Peugeot 5008 Review 2024

There are lots of 7-seater SUVs out there on the market these days, and there are even more that can be specified with seven seats as an optional extra. Question is, with such choice on offer, which one do you choose?

Well, let’s first look at why people buy SUVs: it’s because they provide the practicality that a family needs along with the style that buyers want. 

If you’re particularly focused on the latter, then the Peugeot 5008 could well be the car for you. It’s bold exterior design really stands out when compared with somewhat conservative rivals, and when you climb inside, its interior has the quality, sophistication and glamour to blow the rest away. Even better, it’s still got the practicality bit covered, too, as it’s one of the roomiest, most versatile cars in the class.

The Peugeot 5008 sits at the more compact, affordable end of the seven-seat SUV scale, and there are plenty of rivals that do likewise, including the Skoda Kodiaq, SEAT Tarraco and Land Rover Discovery Sport. You can also specify the Nissan X-Trail with seven seats rather than five.

The Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace is similar in size but bigger on price, being more comparable with bigger cars such as the Kia Sorento and Hyundai Santa Fe on how much you’ll pay.

You could say that this is the Peugeot 5008’s party piece because its cabin has a level of glamour and style that no direct rival can match. You’d have to venture up into the realms of much more expensive Audis and Mercedes to find an SUV interior with this level of wow-factor. The reason? Well, every surface you see and touch is immaculately finished. 

Not only do the materials look effortlessly classy, but the colours and textures also have real variety, and the way they’ve all been blended together has plainly been thought about. Yes, there are a few cheaper-looking plastics here and there, but most of them are tucked away out of sight, leaving you to soak up an impressive feeling of quality and sophistication. True, the cabin doesn’t feel quite as robust as it does classy, with the odd creak here and the odd flex there, but it’s solid enough.

All versions of the 5008 get the same basic infotainment system, which uses an 8.0-inch central touchscreen, although the functionality you get changes from trim to trim. 

The basic Peugeot 5008 Active gets Bluetooth, DAB a USB port, six speakers and Apple Carplay/Android Auto, which allows you to use your phone’s navigation functionality - along with various other selected apps - through the car’s screen. The 5008 Allure adds built-in sat-nav and voice control, while GT Line trim throws in wireless phone charging. The range-topping Peugeot 5008 GT, meanwhile, adds an upgraded Focal sound system. These distinctions apply to the previous trim line-ups that used variations on the Active, Allure, and GT names.

Using the 5008 infotainment system isn’t as easy as it might be. For starters, it’s a touchscreen, and the amount of attention you need to invest in tapping or swiping just the right bit of the screen inevitably distracts you from the road, more so than a car with a traditional dial controller to scroll through the on-screen menus. 

That’s another thing: the menus. There are loads of them, and they’re convoluted and illogically arranged, so finding your way around the system can be difficult. The worst bit, though, is the software. The graphics look rather dated, and every time you jab the screen to register a command, there’s a seemingly endless pause before anything happens and you begin to wonder if your command registered at all.

While the Peugeot 5008 is obviously quite a big car, it is slightly smaller than the Skoda Kodiaq. Get your tape measure out and you'll find that it's 4641mm long (5150mm when you've got the boot open), 2098mm wide (including the door mirrors) and 1646mm high (including roof rails). The wheelbase (that's the gap between the front and rear wheels) is 2840mm.

First things first, we’d implore you not to buy a car with a panoramic roof, which is standard on the Peugeot 5008 GT Line Premium and GT trims, and optional on most others. It absolutely massacres the amount of headroom you get, to the point where taller folk will feel rather hemmed-in, even in the front seats.  Things are even worse in the middle row, because you don’t even have to be that tall to feel short-changed. 

Live without the glass above your head, though, and the problem goes away completely: front- and rear headroom isn’t class-leading, but it’s absolutely fine. Legroom is also fine in both rows: not quite as generous as in some rivals, but there’s still enough space for long limbs to stretch. 

Where the middle row really impresses, though, is when you’re carrying three people there. Each member of the trio gets their own identically sized chair (no hard, raised or narrow middle seat here), which also happens to slide and recline individually, and the cabin is wide enough that three sets of adult shoulders will fit side-by-side without feeling too pinched. Even better, the floor is totally flat, so unlike in most rivals, there’s no transmission tunnel to rob anyone of foot space. 

The extra two chairs that fold up out of the boot floor are better than most cars in the class for space. Those in the middle will probably need to donate a bit of space by sliding their seat forward if an adult is going to fit, especially if it’s for any significant period of time, but you get a shade more room than you do in a Kodiaq. These rearmost seats don’t come with Isofix child seat mounting points, but the three in the middle row do, and there’s enough space that you’ll have a fighting chance of making use of all three at the same time.

With all seven seats in place, the luggage space you get is better described as a shelf rather than a boot, but a bag-for-life's worth of shopping or two will fit. Peugeot doesn't even quote an official boot capacity with all the seats in use.

Fold the rearmost chairs, and the boot is massive (capable of carrying 952 litres of luggage), with a huge floor, impressive depth and completely flush sides, making it an incredibly useful shape. There’s no load lip, either, and the middle seats fold down completely flat and flush for when you need to carry much bigger loads. Go for Allure trim or above, and the front passenger seat does the same, allowing you to carry incredibly long items of cargo.

