TEST DRIVE: The 2015/2016 Peugeot 508SW THP - Station Wagons are cool to have actually

What are the French good at? Quite a lot actually. They gave us a whole lot of good food like croissants, baguettes, foie gras, escargots, the macaron but not French fries. They gave us great engineering architecture like the Eiffel Tower, the Versailles and the Arc Du Triumph. They gave us haute couture or high fashion and a lot of words that the English language uses - like abattoir, banquet and cabriolet . But to us motorheads, they gave us cars. Like this Peugeot 508 THP SW I had been driving around for a few days.

Now like most of the European car manufacturers of recent years, Peugeot have actually ramped up their quality by at least two or threefold. I personally have a history with Peugeots that go back to the 1970s. I remember that my grandmother owned one of the smaller Peugeots from that era. She drove around Bagan Serai, Perak in a Peugeot 204. She had it for quite a while and I used to remember being in the car with her as we drove into town (a mere kilometer or so away) from the house she lived in.

The Peugeot 204 was a pretty little car. It was a four door sedan and it had a Lion on the front grille. It wasn't styled like the Ford Escort (MkII) my grandfather drove. That was all blunt nosed and squared off at every angle (with the exception of the sloping boot). The British/German designed Escort was all butch whilst the 204 was small, dainty and feminine. It looked like something a young French lass wearing a scarf would drive in the countryside back then. Of course it was actually designed by Pininfarina so it did look quite different and stylish for something entry level back then. And back then, there were a lot of doctors in Malaysia who drove around in Peugeot 504s.

Then when I started work in the mid-1990s, some of the senior executives were running around in Peugeots. The 405 and the later 406 models. These were also stylish cars designed by Pininfarina too (well, the 405 was and only the 406 coupe was a Pininfarina design). Unfortunately by then things weren't so rosy. The car was pricier than some (due to our high taxes) and being French, the build quality took after French pastries in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. What you didn't really need dropped off. Which is why you do not see many people running older Peugeots these days.

These days are much better. I remember driving some of the latest French cars and things have improved tremendously. Peugeot have upped the game in terms of build quality and also in the materials used for the interior (and exterior). If you see an early Peugeot 308 the cabin is still intact (I know as my sister-in-law runs a 308VTi). So much has changed in terms of materials used. They actually feel Germanic but they have that French flair of design.

And so we now come to the Peugeot 508 SW THP. This is the station wagon variant of the facelifted 508THP sedan I test drove earlier. It comes with the same engine and drivetrain but it is now clothed in a station wagon body instead of the sedan.

The facelifted car is equipped with a lot of goodies like in the sedan. You get a heads up display which displays the speed. Keyless go with push start, quad zone climate control, a nice sounding JBL/Arkamys sound system for the infotainment unit (which has USB, Bluetooth, Navigation, reverse camera), 8 way adjustable front seats and a whole lot of safety systems – hill assist, park assist, 6 airbags, blind spot information system , stability programs, ABS and more. You get LED headlights too. And they look good. You can add the automatic tailgate to the list and a full length panoramic glass roof.

This car is well equipped with a premium looking and feeling interior that looks and feels expensive. There is some texture that lifts the cabin up from just being all black but when you start up the car, the bit of colour from the infotainment unit and the instrument cluster lifts up the mood of the cabin a bit more. The cabin does feel special to sit in especially with the roof cover open and the notion that you're driving something different also adds to this plus factor..If the sun isn't shining brightly, you can run the panoramic roof with its cover open and you feel like you're driving something so airy as everything feels open. Yet it isn't. A panoramic roof offers a feeling of airiness yet you are still enclosed within the cabin with the air conditioning still running. A great compromise. You can see from my face that I am immensely happy being in this car (or I am just plain loony).

If there is one major complain I have with the interior of this car is that there are no cubby holes in the center console for you to store your phone or cardholder in aside from opening the armrest box or the slightly small glovebox (due to the fuse box taking half the space in all right hand drive Peugeots). The cupholders in the center console are small sized and can only fit a can of cola easily but nothing larger since it is a push out type located on the center of the dashboard. So large modern smartphones can be stored in a small nook in the middle of the transmission tunnel but not one as large as the latest Robot or Fruit Phones. Which have grown to over 5.5inches wide these days. So I suppose this is the only complaint I have about the interior actually. It looks and feels special. This is always a good thing when you are paying over RM170,000 for a car.

As for the drivetrain, it is still powered by Peugeot's 1.6liter direct injected turbocharged 4 cylinder engine. This engine is seen in most petrol powered Peugeots, from the 208GTI, the 308, 408, 3008, 4008, RCZ and this 508 use this same engine in various state of tune. This 508 THP version makes do with 165ps and 240Nm torque. It is enough to take it to a tested 0-100kmh time of 9.5 seconds and onwards to a speed of about 220kmh. Somehow the extra weight of the wagon has not dulled it performance (it does dull a little bit of the handling as I shall explain down below).

The Drive Experience

When you are driving around in one of these station wagon type cars you feel good. The car is slightly different than the usual SUVs and MPVs everyone with a family seems to be driving these days. If you have a child or two, this is actually better than one of the above. You also get a big tailgate which you could carry stuff with easily. This was what classy people over in Europe or America would buy to carry their stuff before the advent of MPVs. You could stuff two or three pet dogs easily in there. You could carry bags of cement or flour if you were a French baker. Or potatos if you were a French farmer. But you shouldn't carry cement, flour or potatos unless they are in small packets. This station wagon comes from the premium crop of cars. You feel like a family man in the Karl Largefield mould instead of Contractor Phuah Chu Kang. It is a stately wagon.

