01-05-2014, 03:39 PM
Finally, after seeing a new shape 308 in dealerships we were able to hire one yesterday from Avis.
We got the 1.6 HDi 120 6-speed. No idea what trim level, but had relatively sporty seats and plush alloys.
First impressions, it was damn comfortable. The seats have no electronic tomfoolery and no heated function (or massage function like the DS4) but they had deep bolsters and plenty of give and strength in the right places. Exterior styling is pretty good actually for a modern car, I still think the headlights could be better as they look a little 'squinty' and small in context with the rest of the car, but overall it's nice. Boot is huge, rear legroom was OK (certainly no worse than a Golf) and build quality felt good (no noises, whistles or squeaks - even at speed).
Setting off you realise how un-cluttered the dashboard is, the steering wheel is very small and sporty-feeling and the dials / speed readout are very high up - you don't look through the steering wheel but above it. The rev meter (and water temp) goes around anti-clockwise though and that bugged me! The 1.6 is incredibly torquey - it would probably out-run my ancient Pug even with the remap to a supposed 125-135hp. Once at speed though the lower displacement means that overtaking power is lacking a bit - once over 60mph this thing doesn't accelerate as well as a 2.0 306.
The suspension is hard, but it's like this on all modern cars. The 308 was very compliant though and whilst it jolted at every bump it didn't skit about at all and gripped and gripped like shit to a blanket. Handling was definitely very good, but the ESP automatically switches itself back on after about 10 seconds so having a switch in the first place seems a bit like a waste of space. We couldn't do any serious tyre shredding roundabout action put it that way - but we tried.
Finally, the one flaw of this car which I feel ruins it. That's right, there's only one problem with this car but it is actually that bad that it has completely put me off of looking for one as a 2nd-hand purchase in years to come. It's what Peugeot are calling the iCock (or iCockpit for accuracy).
The theory being that one touch-screen unit controls everything on the car from the heaters, to the car settings, to the stereo (not so bad this bit), telephone / contacts, to the trip computer and worst of all - the f*cking ShitNav.
We hire a lot of cars and have to deal with a lot of different Nav setups, best yet being the new-generation BMW 3 series. The Pug iCock however was the least intuitive and worst to use. It won't take a post-code and it doesn't think that Eltham exists - at all.
You have to tell it the City first, then the Road. It gives you the option to put in co-ordinates too, but I couldn't for the life of me work out how to enter it.
After lots of jabbing and pressing-and-holding, scrolling and generally swearing I had managed to direct us towards the address in Portsmouth (which thankfully it knows exists). The ShitNav tries to work with your telephone Contacts (which are automatically loaded into the system if you can work out how to connect your phone). Who keeps addresses in their telephone contacts though?
It was absolutely shocking. And once working it had a 'traffic' feature. At 6:30 on the M25 this sounds like a useful feature. Sadly, not on the iCock interface. It was alerting us to traffic jams not even on the route we had set for the Nav. As you can imagine there are a lot of traffic jams at that time of day, especially anywhere within a 30 mile radius of the M25. So whilst travelling towards the M3 we were being told about delays on the Dartford Crossing. Useful shit.
Only because there were so many alerts and messages I actually struggled to shut the bastard up, because every time I navigated the menu to the option to turn the alerts off an alert would come through, both audible and visible - a little alert box which takes up the entire screen and has to be closed before you can continue. So it actually blocks the view of the ShitNav to tell you about a traffic jam which won't affect you whilst deafening you in one of the worst automated voices I've ever heard. It is absolutely shocking.
This is how we fixed it with a Thomas Thomas-
![[Image: 6A8C7A6A-0FE0-4EB3-8FEA-D03B8775C7BC.jpg]](http://i430.photobucket.com/albums/qq25/chris_rx71/Mobile%20Uploads/6A8C7A6A-0FE0-4EB3-8FEA-D03B8775C7BC.jpg)
So you're probably thinking "C.A.R. you're being harsh, surely just spec the car without the ShitNav and you have a good car?"
No!
Because even little menial things like slightly adjusting the temparature or turning the A/C on are now menu-scrolls away and not just a simple button-press.
Also, what does the future hold for this car? With everything integrated into the iCock, what if systems stop talking to each other? What if one system fails?
