Peugeot 5008 review

Driving position

If you've been in any Peugeot from the past decade, then the 5008's interior will be instantly familiar, yet completely different from any other car on the market.

It's the only brand to place a smaller-than-usual steering wheel lower than usual. Peugeot calls it the i-Cockpit, and it got a lot of stick in its early implementation.

After some tweaks to the design over the years, we think it works really well and helps give the 5008 a sporty feel. It's a big seven-seater SUV, but you still have the sense of agile steering and a rigid body, so it doesn't feel as unstable as other similarly-sized SUVs.

The only thing we'd complain about is the placement of the gear selector, up on the dash. There's a separate drive mode selector, which looks fairly similar, lower down on the centre console, so it's easy to confuse the two.

It's just a case of getting used to the layout, but for us, it's unintuitive to put the gear selector up out of the way.

The rest of the switchgear, including the stalks and main touch points across the dash, all feel plenty premium enough.

Tech and features

Peugeot doesn't offer lower trim levels on many of its newer cars, and the 5008 starts with Allure, which is already a mid- to high-spec car.

It's the one we tested, and it gets the French brand's upgraded 21-inch display. In essence, it's the same size as we're already used to, but instead of having two separate displays for the infotainment and digital instrument cluster, it all merges into one.

The system isn't as slick as ones you get in other seven-seaters, like the Volkswagen Tayron, but it's more than acceptable. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard anyway, which is great.

Another Peugeot special that we love is the configurable i-Toggles beneath the screen. It's a narrow touchscreen area with enough room for five shortcut buttons that you can choose yourself – we like the ability to highlight the driver aids here, because it's a quicker way to disable some of the nagging controls that many drivers dislike.

Other standard equipment on this base model includes keyless entry, three-zone climate control, wireless phone charging, rear parking sensors and a reversing camera.

Engines and power

The days of pure combustion engines are behind us – all versions of the 5008 are electrified, but it's up to you how much you're comfortable with.

We tested the 1.2-litre mild hybrid petrol, which is widely used across most other Peugeot models. It's an outstanding mild hybrid, and consistently does around a third to half of town driving just on the electric motor, but take it on faster roads and it virtually becomes a plain old petrol.

It's highly impressive, and bridges the gap between mild hybrid and conventional self-charging hybrids pretty well, but we think it's a tad underpowered in a car this size.

With 145hp, it's not particularly brisk (0-62mph in 11.3 seconds for fans of figures), and it's a shame Peugeot doesn't offer mild hybrid technology on a bigger, more powerful engine.

There's also a 195hp plug-in hybrid model, which we haven't tested yet, but having used the system in other Peugeot cars, we suspect it'd be better suited to the 5008's size with punchier acceleration.

Two motor and battery configurations are also available for the fully electric e-5008, which we've reviewed separately.

• Peugeot e-5008 review

Handling and ride comfort

You really get the sense that you're driving a much smaller car when you're behind the wheel of the Peugeot 5008, and that's one of the car's biggest selling points.

We've already touched on the responsive steering and rigid body, but it really helps improve ride quality, especially on flowing country lanes where other SUVs tend to feel less stable.

The standard-fit acoustic windscreen also helps reduce wind noise at higher speeds – both tyre and wind noise are low given this car's relatively non-aerodynamic shape, which really helps improve comfort and reduce exhaustion on longer trips.

Boot space

Peugeot claims 916 litres of boot space when the 5008 is in five-seat mode, which is probably the most common configuration. This includes the area under the boot floor, which is pretty spacious because it extends under the sixth and seventh seats.

For reference, the VW Tayron has an 850-litre space, and the boxier Hyundai Santa Fe has 628 litres of space, so the 5008 is at the top of its class.

With all seven seats in place (and including the space under the boot floor), there's still 348 litres of space, which is similar to many smaller family hatchbacks, so you should have no trouble finding the right combination of passenger and boot space.

It's great that you can also store the removable, retractable parcel shelf under the boot floor – so many manufacturers forget this simple yet useful feature.

Rear seats

We love the Peugeot 5008's rear seats, which were more or less carried over from the previous generation.

Instead of the usual bench, we get three individual seats which offer slightly better support – the middle seat is slightly narrower, but it's still suitable for adults and comes with enough room in the footwells.

The central seatbelt reminds us of early 2000s MPVs, because it comes from the roof and needs to be plugged into both sides of the middle passenger.

It's a bit of a dated design, and doesn't really go with the 5008's modern and premium vibe, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Getting into the rearmost seats is easy because the middle row tilts and slides out of the way, and when you're in the back, there's easily enough room for children.

It's not even that hard to find a configuration that works for seven adults in the 5008 by sliding all the seats in the right direction to maximise legroom – it's not the biggest seven-seater SUV, but it's certainly more versatile than many.

The middle row slides 60:40 (which means it's split into two seats and one seat), but each of the three seats folds flat individually if you're thinking about carrying longer items in the boot.

Storage solutions

Being a family car, the 5008 is packed with clever features like cooled storage under the split-opening armrest, deep door bins that are suitable for bottles and even a sunglasses holder in the roof.

Strangely, there's no central armrest in the rear due to the seat configuration, which means there are no additional cupholders, which seems like a bit of an oversight for families.

The glovebox might only be narrow, but open it and peer inside, and you'll see a fixed storage tray inside for collecting loose items.

Up front, there's a wireless phone charger that's big enough for today's tablet-like smartphones, but we found our phone to slide around (and disconnect) on most drives. Thankfully, there are plenty of USB-C ports throughout the cabin, front and rear.

Safety

The Peugeot 5008 got a satisfactory four-star safety rating when independently crash tested by Euro NCAP, with the lowest score across the four categories coming from safety systems.

On a long motorway trip, we noticed the lack of lane-keep assist. It's not always a standard feature, but on a large SUV like this, it wouldn't go amiss.

Our test car, in entry-level Allure trim, had the optional Vision & Drive Assist Pack (£700), which upgrades regular cruise control to adaptive cruise control and adds some safety kit, including rear cross traffic alert, 360-degree cameras, front parking sensors, blind spot monitoring and wing mirrors that dip in reverse.

While some of the 5008's rivals are also four-star SUVs, most have full five-star ratings and better standard safety equipment.

Fuel economy

Official figures for the 5008's 1.2-litre mild hybrid suggest it'll do between 45-53mpg. Usually, you can take manufacturers' figures with a pinch of salt, but the 5008's mild hybrid system is so impressive that you can use it to your advantage.

On a long motorway trip, we edged close to 50mpg, which puts this car in a similar league to many diesels.

Around town, the electric motor keeps the petrol engine running at its most efficient, so we barely saw economy drop below 45mpg.

Reliability

Peugeot belongs to a large group of manufacturers that also includes Citroën, DS, Vauxhall and more, and that means all of the underlying mechanical parts are tried and tested.

This includes the engines and gearboxes, which we know to be durable from consumer feedback.