Peugeot 2008 Review & Prices

The Peugeot 2008 is like a Peugeot 208 hatchback that’s been to the gym - it’s buffed up, is bigger and a bit more rugged, but it’s still a great compact car with a superbly posh interior. It’s cheap to run with an efficient hybrid engine, but it’s quite pricey to buy and not as practical as some small SUVs.

If a compact family SUV is a pair of cargo trousers - ready for the rough-and-tumble of daily life - then the 2008 is a pair from a designer label. They still have all the pockets and look the part, but it’s a little more expensive, can’t hold as many items and the fabric isn’t quite as hardwearing.

The 2008 has its work cut out because of the sheer number of compelling alternatives. The roomy Volkswagen T-Cross, sporty Ford Puma and super-efficient Toyota Yaris Cross all have plenty to offer, but so do bigger and often cheaper offerings in the form of Chinese cars such as the MG ZS, Jaecoo 5 and Chery Tiggo 7.

The 2008 really turns heads, particularly in sporty GT or Allure trims, but there’s a catch. For all that visual drama and that upmarket-feeling cabin, space in the back is tighter than you might expect from a small SUV.

Up front, taller drivers can get comfortable without too much trouble, even if the cabin feels a little snug around your elbows. The problem shows up when you try to carry four tall adults. Rear legroom is limited, so anyone long in the leg will find their knees brushing the seat in front.

Boot capacity stands at 434 litres, which is competitive for this class. The load area is usefully square, making it easy to stack suitcases or shopping, though the high boot lip means lifting in heavier items can be awkward. Under the floor you get two separate storage compartments, which are handy for hiding smaller bits and pieces.

Despite the limited room, the 2008’s interior will make you feel special every time you step aboard. Even among more expensive cars it can hold its head high with a dramatic design and top-notch materials. It looks and feels absolutely fantastic, and while the touchscreen isn’t the easiest to use you can still get most things done quite simply.

Engine options include a pair of petrol units and a hybrid. The basic petrol with a manual gearbox officially sips the least fuel, but in everyday use the more powerful automatic petrol or the hybrid versions make better all-round choices. They feel stronger and suit the 2008’s character more convincingly.

Around town, it delivers a mixed experience. The elevated driving position gives you a good view ahead and the light steering makes tight turns easy. However, thick pillars, especially over your shoulder, create noticeable blind spots when manoeuvring. Out on the motorway, the 2008 settles into a more relaxed rhythm, with good refinement and a comfortable ride from the soft suspension.

On twisty country roads, it is best enjoyed at a steady pace. Broken surfaces can unsettle the car and cause it to bob about, which chips away at your confidence in the front-end grip if you try to push on.

Verdict

The Peugeot 2008 is a fashionable SUV that fits pretty seamlessly into daily life - it’s easy to drive, and the interior is a real highlight that makes you feel as though you’ve spent a lot of money. The thing is, if you go for a decent engine and a suitably posh trim level, you have spent a lot of money, and that’s where it becomes difficult to justify the Peugeot 2008 when cheaper, more practical alternatives such as the Volkswagen T-Cross or MG ZS exist. If you’re buying a low-spec 2008, you’ll enjoy decent value, but there are better options than a top-spec car.

You can find new Peugeot 2008 deals on Carwow, or Peugeot 2008 lease deals instead. There are used Peugeot 2008s and other used Peugeots for sale through our network of trusted dealers, and Carwow can even help you sell your current car when it’s time to switch.

The Peugeot 2008 is almost identically priced to the Volkswagen T-Cross and Ford Puma; somewhere in between the mechanically similar Vauxhall Mokka and Alfa Romeo Junior Ibrida.

Entry-level Allure models come equipped with 17-inch diamond cut alloys, 10.0-inch infotainment screen, rear privacy glass, front and rear parking sensors and a semi-leatherette interior as standard. GT models get a black roof, sports seats and LED headlights on top - as well as a swish 3D driver’s display - while GT Premium cars get 18-inch alloys, a front camera and suede seats as well.

If you don’t need as much boot space, you should check out the smaller 208 hatchback. It’s better to drive, looks even more stylish and features nearly the same interior as the bigger 2008 - while being around £5,000 cheaper.

