Living with a Peugeot 308 SW: my honest thoughts on this stylish estate  

This is my Peugeot 308 SW, and as a long-distance driver with lots of kit to haul to video shoots, it’s been an excellent companion over the last few months.

I regularly travel over three hours to get to shoots for the Carwow YouTube channel, and the 308 is a really comfy car. It’s quiet at motorway speeds, the suspension is smooth and the seats are especially comfortable.

It’s pretty quick as well, especially in Sport mode, and it can be quite good fun on a twisty road as well. My passengers aren’t so fond of the ‘B’ mode for the regenerative braking, because it slows the car quite abruptly when you lift off the accelerator. It can induce a bit of car sickness.

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My car is the plug-in hybrid version, and it can do up to 60 miles on electric power alone when fully charged. That’s nine miles more than Peugeot claims, but I don’t always have time to plug it in. Even with a flat battery it’ll do 50mpg, so it’s a cheap car to run.

I reckon it looks great as well – it really stands out in a car park full of generic SUVs – and I love the interior. It feels really posh, with plenty of soft-touch plastics and nice contrast stitching, and the multi-layered dashboard looks interesting.

That said, I’m not so fond of the infotainment system. It’s quite slow to respond to your inputs, and the menu layout is quite a faff to work out while you’re driving. I’m also not a huge fan of the small steering wheel. In my ideal driving position it blocks the digital driver’s display, so I have to deal with it being lower than I’d like.

But those are the only real gripes I have so far – the Peugeot 308 is proving to be a relaxing daily driver, but at almost £40,000 it is a bit expensive.

That’s why you should check out Carwow, because you can save up to £5,400 on a 308 SW like mine to bring the price down to around £33,100. That’s around the same as a plug-in hybrid Jaecoo 7, but I think the 308 is better looking and nicer to drive.

Report #1: Introduction

This is the 308 SW, which means it’s the estate car version of the 308 hatchback. It’s also in mid-spec GT trim, but with the pricey plug-in hybrid engine, so the overall price is a hefty £37,200. With options, including paintwork, our car comes in at £39,350, so it only just misses paying the expensive car supplement on the yearly road tax bill.

Of course, if I’d bought it through Carwow, I wouldn’t have spent that – you can save over £3,500 on this exact model with our Peugeot 308 deals at the time of writing.

It uses a 1.6-litre petrol engine and an electric motor for a combined 195hp, with a large 17.2kWh battery for an all-electric range of up to 59 miles. However, my home charger is currently not working, so for the most part I’ll be running it as a self-charging hybrid and occasionally topping it up when I get the chance.

It’s pretty posh-looking inside, and standard equipment is okay – there’s the usual climate and cruise controls, a digital dashboard, sat-nav, heated front seats and steering wheel, and all the safety equipment you could want. It feels a little mean that on a car this expensive you don’t get a wireless phone charger or electric seats as standard, though.

For the same price I could have a top-spec BYD Seal 6 Touring (my colleague James Drujon just spent six months in one of these, if you’re interested in his thoughts) which comes fully loaded. Or, I could get a bigger, posher SUV such as a Chery Tiggo 8 or Jaecoo 7.

Why am I living with the Peugeot 308 SW?

SUVs weren’t always the family cars of choice, and plenty of people think an estate car is still a superior option in a number of regards. Also, Peugeot is a really interesting brand – it’s so closely related to the budget Vauxhall and Citroen, but it’s been really pushing upmarket with posh interiors and eye-catching looks.

So, I wanted to see if a small, premium estate car can really be worth nearly £40,000 – a significant price when you consider what you could get elsewhere.

First impressions of my Peugeot 308 SW

I’m having a really good time with the 308 SW so far, and it’s fitted into my life very nicely. A recent house move put the boot to the test – the good news is that even with the battery storage eating up some of the space, the 308 SW still has one of the largest boots in its class at 548 litres.

I’ve also really liked how comfortable it is. When I commute down to the Carwow drag strip for video shoots, it’s a three-hour-plus journey. On the motorway the 308 SW just settles down to be really quiet and cossetting, with great cruise control and lane-keeping assist taking the sting out of those long motorway slogs.

It’s not been perfect – I’m already getting annoyed at the touchscreen infotainment system. It’s responsive and easy to use, but the fact is that everything is routed through it – including the climate controls. It’s a real pain having to adjust the fans and temperature through a display when a Vauxhall Astra just has a handy button.

It’s also suffering as a regular hybrid car, because when the battery’s discharged it’s not very responsive. When I put my foot to the floor, it takes ages to kick down – possibly because it’s expecting a boost from the electric motor that it just can’t get.

I would put it into Sport mode to make it more responsive, but doing that gives you a fake engine noise that’s so bad I’d rather avoid it.

But as a relaxing daily driver, I’m really enjoying this great-looking car.

I’ll be reporting back after my next month with the Peugeot 308 SW, so stay tuned to find out more.

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