (shock horror, how common) despite the rest working great off of the remote.

Those figures are per 100 cars from each manufacturer.

[SebE]

3 years, 30k miles, 2 cam chains, 3 fuel pumps and 3 turbos and half a dozen 5l cans of oil later I finally bailed out of that 1.6 THP engine in a pug. 60% depreciation. Nice drive (especially the 6 spd auto) but made it the most expensive car I've ever owned. 2.0 TSI in a Seat was heading the same way. Contrast the Hemi in my Jeep - yes it is 20 MPG and services every 7.5k miles but you can buy a lot of fuel for the cost of all that depreciation and repairs on the European small engine turbo cars, so maybe the Americans are on to something. Bought 4 yrs old - over 8 years and 80k miles it is cheap motoring! ULEZ compliant but buckets of C02 and high tax. Someone could probably work out the relative environmental impact of the short life and unreliability with fuel economy versus long life and easy repair but higher consumption of simpler, better engineered engines. Maybe the legislators could mandate whole life cost, not just penalising CO2 emissions from fuel? I am running a little experiment comparing it with a LEAF, 2002 XKR and Hyundai i30 (petrol non-turbo) for relative expense/fun factor...

[SAS Tom]

I don’t think I’d go for this even as someone who is using a shed 607.

The stories of unreliability of all french cars don’t match with my experience so far. The £950 607 has needed consumables replacing but nothing is broken and all the electrics work.

I will say though that having recently driven a 2003 307, the 607 doesn’t feel like it came from the same manufacturer.