The driving position is good. It is easy to drive and maneuver even if you do feel the size of the car. Yes it is a big car but parking is easy with front and rear Park Assist as well as it having a reverse camera. No complaints about steering the car around town at all or its all round visibility (the blind spot assist helps when you are driving it but it isn't as sharp as the one Volvo and Ford uses). The car's suspension copes well with the bumps around town well and it isn't overly firm riding.

There is also a nice low speed woofle tuned by the Peugeot engineers at the 2,000-2,500rpm range when you have the accelerator around half throttle. This is quite a nice bit of sound engineering making the 1.6liter four feel like a larger capacity engine. It adds a sense of mechanical warmth to the car and also masks the transmission resonance most Peugeot 1.6 equipped with the automatic likes to make.

However, Peugeot has not masked that resonance this what the Peugeot engine likes to make at high rpm. All 1.6liter turbocharged Peugeots here has that sound that resonates at around 5,000rpm to the redline. It isn't irritating per se. It is not loud nor intrusive. It is just there. It is a characteristic of the engine but one that does not make this torquey and powerful small sized engine. So it only get an A-minus for refinement in my books. But I like the big car sound it makes. This, and because its a nice looking station wagon makes it cool in my books.

On the highways, the car tracks well with little road or wind noise at higher speeds. It has good stability too and you can easily blast up and down any highway without any issues. Mid range is pretty good and you have ample performance up to about 190kmh where the acceleration slows down a bit. Of course, this is expected from something with about 165hp. But it is more than enough to despatch most of the traffic. When doing the usual 110kmh cruise, things are as serene as the best in its class. At 150kmh it is also pretty good with something like a more expensive Ford Mondeo being quieter. The only thing that would be a difference but not an actual complain is that the 508 SW feels a little more top heavy at the rear.

You can feel the difference if you were gunning the car when compared to the sedan. Of course this is because it is lugging around extra glass for the panoramic roof, more metal for the rear and tailgate too. But driven in isolation it actually feels pretty good. And actually feels like any large sedan would feel when drive fast. This was what a colleague mentioned as he was driving it around Shah Alam when we were out testing it at the roundabouts and all. He did not try out the sedan version and thought that the 508 SW was actually quite good.

Now since I had tried both. I know the sedan handles slightly better. But regardless of this I have to put my money on the SW. It just has that extra rarity factor that pulls me to it. What would you expect? It is always nicer to drive something with more sense of occasion than something common. You do want everyday to be like a birthday right? Why settle for normal if you can afford it?

Conclusion:

It's a premium station wagon! This means it looks different from most cars on the road yet still darn practical. This means that it will also outhandle any SUV or MPV out there and still be practical too. Its overall styling is nice to look at and has a certain grandeur to it. It feels well built when it comes to what you get to touch and feel inside. It is also one of the few station wagons on sale in Malaysia today – I can only think of the Mazda 6 wagon at this point of time .

To me this makes the car slightly more special as it is different. It may not be a sports coupe but it is a station wagon with nice styling. The performance is adequate (more than adequate if you just intend to use it like a large family wagon) and it is quite economical at the pumps too – 9.5liters/100km. Of course, there are certain quirkiness like how the engine performs (BUT still sounds great) and why the cup holders are only meant for cola cans but then again, the car is French. They still do things slightly differently these days. And this is a good thing. As I said earlier about the sedan. It is nice to have croissants instead of the usual bratwurst or sushi sometimes. I also think this time the croissant is actually well built too.

Pros: feels extra special, premium spec equipment levels, premium looking and feeling interior, JBL/Arkamys audio is good, spacious cabin, comfortable, high speed stability, low speed woofle or burble (engineered or not, who cares if it sounds nice), fun to drive...

Cons:... to a certain extent as it is a little top heavy compared to the sedan, small cupholders up front, not enough cubby holes in the center console to store small stuff, typical Peugeot resonance at high revs shaves off a point from ultimate refinement

2015/2016 PEUGEOT 508SW THP (Facelift)

Specification (and more photos below)

Price as tested (for private ownership):

from-

RM189,888 with insurance – Peninsular Malaysia

Engine: 1.6liter DOHC twin scroll high pressure (THP) turbo with direct injection

Transmission: 6 speed hydraulic (torque convertor) with paddle shift, tiptronic and sport mode

Note on the 1.6 engine - all post 2012 engines have had revisions on them compared to the 1.6 fitted to previous Peugeot models

Performance

0-100kmh – 9.5 seconds (tested)

Top Speed: 220kmh

Fuel Consumption

Combined drive cycle (EU): 7.1liters/100km (manufacturer's figures)

Tested : 9.5liters/100km

Warranty & Packages Given: 5 years Unlimited mileage warranty (3 years manufacturer's +2 years extended warranty), Peugeot Assistance 24 Hours, Peugeot Privilege Card, Peugeot Lounge (Airport lounge at Skypark Subang for Peugeot Customers)

Click here for the 508 THP Sedan test drive if you are interested.