The 2008 manages to be comfy while you're driving around, but there are some annoying blind spots and it can feel floaty on bumpier surfaces

In town

The 2008 has nice, light steering, although it does suffer from the traditional vague Peugeot manual gear change. At low speeds, the brakes feel a touch grabby, so you need to train your right foot to be gentle with them or you’ll be head-banging the steering wheel. 

The big, thick windscreen pillars do create some annoying blind spots, and those aren’t helped by a huge rear view mirror that leaves only a narrow gap between it and the top of the infotainment screen to look out through. 

It’s the drive comfort that lets the 2008 down, because while you don’t get bounced around by bigger bumps, small, sharp potholes and broken roads send thuds through the cabin and really shake the car about. The electric motor is particularly noisy too, noticeable when you set off from a standstill.

On the motorway

The 2008 is fairly quiet and relaxing on the motorway, and actually quite enjoyable to go on a long-distance run with. The little 1.2-litre engine also has plenty of punch, so it actually does surprisingly well when it comes to overtaking. There's some wind noise from the mirrors at higher speeds, but otherwise it’s well insulated.

The lane-assist cruise control is a let-down though, bouncing you around between the dashed lines and disengaging when you’re not expecting it. You’re far better off steering by yourself.

On a twisty road

There’s a good bit of body lean when you go around bends in the 2008, exaggerated by the small steering wheel which encourages you to flick the car into corners with a bit of verve.

You never quite have an idea of how much grip the front wheels have either; even though the steering wheel does weight up at speed it feels artificial, and while it never feels sketchy or out of place on a twisty road it will skip and hop slightly if you hit a bump mid-corner.

Really, the 2008 does exactly what you need a car such as this to do. It’s relaxing and comfortable enough for daily duties, but if you really want a tall-ish small SUV that’s properly fun to drive, you should probably be looking at the Ford Puma.

Managing to beat many of its key rivals in boot space, the 2008 can be quite tight for those sitting in the back seats

The front of the 2008’s cabin is reasonably spacious, and the way the passenger-side dashboard is scalloped in means that there’s a little more knee-room on that side. 

For storage, there’s a nice lidded storage box in front of the gear lever, which can optionally have a wireless phone charging pad, and another open storage space just below that. 

There are two cupholders on the centre console — one deep, for bottles, and a shallow one for smaller coffee cups — and there’s a small storage box under the centre arm-rest, which has a tiny, kinda pointless, lift-out tray in it. Why? Nobody knows… 

The glovebox is also tiny, a common bugbear for UK-market Peugeots, because it has to share space with the fusebox. If you had a left-hand drive model, the glovebox would be twice the size. The door bins are decent, though, and can hold a big bottle of water.  

The door bins in the back are good too, and are actually almost the same size as those in the front. There are seat-back nets for storage, too.

Space in the back seats

There are ISOFIX points in the outer two back seats for child safety (and GT models can have another set of points in the front passenger seat) but there are some niggles here.

First off, the door opening is quite narrow, so it can be a faff to squeeze a big seat in, while the ISOFIX anchors are covered with little zipped panels. That zip feels pretty flimsy and it’s likely to break if you’re using them a lot. Still, there’s enough space to load in a bulky rear-facing seat, which is good. 

Rear seat space is fine in terms of legroom and headroom for adults, but if you’re trying to fit three people across the back, the way the roof-line leans inwards means that those sitting in the outer seats will find their heads brushes the sides of the roof. The rear windows are quite shallow too, which means that kids won’t be able to see out quite so well.

Boot space

The 2008’s boot is decent, with 434 litres of available space on offer. You can fit a big suitcase, little suitcase, and a squashy bag; or you could easily fit in a big, folded-up baby buggy.

That's better than the Skoda Kamiq's and Seat Arona's 400 litres but falls short of the Jaecoo 5, which has 480 litres, and the Ford Puma, which has 456 litres. It's much more space than the Vauxhall Mokka (355 litres), while the funky Citroen C3 Aircross also doesn't quite match up at 410 litres.

There’s no load lip, so heavy items can be slid in and out easily, and the boot floor is adjustable to height if you really need to pack things in — plus, there’s even a nice, tactile metal handle for moving the boot floor. A nice touch. However, don’t bother looking for tie-down points, luggage hooks, or 12-volt sockets because they’re not there. 

