Fifth Report

Back down to reality with a thud this month after the last update featuring continental adventuring, autobahn blasting and driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. I found myself with an afternoon where the sun was shining and the temperature was tempting me outdoors, I had work that really should have kept me inside, but bunking off won. Two flat tyres on my bike decided it was going to be a walk, so I set out in the 5008 to the outskirts of the city for a pleasant and mind-cleansing walk along the canal – my lockdown cycle route actually. 

All was fine until turning onto the lane where I park, when the engine did a thing, a thing that wasn’t quite a judder and not quite a hesitation, but a mild combination of the two (truth be told I had Spotify ‘bouncing’ out of the speakers so wasn’t paying too much attention). What did definitely get my attention was the orange message that flashed up saying ‘engine fault: repair needed’ along with the engine light and orange spanner. Insert expletives and a confused face here. With Spotify quickly turned off and eyes firmly peeled on the dials, all looked and sounded normal, so I assumed it was a bit of a phantom fault. It was a quiet lane with no phone signal, so I didn’t want to take the chance of switching it off and it then not starting again, so I turned around and headed for home, feeling slightly cheesed off. The engine appeared to be behaving, for a mile at least… Then the erratic revving and hesitation began where it became a bit of a handful. The clutch wasn’t engaging, and it was revving away, so trying to get the car to stop wasn’t that simple, fighting with the brakes. In the end, I just shifted it into neutral, which solved the problem about stopping, but made starting off again quite interesting.

A quick phone call to the press office and a slot was booked in at the press garage, and I limped the 5008 into the first space that was available in the compound. Its replacement was a brown, petrol powered 5008 with non-electric cloth seats, no sunroof or fancy audio system. I was just thankful that it worked, as I had a busy schedule the following day. In many ways it was great to sample a different 5008, other than our top-of-the-range GT Premium specification. One thing is for sure, the manual seats of the 5008 are better, as you sit a lot lower without any motors getting in the way, but I missed pretty much everything else about our poorly 5008. Little things like the carpeted door pockets and the bigger things like the lovely diesel engine – the neighbours probably had a good laugh at me stood at the back of the replacement 5008 waiting for the boot to open electrically, as it wasn’t fitted with it like ours is. 

Two weeks at Peugeot’s press garage and our 5008 is back sporting a new set of injectors and all is good aside from the fuel economy, which has taken a bit of a nosedive. I’m putting that down to the injectors needing to bed in. Hopefully…

Arrived 16th November 2021
Mileage 16,609
Economy 44.1-51.1mpg (combined) 42.7mpg (on test)