I've meant to post this for a while. My father has replaced his aging
Renault Grand Scénic II with something that is also French: a 2019
Peugeot 5008 (2nd generation) in "Allure" trim with the 1.8 l petrol engine (133 kW, 250 Nm) and 8-speed automatic gearbox. Supposedly good for 218 kph and thus marginally faster than my MX-5. Theoretically. Also, loaded with many gadgets.
I triggered my father into lending me that "car" (I still have a hard time thinking of massive SUVs like this as cars) for a long weekend by telling him that I needed passenger and luggage space. Oh well - I almost had a guilty conscience.
What can I say - I don't like SUVs and still don't, but for what I used it for it was so much better suited than my own car.
But first - picture time. Yes, it has a colour.
Ride-wise, this thing is just great as a cruiser for the Autobahn. Has enough grunt for the traffic, although acceleration especially at higher speeds is not its strong suit. The weight and air resistance are very noticeable, especially if you're used to something far smaller, lighter and almost as powerful. It is hilarious when you floor it at 100 kph and the car drops
five gears. ?
For a relaxed drive to the coast on a long weekend, it was very fine, though. The adaptive cruise control, together with the automatic, is a killer feature for cruising along - it's a completely different and very relaxing way of driving. I needed half an hour to learn to trust it (and configure it to use "normal" distance, not "close" - how is it even legal that cars can be configured to automatically go below the mandatory minimum safety distance?), I basically only used the steering wheel for the next two hours. The car brakes when needed, and accelerates again to the desired speed when traffic clears up. Only when the car stops completely (and it does), you need to manually set off again. I even used ACC to go through roundabouts - as long as there is another car in front that triggers the ACC to slow down, it's fine.
With ACC, you need a different kind of situational awareness though, otherwise you end up slowing down unnecessarily because you just forget to overtake when reaching a slower car.
So, Autobahning is fine, city driving actually too. Front and back cameras help tremendously with parking - seeing out at the back is hopeless as usual in modern cars, and the front is so high that you don't see anything close in front of you neither. Country roads on the other hands, not ideal terrain. Well, not so bad in the Netherlands - there aren't any meaningful corners there anyway...
Now for the interior:
Comfortable seats (no leather because my father doesn't like it), and Peugeot's fancy digital "i-Cockpit". I actually like it. Some say you can't see the instruments properly above the steering wheel, but I found it no more difficult than through the wheel on other cars. The steering wheel itself is annoying in city traffic though. Why don't they just make it round, like a wheel is supposed to be?
Some things are not thought through completely though - I didn't find out what the different "driver profiles" actually do. They definitely don't save the configuration of the digital dash (you can choose different display modes, which I found something between a nice toy and actually useful sometimes), which would be the most obvious thing. Or the seat position (that's a classic memory 1-2 switch set). Or radio volume.
Navigation works great, but we couldn't get the voice navigation to work. The car told us voice navigation was not available in our country, so consequently I christened it Jacqueline, because perhaps it only wants to listen to you if you're in France... No biggie for me though, I am too old for voice commands. Give me buttons and dials (or touchscreens where applicable).
I also got to try Android Auto. Really nice. I am thinking about getting it retrofitted to my MX-5...
Boot is big, we needed that. Also, electric tailgate even with the sensor thingy.
Luggage for three people (left back seat converted) plus a big-ass barbecue. Later we also transported a fourth person with luggage and three cases of beer.
And of course, because it looks like such a massive car - for European standards anyway - I had to find out for myself just how big it is and tried to fit it into my garage. That wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't a motorcycle living in there. It turned out to be a tight fit - I got out of the car three times to check how much space was left in the front before crawling forward another few centimetres (fun to do with an automatic that you're not used to). The result:
About 2 cm space left at the front...
.... and 0 cm at the back.
Yes. The garage door could still be closed. I wouldn't do that parking job daily, though. For once just for shits and giggles it was fine.
It turns out the car isn't even that long at 4.64m. It just, well, looks massive because SUV format.
Verdict: I'll probably borrow it again next year for my short vacation with friends.
Personally, I'd rather have a 508 sedan instead of this. Even if I knock my head on the roof when I sit in the back in that one. Because gorgeous. Peugeot did a lot right lately. And I'm glad my father found a car that he really likes.
(It only took him five years or so.)
Funny story from my father at the end: He managed to confuse the electric parking brake by accidentally pressing the button while driving. I don't know what he did exactly, because the car overreacted massively and totally hilarious: It desperately wanted to go to a Peugeot dealer, automatically setting the navigation target to the nearest one. One or two reboots of the car got rid of the error and the self-thinking navigation. The next day, someone from the Peugeot assistance
called via the phone assistance function in the car and asked why they didn't go to have the car repaired. Welcome to the future...