Car Test
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R0279 | |
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November 2002 |
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| Peugeot 307 SW | ||
| Printer Friendly Page | Featured model: 2.0HDi 110 SE | |
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The SW is an ingenious idea. Peugeot has taken its 307 Estate and fitted it with three back seats that slide, tumble-fold and take out, just like in an MPV. But there’s more. For an extra £165 each, you can buy two individual seats to form a third row. Et voila! – a versatile seven-seater without the bulk and inconvenience of your actual full-size people carrier.
There are snags, though: those rearmost seats are only suitable for the likes of Toulouse-Lautrec without his bowler, and with seven up, luggage space equals the square root of zilch. In other respects, though, the news is brighter – especially from above, thanks to the huge glass roof panel – it’s fixed, but has an electric blind. There’s a wide range of seating/luggage space permutations, of course, but there’s no clever Zafira/Meriva seat folding in this case, just the old mark-one removal and storage job. However, although at 16kg the chairs are fairly weighty, they snap in and out very easily. It’s only a matter of moments, therefore, for the SW to be transformed from minibus to cargo-carrier. In five-seater mode, it’s three-abreast-cosy for big blokes in the middle row, but by removing the (narrower) centre chair and repositioning the other two further inboard, you’ve got a really roomy four-seater. Headroom and foot space are particularly good, but leg-stretching space isn’t anything to write home about. Power, in this case, comes from Peugeot’s smooth and torquey two-litre HDi engine in 110bhp form. It suits the car well, with its eager mid-range pulling power and quiet motorway cruising, thanks to the appealingly long-legged top gear that also helps to give up to 52mpg economy. Not surprisingly, fifth won’t pull smoothly from much below 30mph, but the easy gearchange makes downshifting no hardship. Thirty-per-cent-stiffer rear suspension and 55-Series tyres do the ride no favours. It’s acceptably absorbent on major main roads, but becomes jittery and, indeed, quite thumpy on broken tarmac. We’ve no criticism of the SW’s cornering prowess, however, with good tyre grip and a reassuring, go-where-you-point-it feeling to the steering. Both front seats have inboard armrests and ratchet-type height adjusters, but annoyingly, the higher you sit, the less thigh support you get. Otherwise, we liked the driving position. The wheel is adjustable for reach and rake, the switchgear and controls are sensibly arranged, and generous window space aids vision and takes the guesswork out of parking. We’re also impressed by the inventory of safety features, even on the lower-priced S model. |
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