The rear seats split-fold in a 60:40 ratio, and they do lie mostly flat (although there is a slight incline). The 2008 has the Ford Puma beaten for seats-down space — 1,467 litres. 

Annoyingly, though, the rear seatbelts get caught and trapped very easily when you fold and unfold the rear seat. That wouldn’t happen in a Skoda Kamiq… However, what is very good is that the luggage cover fits under the adjustable boot floor when you’re not using it, which is so much better than leaving it at home.

For those wanting a funky cabin, the 2008 delivers in spades. It's just a shame the updated infotainment system still isn't the easiest to use

If anything, the 2008’s interior is even more interesting than its striking exterior. You get a multi-layered dashboard, which is mostly made from very nice, soft-touch materials (although things do get a bit cheaper and scratchier as you go further down). 

Below the main touchscreen, there’s a nice panel that has shortcut controls for the screen, as well as ‘hot keys’ for things like defrosting the windscreen and switching on the hazard lights. These can be a pain to use as they're touch-sensitive rather than physical dials and buttons, so you have to look away from the road to use them.

Some parts seem a bit cheaply built, but overall the 2008’s cabin looks and feels pretty expensive. 

That new 10.0-inch infotainment screen, introduced as part of the 2023 updates, helps to elevate the interior. It looks great and gets some smart, snazzy graphics that respond quickly to your inputs. The only downside is that it's still not the most intuitive system to navigate around – though Apple CarPlay and Android Auto come as standard, which is good news.

You get two USB sockets (one regular, one USB-C) in the front on all but the most basic models, and two more in the back. The digital instruments — again standard on everything but the base model, which gets analogue dials — are really nice, looking high-tech and allowing you to choose from a swathe of different displays.

The mix of high-set instruments with the tiny, low-set steering wheel looks pretty cool, and it can work for some drivers, but many will find that when they’re sitting comfortably, the top of the steering wheel cuts across the instruments. That’s annoying. 

What’s not annoying is that the doors wrap around under the sills of the car, so when you’re getting in and out, you won’t be putting stripes of road grim up the backs of your trousers.

There are two petrol engines to choose from. The entry level engine is a 1.2-litre unit that comes with a six-speed manual gearbox and makes 100hp with official fuel economy of up to 53.2mpg. Step up the range and you get the same engine with a 130hp output. Allure versions have the same manual gearbox, but GT models use an eight-speed automatic. The manual is a bit more economical, seeing up to 52.7mpg in official tests, compared with 48.9 in the auto.

The 2008 is a reasonably economical vehicle. We averaged 47mpg, driving the 130hp version of the 1.2-litre petrol engine with the six-speed manual gearbox. You won’t get much better economy from the cheaper 100hp version, because it does struggle with the car’s weight. 

All have very similar CO2 emissions of between 120 and 140g/km, meaning first-year road tax is on the lower end of the scale. When it comes to company car tax, each is around 30% benefit-in-kind, but the electric E-2008 is your best bet in this regard at just 2%.

Euro NCAP score (2019): 4/5

Adult occupant: 91%
Child occupant: 84%
Vulnerable road users: 62%
Safety assist: 68%

The Peugeot 2008 scored four stars when tested by Euro NCAP in 2019, scoring particularly well in adult and child occupant safety. Its pedestrian safety and safety assist systems are what stopped it getting a full five-star rating.

All models get front driver and passenger airbags, as well as front side airbags, and full-length curtain airbags. Also standard is cruise control with a speed limiter, lane-keeping assistance for the steering, and speed sign recognition. Adaptive cruise control, which maintains your distance to the car in front and can keep you in lane, is an optional extra on top-spec versions.

*the basic three-year warranty is extended by a year with each approved service

Peugeot came seventh out of 31 manufacturers in the 2024 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, which bodes well if you’re considering adding a 2008 to your driveway.

Peugeot’s warranty isn’t all that generous, though. You get a basic three-year, 60,000-mile warranty as standard, although that can be extended out to 100,000 miles as a cost option. Peugeot offers an inclusive service plan, which costs £18 per month for petrol or diesel models.