Just before Christmas, the rather nice people at Peugeot got in touch and asked if we’d like to try out the Peugeot 5008 compact MPV.
As it happened, I was planning a day trip to the Warner Bros Studio Tour with Flea and two of her friends, and I figured this was the perfect opportunity to put a family car through its paces. You can read more about our day at Hogwarts in the Snow here.
- Would the 5008 have enough room for three kids in the back seat?
- Would it be comfortable to drive all the way from Lancashire to Hertfordshire?
- Would there be enough storage for all the loot Flea was planning to buy in the gift shop?
First things first:
The 5008 is a seven-seater family car. There are three seats in the back of the car, and a further row of two seats behind them – in reality they’re only really suitable for children, but if you’re a large family looking for seven seats without driving a MASSIVE vehicle, I think this would be worth a look.
What’s it like to drive?
The fuel economy is reasonable – we got around 38mpg from our diesel vehicle, and it was reasonably responsive on the motorway when I put my foot down, although I found the car felt a bit wavy at higher speeds, so I was careful not to go too fast. Our current car gives around 50mpg so I was hoping for a bit more from the Peugeot, perhaps.
The dashboard is clear, and there’s a whizzy little plastic screen that pops up and has your speed projected on it – I guess so you can keep your eye on the road without looking down to check your speed.
The driver’s seat has a nicely elevated position and the dashboard is clear and logical. There are lots of cubby holes to store things but I found the driver’s storage a bit weird, to be honest – to the left of the drivers seat is a big, cooled storage box – but I found things very easy to lose and very hard to find in there, particularly while you’re driving. I’d have preferred the coffee cup holder to be further forward and have a smaller storage cubby, given the choice.
The 5008 has good parking sensors and I found the car really easy to park, thanks to the rear-view camera. The stereo system is fine, and there’s a USB Connector so you can plug in a smartphone and stream music – although the connection was a bit dodgy on ours and needed plugging in and disconnecting a few times before it recognised all the music on my iPhone.
What’s it like for the passengers?
My three passengers were all very enthusiastic about the 5008 – particularly once they realised the folks at Peugeot had hidden various treats in storage compartments around the car. There was a selfie stick in the front seat cubby, some toy cars in the driver’s seat and front passenger seat rear pockets, a book in the glove compartment, and sweets in the pull-out tray under the driver’s seat and the storage compartments in the floor in front of the rear seats. Genius.
The middle row of seats comfortably fitted three 9 year olds, and they loved the tray tables, pull down drink holders, and reclining seats. They also had a lot of fun with the individual pull-up sun shades fitted to each window – a really thoughtful touch in a family car.
I liked that the childproof locks and windows are controlled by a button on the driver’s seat door, so I could be confident nobody would accidentally fall out of the car at high speed!
Each of the seats can be moved independently to maximise the boot space – which is pretty impressive when you’re in the five seater mode – although you’ll struggle to fit more than a couple of gym bags in there with the extra seats raised. According to the manual there’s 679 litres of capacity with 7 seats in place, and 2,500 if you fold all the rear seats down. All the seats in the second and third row fold completely flat, so it’s made for IKEA runs.
Any downsides?
Overall, I felt the Peugeot was a reasonably solid drive around town, and on the motorway except for at higher speeds in wind. It does offer the rare combination of feeling spacious and compact. But the in-built sat nav was an excercise in frustration – I never worked out how to enter a postcode, which is fine driving somewhere like the Warner Bros Studio, which is signposted from the motorway, but shorter trips involved using the sat-nav to direct us towards a town, and then using my phone to direct us to an actual address. Not ideal.
Overall
The Peugeot 5008 is probably the most spacious car I’ve driven at this price point, and I think for a seven-seater it offers a spacious ride with lots of storage options. Just make sure someone walks you through using the in-built sat-nav before you buy!
Oh, and it’s impossible to get three nine-year-olds to sit nicely in the back of a review car and pose for a photo. FACT.
Disclosure: We were loaned a Peugeot 5008 for the purposes of this review, Peugeot also covered the cost of our day trip to Warner Bros Studio Tour.
This looks like a pretty good vehicle. We had to upgrade to a full size MPV when we had baby three, because as you said otherwise add in a few friends and we had no space in the boot.
Yes, the boot is really generous with the 2 rows of seats, a bit more cramped with 3 – but still usable.
We are looking at buying a MPV this year. Not sure if we will get a brand new model though, still weighing up the financing options etc. I think I will take a test drive in the 5008 this weekend, modern designs are so roomy. Thanks for the review.
It really is VERY roomy and spacious to drive – the layout would be easier for a taller person, I think – being short, I was quite close to the steering wheel meaning I couldn’t use the coffee cup holder (it was behind me) which bugged me, as I’m usually the only person in the front of the car! Hope you like it, though!
I will have to recommend this to my husband if we ever have that elusive third baby. I think he would have something to say about that though, the mere thought sends him into terror. 😉 Happy New Year to you and Flea Sally.
Thanks Katie, happy new year too! You should TOTALLY have a third baby, the two you have are unspeakably gorgeous 🙂
I’ve been looking at the 5008 recently as we need three full seats in the back and this is one of the few cars that would actually fit my children comfortably, without being to big for me to drive. We’ve got an S-Max at the moment, but are looking for a change. I’ll definitely be taking a look at this, thanks Sally.
Yes, it’s definitely compact but spacious internally, I was really impressed.
I love your car reviews, they always cover everything I’d like to know before trying out a car for myself. My first thoughts were – that’s a huge car! I love how it looks like a longer standard car rather than most 7 seaters which are usually more elevated – like our Zafira. I think it’d be a great option as a versatile choice for a family. Shame about the mpg.
Thanks Donna – I’ll take a compliment where I can get it! I’m not sure how good/bad the MPG is, my old Honda Civic delivered a similar MPG, and that was a considerably smaller car than the 5008, so I don’t think it’s bad, but my current CR-V is brilliant on fuel economy and delivers almost 50mpg, so I’m a bit spoilt, I guess.
I was going to look at the Fiat 500L MPV because it is a small 7 seater but this is only a bit bigger. Thanks for the review.
Morning, please could you advise where the pull down cup holders are for the 3 main rear seats? Regards ian
There were cup holders pulled down from between the seats in the model we tested, hope this helps!