The 308 would be a wonderful car if the dashboard was just more cluttered. Give me buttons, not this iCock bullshit. I don't buy it and recommend you don't either, they're going to be a nightmare to own outside of warranty if something goes wrong with that main computer...
We got the 1.6 HDi 120 6-speed. No idea what trim level, but had relatively sporty seats and plush alloys.
First impressions, it was damn comfortable. The seats have no electronic tomfoolery and no heated function (or massage function like the DS4) but they had deep bolsters and plenty of give and strength in the right places. Exterior styling is pretty good actually for a modern car, I still think the headlights could be better as they look a little 'squinty' and small in context with the rest of the car, but overall it's nice. Boot is huge, rear legroom was OK (certainly no worse than a Golf) and build quality felt good (no noises, whistles or squeaks - even at speed).
Setting off you realise how un-cluttered the dashboard is, the steering wheel is very small and sporty-feeling and the dials / speed readout are very high up - you don't look through the steering wheel but above it. The rev meter (and water temp) goes around anti-clockwise though and that bugged me! The 1.6 is incredibly torquey - it would probably out-run my ancient Pug even with the remap to a supposed 125-135hp. Once at speed though the lower displacement means that overtaking power is lacking a bit - once over 60mph this thing doesn't accelerate as well as a 2.0 306.
The suspension is hard, but it's like this on all modern cars. The 308 was very compliant though and whilst it jolted at every bump it didn't skit about at all and gripped and gripped like shit to a blanket. Handling was definitely very good, but the ESP automatically switches itself back on after about 10 seconds so having a switch in the first place seems a bit like a waste of space. We couldn't do any serious tyre shredding roundabout action put it that way - but we tried.
Finally, the one flaw of this car which I feel ruins it. That's right, there's only one problem with this car but it is actually that bad that it has completely put me off of looking for one as a 2nd-hand purchase in years to come. It's what Peugeot are calling the iCock (or iCockpit for accuracy).
The theory being that one touch-screen unit controls everything on the car from the heaters, to the car settings, to the stereo (not so bad this bit), telephone / contacts, to the trip computer and worst of all - the f*cking ShitNav.
We hire a lot of cars and have to deal with a lot of different Nav setups, best yet being the new-generation BMW 3 series. The Pug iCock however was the least intuitive and worst to use. It won't take a post-code and it doesn't think that Eltham exists - at all.
You have to tell it the City first, then the Road. It gives you the option to put in co-ordinates too, but I couldn't for the life of me work out how to enter it.
After lots of jabbing and pressing-and-holding, scrolling and generally swearing I had managed to direct us towards the address in Portsmouth (which thankfully it knows exists). The ShitNav tries to work with your telephone Contacts (which are automatically loaded into the system if you can work out how to connect your phone). Who keeps addresses in their telephone contacts though?
It was absolutely shocking. And once working it had a 'traffic' feature. At 6:30 on the M25 this sounds like a useful feature. Sadly, not on the iCock interface. It was alerting us to traffic jams not even on the route we had set for the Nav. As you can imagine there are a lot of traffic jams at that time of day, especially anywhere within a 30 mile radius of the M25. So whilst travelling towards the M3 we were being told about delays on the Dartford Crossing. Useful shit.
Only because there were so many alerts and messages I actually struggled to shut the bastard up, because every time I navigated the menu to the option to turn the alerts off an alert would come through, both audible and visible - a little alert box which takes up the entire screen and has to be closed before you can continue. So it actually blocks the view of the ShitNav to tell you about a traffic jam which won't affect you whilst deafening you in one of the worst automated voices I've ever heard. It is absolutely shocking.
This is how we fixed it with a Thomas Thomas-
So you're probably thinking "C.A.R. you're being harsh, surely just spec the car without the ShitNav and you have a good car?"
No!
Because even little menial things like slightly adjusting the temparature or turning the A/C on are now menu-scrolls away and not just a simple button-press.
Also, what does the future hold for this car? With everything integrated into the iCock, what if systems stop talking to each other? What if one system fails?
The 308 would be a wonderful car if the dashboard was just more cluttered. Give me buttons, not this iCock bullshit. I don't buy it and recommend you don't either, they're going to be a nightmare to own outside of warranty if something goes wrong with that main computer...
