1.0 Urban 5dr Hatchback

A basic, tiny but practical car for urban use. It handles quite well on country roads too.

Introduction

I have owned a 2009 107 Urban 1.0 for thirty months. It belonged to a relative from new so I known all its history. At almost ten years old it has done just 31,000 miles and I have put about 18,000 on the clock. My other car is a luxury model but I have grown to I appreciate this little Peugeot for what it is. I drive it for just as many miles as the other car and will probably keep it until it becomes uneconomic to repair. Yet when I first drove it home after acquiring it from a relative, my intention was to sell it on and buy something else. Its main advantage is the ability to park it almost anywhere, whether in an urban area or well onto the grass verge on a country lane, permitting traffic to pass easily.


Cons: First I shall try to put you off, because at first I did not like it:

By the time I got it a new clutch had been fitted. The small clutch is probably this car's most expensive weakness so don't slip it at junctions. Drive properly and use the handbrake, or it may cost you dear! Even the larger replacement clutch smokes easily on a steep hill-start with three people in the car, something I have never experienced before. In nearly forty years of motoring with mostly older high mileage cars, I have only ever needed one new clutch. If you are buying a 107, check the service records and if necessary take possible clutch replacement into account. Don't buy a 107 if you have to hill start all the time, you are lazy on the controls at junctions, or you will carry several adults regularly!

They leak water into the boot through the back lights, I stopped it by removing, cleaning, applying silicone sealant to the inadequate foam seals, letting it set, then refitting the lights. It worked perfectly.

It leaked water through the aerial, but it was very easily removed by releasing the interior light and removing the nut, cleaning then fixing it back with silicone.

Ground clearance with more than two not all that heavy occupants is rather poor. It's OK on ordinary roads, but the bottom sc***es when I go over a lip onto my driveway and elsewhere (even very slowly) with more than two people. It doesn't affect any other car I know of. It hasn't sc***ed on speed bumps.

Gearing between first and second isn't ideal for steep hills, but that doesn't stop it getting up them. There is heaps of power for a respectable speed up a steep gradient in first, but you will find second is too low to continue and you have to change back to first. Not recommended for a very hilly area without a test drive first, but good in more typical terrain. (There is an advantage to this gearing, because it allows for quite a rapid getaway on the flat).

The ride quality is rather harsh for a modern car, but this is a budget motor. I suspect it helps the handling.

The cabin is noisy, but adding two more layers of acoustic material under the boot carpet helped, as does keeping the back seats folded up whenever possible and ensuring the back shelf is in place. Tyre noise is far more significant than engine noise, so think about what you buy when you replace the rubber.

Although the tyre noise is no fun on the motorway & mpg at 70mph is probably not much better than my similarly-aged BMW 5 series Diesel, the engine propels the little 107 at a constant 70mph quite easily. Strong sidewinds affect it because the Pug is very light. I prefer the Peugeot for its sheer convenience on most urban and many mixed urban rural journeys on narrow roads with only one or two people in the car.

The door mirrors appear to be designed in a way that limits their useful life. It seems the cable is inaccessible and cannot be maintained. So the mirrors tend to dip too low and the only permanent solution seems to be to replace them, because the driver reaching out of the passenger window to adjust the left side mirror on every single journey is impractical and irritating, not to mention hazardous when on the move. By 29.000 miles it had got that bad.

I can't imagine what it is like getting out of the back of a two/three-door, but the four /five door is great for access, but there is little room in the back. Tall drivers are likely to be OK for legroom if no-one is behind them, but it's not recommended for long journeys with adults in the back.

The driver cannot open the electric passenger window whilst driving, because the only window controls are on the respective doors.

The courtesy light operates only on the drivers door and it doesn't have a delay or a fade on it. Having only one door switch seems just a bit too stingy since even in the 1960's, Minis had one on each door.

It is a four seater, so five people cannot be carried.

I'm wary of any car with just one front windscreen wiper, but visibility in the rain is good and it hasn't given any trouble at all.


Pros. As a cheap second-hand car the 107 has a number of advantages:

It handles well.

It's very easy to drive and all controls are simple to find.

Cheap to maintain, it has only three cylinders, but the engine seems as smooth running as most four cylinder cars. It's a relatively revvy and responsive 1.0 petrol unit. Drive for economy by keeping the revs lower, or get a bit of performance by letting it rev through the gears. You really can get it moving quite rapidly if you want to. Second gear can take it to 60mph if necessary, which is very useful if you have misjudged speeds when pulling out of a junction and a car behind is bearing down on you.

Gearchange is sufficiently precise.

I love using it in town. It fits into spaces where other cars cannot go.

It's a simple car so there isn't much to go wrong.

It has a spare wheel, not a repair kit.

With winter tyres it copes very well snow and ice conditions, even on a fairly steep hill, right up to the point when the front end begins to act as a snow plough.

When I acquired it from a relative I intended to sell it on because I wanted something a bit bigger, quieter and more comfortable, but its dimensions are very handy. It fits in a tiny space at work that no one else can use and into which no longer car longer can fit, so I am guaranteed free parking. That saves quite a lot of time and money, because otherwise I would have to park off-site and pay.

Would I buy another - yes, because there's hardly anything else that will fit in that free space at work. To be fair, it does everything it's reasonable to expect a little low-budget car to do and more besides. The rear seat backrest folds into two sections, permitting the carriage of three people with a reasonable amount of baggage. including carrying small lambs, a quantity of fence posts for our smallholding, several pallets strapped onto the roof rack, plus my mother-in-law. But be careful with that all-glass tailgate, I hear it can be quite easily broken if not closed carefully. When you have it serviced, if you are billed for four spark plugs, ask where they put the spare!

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