Peugeot 4008: Launch Review
Peugeot arrives at the crowded compact SUV table with a hand worth betting on>> Off-road prowess for sub-$30K
>> Capped servicing costs for three-year warranty period
Not so much:
>> Petrol only, and a pretty asthmatic one at that…
>> But not so asthmatic it wouldn’t benefit from a six-speed manual
>> Elements of seating could do with a rethink
OVERVIEW
Mechanically, the French marque’s new compact SUV is barely even a Peugeot. Hailing from the same joint-venture with Mitsubishi that’s already spawned the 4007/Outlander platform (and spun the Japanese company’s all-electric i-MiEV into Pug’s Europe-ready iOn), it’s in fact a Mitsubishi ASX, reclothed and modestly tweaked underneath to align it with the company’s brand values and arouse interest in the brand among Aussie compact SUV buyers.
What they’re actually after is younger Aussie buyers than those the brand normally attracts. Like so much of what’s on offer in its hotly contested segment, the 4008 is aimed at young and youngish families. Peugeot’s looking to those on the affluent side - professional and managerial types, relatively conservative in their automotive tastes but looking for a little extra cachet and some treats on the kit list.
PRICE AND EQUIPMENT
More so again when they’re pitching a badge-engineered version of a vehicle that’s better priced - here the ASX, over which the 4008 commands a $3000 premium at the entry end. Even more again when it’s taking on upmarket competitors like Volkswagen’s Tiguan, Mazda’s CX-5 and Subaru’s XV.
And it has. Right from the base-spec 2WD Active (from $28,990 plus on-roads), the 4008 comes with a lot of gear. A standard reversing camera across the range won’t do any harm in attracting the attention of its target market, along with luxuries like the auto-dimming rear-view mirror and the sensor-driven headlights and wipers. Such kit puts the 4008 up at the head of the pack for value.
The Active comes standard with a five-speed manual transmission, with a CVT auto on offer for $2500. Here again, Peugeot has taken the initiative on kit, serving up paddles that give the CVT six virtual cogs.
Active buyers also get the choice of FWD or switchable AWD for a further $2000. It can be shifted between FWD and AWD on the move via a rotating switch on the console. For hard dirt work, it also offers switchable diff locking.
The Active spec also gets climate-control, cruise control, a multi-function colour screen for auxiliary functions, a leather trimmed steering wheel, an air outlet into the glovebox for chilling, darkened rear privacy glass and a cargo cover. The steering wheel has controls for audio, phone, computing and cruise. The six-cone audio system has USB, AUX and Bluetooth inputs.
Outside are 16-inch alloy wheels, front foglights, LED lamps, auto headlights and rain-sensing wipers.
The $38,490 top-shelf Allure ticks the CVT and AWD boxes up front. It also gets Xenon headlights, a full leather interior, 18-inch alloys, chrome side sills, heating and power adjustment for the front seats and passenger seat height adjustment.
Putting that much gear on board up front has helped keep the options list nice and simple. Active-spec buyers can order an 18-inch alloy wheel upgrade plus side chrome door sills for $1000, or those items plus a full leather interior for $3000.
Both specs offer a satellite-navigation package for $1495. It comes with an integrated DVD player and moves the rear camera view from the mirror down to the centre screen.
All 4008s get a full-sized spare wheel.
MECHANICAL
While a diesel 4008 is available in Europe, out here all specs come with the one Mitsubishi-sourced 110kW 2.0-litre petrol four. It’s adequate for the job but it’s no firecracker, needing 4200rpm to reach its 197Nm peak torque. Pitted against the sophisticated 1.4 twin-charger in Volkswagen’s similarly priced Tiguan 118 TSI, which serves up 240Nm from 1500 to 4000rpm, that’s pretty asthmatic. But not asthmatic enough that it couldn’t do with a sixth cog in manual form. In fifth, it’s turning well over 2000rpm at 110km/h.
Acceleration is leisurely without being painfully slow – in FWD, official figures for the 0-100km/h sprint are 9.3 and 10.2 seconds for the manual and CVT respectively; add about half a second when AWD is switched on.
The 4008’s fuel consumption figures don’t make it the biggest tightwad in its class, either. But the official figures are pretty good, ranging from 7.7L/100km (181g/km CO2) for the 2WD manual and 8.1L/100km (192g/km CO2 ) for the 4WD auto. The best we managed on the launch program was high 10s, but that’s not surprising given the amount of time we spent accelerating, negotiating hills and bends and some pretty rough, rain-ripped dirt.
