Time to stoke up the fires of righteous indignation once more as we bring you this Peugeot 407 Coupe, a car almost guaranteed to generate high levels of frothing among the forum faithful.
Shed brought us one of these 3.0 manual petrol 407s in early 2023, just after the SOTW limit had been controversially raised from £1,500 to £2,000. That ’23 shed was a 98,000-mile GT from 2006. The GT was the same as the SE in more or less every area, but for grand touring purposes it had sat nav and, er, a stitched leather dash. No, Shed doesn’t know why, although the extra £1,700 or so that Peugeot GB charged for the GT might have had something to do with it.
Saddled with an automatic gearbox, these 209hp/218lb ft 3.0s weren’t massively quick, edging their way from zero to 60mph in a leisurely 8.4 seconds. They were a little bit quicker when fitted with a manual box, which is what we’ve got here. With lightning coordination of foot and hand you might even get it into the sevens, but straining acceleration wasn’t what these cars were about. They were tourers, not terriers. In theory, they would hit 150mph, but heaven knows what the fuel consumption would be at that sort of speed given that the combined average was only 27mpg and the urban 19mpg. The 242g/km emissions figure plonks it squarely into VED Band L which will now cost you £710 a year, groogh. That’s about twice what it was just two years ago.
This 407 will cost you in other ways too. 3.0 Coupes weighed nearly 1,700kg, of which around 1,600 felt like it was over the front wheels, so they do chomp through ball joints and tyres at the pointy end. Sure enough, the MOT test in March this year revealed that both front hoops were worn. The screen of Shed’s Amstrad hasn’t had its annual scrape-over with a wire brush yet, so it isn’t up to showing him whether they were changed after that test. If they weren’t you’ll find budget tyres for under £50 each and premium ones for under £130.
Talking of pointy ends, as the postmistress sometimes does with her mates at the weekly village bingo night, the styling of the 407 Coupe (one of which she used to own herself) has always aroused more than its fair share of comment. It’s the front overhang that seems to rile people the most. The best way to get around that is to get inside, then you won’t see it. And there’s every reason to get inside this one, too, because it looks so beautifully fresh.
Shed’s never been sure why 407 Coupe steering wheels were just as plumptious as the upholstery. Whenever he drove the postmistress’s own 407 Coupe he always went along very carefully so as to avoid the possibility of having a lion painfully stamped onto his gentleman’s area in the event of the airbag being fired by a bump or some sort of unusual electronic vibration.
For info, that GT we had on here in early ’23 has passed two more MOT tests since, with nothing more than a non-excessive oil leak and a couple of worn tyres (this time the rears) for the tester to write about. Based on that admittedly skimpy evidence you could say that they do keep going, but they’re not perfect. As noted, many of the suspension/rolling chassis parts need to be tagged as consumable items and, as hinted in the last paragraph, electronic stuff had a habit of fritzing out. The windows, horn and tailgate were the main culprits. That last issue was usually easily fixable by looking in the rubber concertina wotsit in the upper left area of the boot, where you would normally find a broken wire. A dod of solder later and you were good to go.
The colour-coded covers for the headlamp washers were known for dropping off, too. That’s why, whenever the postmistress brought her 407 Coupe into his workshop for servicing, Shed always paid close attention to her body-coloured flaps – but that’s another story awaiting clearance from PH’s legal team.
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