Active 2.0 HDi 163 Automatic 5dr Estate

French Wagon in Reliability Shocker!

I bought our 508 mainly because it was a particularly good deal. Yes it ticked all the boxes on the particulars I had set for it (estate, roomy enough, diesel, torque converter auto, subjectively good looking) but so did a few others. This one was a 3 year old ex rental car which was missing its first service stamp and was consequently £8.5 with 38k miles on the clock.
I knew there was no way Avis would have skipped a service so it was not a concern. It may have been ragged to death but not many hire a diesel auto with that in mind. It was clean, sweet sounding and very smooth. I took a punt, took it to my mechanic who also gave it a clean bill of health and off we went.
2 years and over 40k miles later it has not put a foot wrong. The only time it has cost me any money, aside from tyres, brake pads and oil etc, is an elective cam belt change. I think the interval is too long on these (120k miles), so it was done at 78k (if your're interested the the belt showed some wear but nothing that looked like a disaster was imminent. The water pump was in fine fettle too).
The car has bags of power, as much as anybody driving on a public road really needs if you ask me, handles well for its size and cruises at 90 very happily on a long Motorway trip. Fuel consumption averages out at around 40 mpg, not as good as I was hoping but if you're careful with the right foot you could get more.
There is bags of room inside, very generous for passengers in the back. I think for a car of this size the load space could probably be bigger and perhaps better managed but I've loaded a few tip runs and family holidays without thinking I needed more space.
If I was to be critical it would be about some of the switchgear and plastics. They are frankly a bit french and I can see few of them breaking as time goes on. The ashtray cover refuses to stay closed, for instance. If it's been raining you also get dripped on when you open the tailgate.
Despite my 100% reliability record I'm told the AW80 six speed auto box on these models is prone to failure around 100k miles. I've yet to see any signs of it so I guess we'll see. I plan to keep the car another 3 years, assuming there is no transmission catastrophe in the meantime.
I would have no hesitation in buying another of these, especially as they now come with a different auto box!

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