The CVT is adequate for the purposes of a car clearly skewed towards comfort and convenience over performance. The extra sound deadening puts it ahead of the CVT pack for noise, with less of the intrusive groaning inherent to kickdown in such transmissions. On flat and undulating roads it will push four people and their stuff along at legal speeds without a hiccup, although it’s going to groan under the weight when the hills get steeper. A tight uphill hairpin on the launch drive program left our car badly winded at one point, with two grown-ups and no luggage on board. But that was in auto mode – paddling it down to first got it out, if not with indecent haste.
Suspension has long been a Peugeot strength and while the 4008 shares the ASX’s front MacPherson struts/rear multi-link suspension formula, the French company has worked it over to ensure the car has its own feel. It’s 10mm wider in the track front and rear, and Peugeot has put a bit more muscle into the springs and dampers. There was plenty of room to firm things up without turning the thing into a billycart – the ASX is one of the bouncier performers in the rough.
Peugeot has also given the 4008 a bit of extra weight in the tiller and tweaked the braking electronics to accommodate more vigorous driving.
PACKAGING
That explains why there’s so little Pug DNA to this car: it’s a sampler. Where better to look for help for such a task than a seasoned mainstream operator like Mitsubishi?
That said, while there’s a pretty thin veneer of Peugeot over the top, the company has done a reasonable job of it. Unlike the 4007/Outlander, it’s hard to tell by looking at it what it is – even though it shares its doors and roof panels with the ASX. It’s helped them here that the platform was developed jointly from the outset.
The 4008 justifies its $3K premium over its sibling-under-the-skin by taking the look and feel upmarket to match the equipment list. Most noticeable is the dash, combining soft-touch bitumen-finish plastics on the upside with touches of chrome and gloss black trim on the lower dash, the door panels and the wheel. Even though there’s a remarkable similarity about the main instrument binnacle, it works well to impart the extra deluxe sensibility that draws people to Euro brands over Japanese. Extra weighting in the doors and sound-proofing throughout further the slightly more upmarket feel.
Oddly enough, rear-seat legroom is adequate for adults, but at the expense of the front passenger. There’s an odd feel to the car from that perspective. You sit very high behind a facia that still feels too high. And even with the seat right back, adult feet touch the firewall with knees coming close to the underside of the glovebox. The height of front seat also leaves the rear space feeling a bit claustrophobic. And while the front seats are adequately supportive around the backrest, they’re noticeably short in the cushion, offering little thigh support even for smaller adults.
But that’s one of the few complaints we have about the way Peugeot has served up the 4008. Beyond that, storage is decent front and back, with door pockets sufficient to hold a 600ml drink, a decent glovebox with chilling and a nice deep centre box topped by an armrest. Cargo space is good, too, varying from 416 litres to 1193 with the 60:40-split folding rear seat down. It comes with a useful cover, too, to keep shopping bags from sliding around.
Importantly, the company has packaged the 4008 to show buyers that when they buy a Peugeot they’re not just buying a car but rather a well-rounded customer experience. It’s using the 4008 launch to introduce capped-price servicing, ensuring you spend no more than $330 a year on scheduled services throughout its three-year/100,000km warranty. The service interval is 12 months/20,000km, with interim inspections.
SAFETY
It hasn’t yet been independently crash-tested, but the ASX is rated as a five-star car by ANCAP.
COMPETITORS
ON THE ROAD
To that end, the suspension tweaks work well with the FWD/AWD package, bridging the gap between two kinds of driving with conflicting requirements.
That the drivetrain allows you to switch between 2WD and AWD is the best evidence that it’s less compromising than full-time AWD competitors like the CX-5 and the Tiguan. With all paws running, it’s more capable than most in its sector on dirt, with a surprisingly high suspension crash threshold when the going gets tough. Driven young-family sensibly, it remains quite composed on loose surfaces, although it’s not hard to get the dashboard’s ESC activation light flashing when you push it through a bend.
A by-product of that expertise on dirt is discomfort and stiffness on tar in AWD mode. Getting it back on the black and switching it back to two wheels loosens it up noticeably for coasting and cornering.
The steering demonstrates the gap between extra weight and extra feel – you’re too far off the ground for any real tactile value. But that’s not what the 4008 is about. Get it into town and it’s well behaved and low-stress.
The central control screen system leaves a little to be desired for intuitiveness – there’s no menu or equivalent button to bring you back out from its depths. We never did work out how to switch off the irritating beeps from the sat-nav on approach to traffic signals. But these things are generally manageable after an up-front discovery and learning period.
All up, the 4008 is a convincing entrée into the small SUV sector. Even if it doesn’t set the world on fire, it does have what it takes to fulfil its charter of drawing attention to the brand among younger buyers than Peugeot is used to.
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