SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


We found the 2013 Peugeot 208 1.6 VTi Allure enticing

Your own best secret

Posted: 12 February 2013

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday February 13, 2013

Some secrets are best kept from one’s man; like the real reasons you love your cute and compact Peugeot 208. Its relatively long wheelbase, combined with short overhangs front and rear, make it not only comfortable, but incredibly manoeuvrable. Apart from that, it’s lighter and stronger than the model 207 that went before it.

Plenty of serious rallying people agree. Orders for 62 of the company’s specially built R2 rally machines had been received from buyers in 14 countries by mid-January 2013 and the order book opens soon for the even more potent R5. It’s not all about motorsport though, 220 000 street versions made their ways to buyers in its first year since launch.

Of more interest to you is that it’s spacious, user-friendly and practical. Take the beautiful entertainment centre and configuration panel placed up where you can see it and just a short reach away. It’s an 18-centimetre touch-screen with no buttons and just one knob; a volume control. In fact the only push-buttons are those in charge of the automatic, dual channel air conditioner and a pair of scroll wheels on the steering wheel for music, telephone and trip computer. Cruise control and maximum speed setting switches are on a separate stalk behind the fully adjustable steering wheel.

The 311-litre boot opens at mid-thigh height and is only about 10 centimetres deep, so it can be loaded and emptied easily. It is also square and fairly deep without too many irregularities on the sides and the hatch door has ambidextrous pull-downs. The spare is a fully sized steel wheel, so you don’t have to crawl along to the nearest garage once it has been fitted. As expected, the seat backs fold down in the usual 60:40 manner and lie almost flat, with only a small step. This increases loading space to 1152 litres.

Practical issues in the back seat area include enough head, knee and foot space for most people, although that picky tall passenger might find knee space a bit cramped if you’re six feet tall and have the seat pushed back. Two chair back pockets and narrow door bins look after storage, while for the kids there are three belts, as many head restraints and a pair of ISOFix anchorage points. Practical coat hooks replace the usual grab handles that would serve no useful purpose, on the roof edges above the windows. There’s no fiddling for nail-breaking manual kiddie lock levers either; a button on the dash takes care of that.

In front, both cloth-covered seats are adjustable for height, so even your lanky teenager can get comfortable, they are well bolstered to keep you supported when you’re in a hurry and suspension and brakes can be relied on to keep you safe.  There are four cup holders, a couple of small trays for incidentals, a stash for your iPod next to the USB and auxiliary plugs, medium sized door bins and the usual rather small French glove box. As a matter of interest the USB supports WM4-encoded music files as well as MP3s and displays full track information including the album cover (provided you saved it in the first place).

The 1600 cc engine, designed in co-operation with BMW, is quite vivacious although you need to keep the revs up around 3000 or more, for best pulling power. It turns over at about 3400 rpm at 120 km/h in fifth, so that means you have strong roll-on ability around 110 to 120 km/h, for emergencies. The ratios are nicely spaced without any obvious gaps, but the downside is that first is quite highly geared, so you need to get a few revs on when taking off.

Peugeot’s 208; youthful, practical, vivacious, sweet-handling and too good to share – hog it and love it.

Test car provided by Peugeot SA press fleet

The numbers
Price: R195 500.
Engine: 1598 cc, DOHC, 16-valve, four-cylinder
Power: 88 kW at 6000 rpm
Torque: 160 Nm at 4250 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 9,9 seconds
Maximum speed: 190 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 7,4 l/100 km
Tank: 50 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km; with roadside assistance
Maintenance: 5 year/60 000 km Peugeot Premium Plan; extendable at extra charge

For more on specifications and features, see the launch report

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.

Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.


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