Whem it was launched, the Peugeot 5008 came with four engines choices: two petrol and two diesel. The petrol range started with a 1.2-litre turbo with 131PS, but if you’re worried that this sounds rather weedy in a car the size of the Peugeot 5008, then you needn’t. It has loads of urge from low revs and it keeps on pulling as the revs climb higher, so it actually feels amazingly perky and brisk the whole time. 

For those who mainly do short journeys, this is definitely the engine to have. There’s was a 1.6 turbo petrol with 181PS, which is quite a bit faster on paper, but is no longer available in a brand new 5008.

High-mileage drivers will probably be better off with one of the turbodiesels, and for most of them, there’s probably no need to look past the entry-level 1.5-litre unit with 131PS.

It’s muscular enough in the bottom half of the rev range to pull the car around with reasonable urgency, even though it could never be described as fast, and it runs out of puff a bit when the revs climb higher. The 2.0-litre diesel, offering 177PS, does make the performance a good bit more muscular, but it is not an option for new car buyers any more. Really, it’s only worth considering for used buyers if you plan to tow heavy trailers, as it’ll pull up to 1800kg, much more than other Peugeot 5008s.

The two 131PS engines are available with either a six-speed manual gearbox or an eight-speed automatic, where the pokier engines are auto-only. Neither is ideal: the manual shift is notchy and the clutch pedal feels overly springy, while the auto’ can feel a bit jerky when you’re manoeuvring. However, both are entirely adequate, so it’s just a case of picking the type you prefer.

Latterly, Peugeot trimmed the engine range to the 1.5 HDI diesel and a petrol-electric hybrid with the 1.2 engine that delivers 136PS. It's a sound choice and offers decent performance and economy.

You won’t have any complaints about the refinement of any of the engines. Even the three-cylinder 1.2 petrol is really quiet and smooth when you work it hard, so it’s a civilised companion at all times. The 1.5 diesel is a bit noisier, but still perfectly acceptable, with only a faint clatter to be heard under acceleration, and while you feel a few more vibrations than with the petrol, it’s nothing that ruins the calm. Meanwhile, the 2.0-litre diesel is smoother and quieter still, and by quite a long way, so it’s really good in this area.

All the engines we’ve tried settle to a faint background hum on the motorway, so all is good there, too. What’s more, wind- and road noise are really well contained at 70mph, making motorway journeys impressively peaceful.

Happily, the Peugeot 5008 has already been smashed into various things by the experts at Euro NCAP, and it emerged with several large dents and a five-star crash test rating. That’s probably because all versions come with a useful amount of standard safety kit, including six airbags, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning and speed limit recognition and display. A space saver is also included on all versions except the most powerful diesel. 

However, more is provided as you progress up the trim structure. Allure cars get lane-keeping assistance, blind-spot monitoring and automatic emergency calling, While GT Line cars get brighter LED headlamps and LED cornering fog lamps. The Range-topping GT Premium trim, meanwhile, gets adaptive cruise control with a full stop function. 

Peugeot's reliability has improved considerably in recent years, though it still sits in 24th place out of 29 entries in the most recent HonestJohn Satisfaction Survey.

Very few owners have reported issues with their Peugeot 5008, while the smaller 3008 is similarly reliable. That said, a few faults have been reported with Peugeot's 1.2-litre petrol engine – something to bear in mind if you're keen to avoid diesel power.

Insurance groupings for the Peugeot 5008 are about what you’d expect for the class, and premiums should be reasonably affordable. Group 14 (of 50, 50 being the most expensive group) is the lowest classification you’ll get, and both the lower-powered petrol and diesel engines sit there or thereabouts. At the other end of the scale, the priciest version to insure sits in group 25. That’s the 1.6 petrol, but the 2.0-litre diesel is only a couple of groups below. Our advice? Keep your choice of engine humble for the lowest premiums.

On April 1, 2017, the Government changed the tax rules so that instead of paying VED based on your car’s CO2 emissions, all petrol and diesel cars pay a flat rate of £180. The 5008 was released after the given date, so it uses the latter system. One word of caution, though: although the vast majority of owners will pay the £180 annual rate, it’s possible you may pay more.

That’s because cars that cost over £40,000 when new are subject to an additional charge of £390 between years two and six of the car’s life, hiking your annual outlay over that period. Also bear in mind that if the car you buy sails close to that threshold, and the original owner added a few optional extras that took it over £40k, then again, you’ll be liable for the increased rate.

All versions of the 5008 come with a very decent slice of standard equipment. The entry-level 5008 Active has two-zone climate control, remote locking, four powered windows, alloy wheels, automatic lights and wipers and a leather wrapping for the steering wheel. That’s on top of all the safety and infotainment gear we discussed earlier. 

If you can, though, we’d recommend stepping up to Peugeot 5008 Allure for its front and rear parking sensors and reversing camera, as well as its navigation, its folding front passenger seat and its part-leather-effect upholstery. 

GT trim adds mainly styling touches inside and out, but you also get wireless phone charging, folding tray tables and retracting sunblinds for the middle row, along with brighter LED headlights. The range-topping Peugeot 5008 GT, meanwhile, throws in a 360-degree parking camera, powered leather seats, the upgraded Focal hi-fi system and adaptive cruise control.

Peugeot previously offered Premium as an upgrade for the Allure and GT models, adding luxuries such as a hands-free powered tailgate, keyless go, a panoramic roof and front seats that’ll heat up your backside and massage your back. Lovely as this lot is to have, we'd avoid it due to the panoramic sunroof that robs too much headroom.