me, myself and my peugeot (Peugeot 406 Rapier Saloon)

Member Name: luseantom

Product:	Peugeot 406 Rapier Saloon
Date:	28/07/05 (6995 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a few

Disadvantages: a few

A while ago my husband and me were looking for a new car. My old Vauxhall Vectra had died on me, when the gearbox dropped out of the bottom on the way to my friend's house....Soooooooo embarrassing, especially when it was lunchtime outside a high school. Anyway enough about that embarrassing moment. So we were looking for a car, I had always liked the Audi A4 but they are very expensive. My husband told me about the Peugeot 406, I had a look at one and thought there quite a nice shape. So we started searching on-line and in the auto trader for one. I went on Ebay and had a good scour until I finally saw a cheap one.

We travelled to Nottingham that night to have a look at it. It was 02 reg in blue. On first impressions I thought it was a really nice car. My husband who is really good with cars and used to be a mechanic had a really good look over the car, we decided to buy it. There were a few minor faults such as a small dint in the wing and a small hole in the front grill but other than that it was a bargain at £3400. We snapped it up.

So we got home, it was really late by this time so I never got chance to take it for a spin as he had driven it home. The next day I took it out. It was really nice to drive and I felt really posh in a new car (well it's the newest I've ever had). It is really spacious with enough room in the back to fit 3 adults. Even with the front seats right back there is still plenty leg room.

MOD CONS
^^^^^^^^^^^^

The newer 406's come fully fitted with loads of mod cons. Firstly there is an in car entertainment system, or CD player as I like to call it…lol. It also has a little stick underneath the right indicator, which is for turning the sound up and down and changing the song. Some of the newer models apparently come with a 6-disk multichanger. All the models come fully fitted with a JBL speaker system.

It also has Automatic Air conditioning, which means that when it is warm whether you can set the air conditioning to come on to just the right temperature and also the same for the heating you can adjust the temperature that you want it to, and it is all digitalised by computer. It comes with Automatic Visibility Programme which can rapidly clear the windows in case you want to get hot steamy. There is also a button for re-circulating the interior air, which apparently is to prevent the entry of unpleasant odours so if you go past some smelly cows you wont smell them.

The front seats come with passenger airbags, which you can turn off, incase you want to fit a rear facing child seat in. Which is very useful, and something I could have done with a few years ago. Both front seats come with side airbags and front airbags for extra safety. There are on both front seats forwards and backwards adjustments, seat cushion angle adjustment, driver seat angle adjustment, and seat back angle adjustment. The back seats have 3 seat belts even the middle belt has a proper belt not just a lap one.

One the data screen there is a fully functional data computer screen, which tells you if there are any faults with the car, and what it is. It tells you how many miles there are left till the next service, and flashes a warning light when there are less than 300 miles till the service is due. There is an oil level light that will tell you exactly how much oil there is in the filter. The computer can also be adjusted for the mileage of the car, it will tell you either the range of fuel left in the car, your current fuel consumption, your average consumption, your average speed or your distance travelled.


There are electric windows both front and back with a switch so that you can turn off the back windows to stop the kids messing with them. It comes with full central locking, on a high frequency remote control key. Also it has deadlocking so that the interior and exterior door locking controls cannot open the doors.

TECHNICAL DATA
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Fuel consumption is about average for a 1.8 litre engine at approximately 90 miles to £10.

The dimensions of the car are 936,5mm from the front bumper to the middle of the front wheel, 2700mm from the middle of the front wheel to the middle of the back wheel, 936,5mm from the middle of the back wheel to the back bumper, and width from wheel to wheel is 1760mm, height is 1395mm from the floor to the roof.

MY CONCLUSION
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Even though this is a really nice car and has loads of additional features, there is just something about it that I don't like. Two days after we bought the car an antipollution fault appeared on it, which as we have found is a common fault on them, even though it is easily corrected. The door trim has also come off slightly which is also a common fault on them and can be easily fixed. I just don't like the feel of it to drive it is not the nicest of cars to drive but it is a nice car. For the price that I paid I'm not going to grumble though as we have recently had it valued at £4500. The insurance for me was quite expensive aswell. As a 24 year old with additional male driver with 3 years no claims it cost me £650 and that was the cheapest quote, it is a category 11 insurance. Overall I would recommend it to buyers as it really is a lovely car but it is just not right for me.

Hope this has helped
Lynsey xx

Summary: not a bad car just not for me

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Driving comfort: