By the time you read this, we’ll have got ridden of our previous car, a black Peugeot 3008, after six years. We’ll have picked up our new electric car and I’ll write about that in future blog posts.
The Peugeot 3008 was our second car, and we bought it in 2019. It was not a planned purchase, but was necessitated by our previous car being written off in France. That car was a Nissan Note, bought in 2015 shortly after I passed my driving test. We were therefore limited by what we could get locally, and at short notice.
Trim and spec
As it was, the Peugeot 3008 has served us well. When we bought it, it was six years old and had clocked up around 80,000 miles in that time, which probably meant that it was cheaper than it would’ve been with a lower mileage. We didn’t expect to be able to buy such a large car within our price range.
In terms of trim, it was an ‘Allure’ model, which meant that it had some additional features. These included a transparent head up display showing your current speed, cruise control with distance alerts and dual zone climate control. However, it also had the most basic stereo system, with just a CD player, 3.5mm auxiliary port, FM radio and a single USB port which could be used as an iPod Dock Connector. It didn’t support Bluetooth at all. A couple of years ago, we added a free-standing CarPlay and Android Auto screen which helped, but also meant having various wires trailing across the interior.
Dirty diesel
The other big disadvantage of the Peugeot 3008 was that it was a diesel. At the time we bought the car, dieselgate was thought to just apply to Volkswagen vehicles, but it may well be that our car was affected. We’ll see what happens when the case against Peugeot finally makes it to court.
Its emissions mean that we would have to pay to access certain clean air zones, such as London’s ULEZ and the clean air zone in Birmingham. As it is, we’ve not needed to enter those zones whilst we have the car, but will be taking our new electric car into Birmingham’s clean air zone next month. Ironically, our previous Nissan Note would’ve been fine in the ULEZ with its petrol engine, despite being an older car.
That being said, it did have a six speed (manual) gearbox, and that sixth gear was great for motorway driving.
Getting expensive
I wrote last year about how keeping our car roadworthy was getting expensive. It had been in the garage for repairs four times in as many months, and would be back in again within a month.
What proved to be the turning point was finding a patch of rust on one of the doors. Getting this fixed would have cost a lot of money, and with the car’s mileage continuing to increase, we decided it would be beyond economic repair. There’s also a laundry list of other issues:
- The tyre pressure monitor on one of the wheels has never worked in the six years we’ve owned it, and so the car beeps loudly at you after around 10 minutes of driving to tell you this.
- Various squeaks and knocking noises, suggesting bits of the car are working loose.
- The air conditioning hasn’t really worked in well over a year, despite being recharged.
- It seems to burn out headlight bulbs quicker than it should do.
- It’s always leaked very small amounts of oil, but it’s never been clear where it’s leaking from.
I spent about an hour yesterday getting our personal effects out of the car, which included £3.04 in change that had ended up in various nooks and crannies.
Trading it in
We are doing a part-exchange, so the value of the old Peugeot 3008 will be used as a discount on the new car. However, with our car now having almost 130,000 miles on the clock, it’s worth less than £1000. Indeed, the part exchange quote we got was about 10% what we spent on it six years ago.
It’s probable that the car will be sold at auction. After which, who knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s stripped for useful parts and scrapped. It would be a shame, as it’s been a good car for us. It got us through the pandemic, and we’ve taken it on three holidays, including two in France. But unless someone is able to repair it cheaply, I doubt it’s worth much to anyone.
Incidentally, our old Nissan Note is still on the road, as far as we can tell. After we left it behind in France, the insurance company arranged for it to be collected and sold it to a car breakers. However, it looks like they fixed it up and got it back on the road, and it passed an MOT as recently as this May. I can only assume the breakage firm had enough spare parts to patch it up and sell it on.
