Peugeot 407 2.0 HDi

We've had one of these for the past couple of years. It's always performed solidly if not inspirationally. Its shown itself to be reliable and comfortable.

Perhaps biggest disappointment is its lack of personality though.

Our 407 is a black model with the full colour sat nav. It has the grey cloth interior which we decided we wanted rather than the leather.

From the outside, the car looks great. When we got it, there were very few on the roads of the Northeast and it stood out well. The engine has lots of power and some excellent mid range grunt. Although like most diesels it sounds like a tractor. The engine has never given any cause for concern though, Its always started first time and always been powerful enough for day-to-day use.

Economy wise it is not as good as we would have expected but will turn out around 35-40 mpg around town. We'll usually get around 300 miles from a tank of diesel although nearer 450 on long runs.

The car is very comfortable although both my wife and I tend to get back ache when driving longish distances and are both agreed it is something to do with the angle of the pedals to the seat. There is a slight twist in there somewhere. There is plenty of room in the back for two adults even with the front seats well back. The seats seem to have considerable adjustment and driver vision is very good. There is a blind spot which can be scary sometimes when over taking.

The acceleration is strong and fast throughout the gear range and only slows down as you reach the higher numbers. If you drive this engine hard it does respond. The six speed manual gearbox does what it says on the box but sometimes you notice that putting it into sixth gear drops your fuel consumption markedly making you drop it a cog.

The instrument displays are attractive and easy to read with the orange readouts showing well at night. The centre consul has a colour display which controls the air conditioning and climate control, the radio and cd changer, the GPS, the telephone and the trip computer.

The GPS seems to work fine although it does sometimes freeze overnight. By this I mean it will seem to get stuck and say its trying to work out the route but never manage it. This has happened a handful of times and even though its been serviced regularly by Peugeot, they can't fix it. I believe that there is something about an established fault in the units which required the whole thing to be replaced. As it only occurs once in a blue moon, we've left it. I have to admit, I don't really like the GPS in this car. It doesn't have postcode and is based on the 2002 Navteq disks so is out of date in some areas of the country including the A1. Also there isn't that much detail in the points of interest category so your choice is limited to what they could be bothered to put in. It is relatively quick to latch on to satellites and will usually get a full signal within a minute or so. It's just not that inspiring.

The radio and cd work well although not the best I've heard. Sometimes when you switch the radio off at night it loses the band over night. You just get static from AM when the last radio you listened to was Radio 4 (boring old fart that I am!). The stalk controls work well and you quickly get used to controlling the sound system with your right hand control. Here you can change volume, change station, choose radio or cd, etc.

The car has rain sensors which adjust the speed of the wipers to the amount of water hitting the screen These too work well although if automatic wipers are switched on and its not raining then you occasionally get a noisy dry wipe.

The inbuilt telephone is great. We use it when we are on the long drives and it is completely hands free and integrated into the sound system and the display unit. It allows you to receive texts and send them (not recommended while driving though!).

The system has a video hook up in the glove compartment meaning you can easily put a video input into the car and watch tv or dvd through the central screen. We've not tried this so can't comment.

The car has excellent room in the boot which is extended if you drop the back seats. This flexibility has been of great benefit to us in the past couple of years.

Mechanically, the car has been sound. Our only real problems have been related to the wheels. The car has tyre pressure sensors which send a visual reading to the warning screen about when tyres and low in pressure or there is a puncture. This is great in practice but was initially overly sensitive giving warning whenever we hit a bump. This has continued throughout the ownership and been addressed by the main dealers several times without long term resolution.

Another nice feature is the way the mirrors close in to the doors when you lock the car. A nice safety feature. Another one is that you can program the lights so they stay on for up to one minute after you lock the car. This is great if you have a dark path to walk up on a night.

Service experience has been disappointing as well. We had it serviced initially up in Teesside where the staff were pretty half hearted and then down in Eastbourne where staff were equally unenthusiastic. Maybe thats part of the Peugeot training. Service though always seemed to result in having to take the car back for a problem it didn't have before.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment is the driving experience. This is a wonderful car for someone who just drive to get somewhere. For someone who loves driving, its quite uninspiring. You never feel totally in touch with the road or the car. Its really a car for the car user not the car lover.