Common Faults with the Peugeot 208

Every car has its little problems and quirks – some more than others. As a mechanic of ten years, I’ve seen almost every problem on every car imaginable. Sometimes it can be difficult if you’re looking to purchase a new car to go through the internet and try to investigate what the common problems with a particular vehicle might be. 

In this article, we’re going to look at some of the most common faults and problems on the Peugeot 208. I speak as a mechanic with plenty of experience looking at these problems – if someone had booked a 208 in for repair, at least 50% of the time it would be one of the problems listed below. I also had a Peugeot 208 for several years (a 2015 diesel model) and experienced one or two of these myself.

If you’re looking to buy a Peugeot 208 (specifically the A9 model, or the first generation that ran from 2012 – 2019) then this article will be very useful to you. I’m not suggesting you will experience all of these problems – many Peugeot 208 owners do not experience any of these issues and some experience more than one. Also some of these problems are specific to either diesel or petrol models, or manual and automatic models, so I’ve labeled them as such where this is appropriate.

Note – the point of this article isn’t to discourage you from buying a Peugeot 208 – I think they’re great little cars. Every car has common problems and issues it faces. By reading this article you’ll be a bit more prepared for the issues you may encounter during Peugeot 208 ownership. Irrespective of what car you buy, it will have little niggles and minor issues like these.

Problems with the interior screen display

Sometimes Peugeot 208 owners report problems with the internal display either not coming on, or taking a significant amount of time to come on after the ignition has been turned on. Normal operation for these screens is to switch on as soon as the ignition has been turned on, display the Peugeot logo for around five seconds and default to the last radio station the car was tuned to. Anything different to this is not normal operation.

These touch screens are temperamental at the best of times, and even on cars where the screen is functional, occasionally it will play up. You’ll notice sometimes it may switch itself off when driving and reboot – sometimes it won’t come on and you’ll have to turn the ignition off and then on again to get the screen to come on. 

Another commonly reported problem is a delayed response from the touchscreen – you press a button and nothing happens for a few seconds, leading you to believe that the screen is broken; but then it does what you asked it to. You may also notice that the screen does not work properly or even shuts down in either very cold or very hot weather.

Some of these problems are temporary and will only occur every so often – and some are related to the design of the head unit. Peugeot put several generations of these SMEG units in the first generation 208 – the earlier ones were effectively just a radio unit with some of the car’s controls (like switching from km/h to mph, or changing the time/date) built in. Later models include CarPlay/Android Auto, reversing cameras and navigation. 

As mentioned these head units aren’t fantastic and if you’re after something fancy or feature-rich you may want to either purchase a different screen (popular with Peugeot 208 owners is the Dasaita unit, which is effectively a full Android tablet that you can watch movies on) or definitely go for one of the later models (post 2017) where the screen is a lot more refined than it was. However, some of the issues such as delayed response and switching off when the temperature is either too hot or too cold are normal and you will unfortunately just have to put up with them.

Note: we’ve written a full article on Peugeot 208 touchscreen problems if you’re experiencing issues we haven’t explained here.

Gearbox problems

We’re going to talk specifically about manual gearboxes here. We’ve already dedicated a full article to Peugeot 208 automatic transmission problems.

The Peugeot 208 was fitted with three different manual gearbox variants: 

• BE4/5 5-speed manual transmission
• MA5 5-speed manual transmission
• MCM 6-speed manual transmission

We’re going to look at the five and six speed models in isolation as there are significant differences between the two. 

Starting with the six-speed models, these are generally very reliable gearboxes; not much goes wrong with them at all. They’re a little vague when changing gear – you don’t get the positive click-clack of a Ford Fiesta gearbox for example, but are quite baggy with a long throw and a lot of movement when in gear. Nothing to worry about too much however, and if you’re looking at buying a Peugeot 208 you should err towards choosing a six speed (which is going to be much better for fuel economy and less noisy at higher speeds.)

The 5-speed manual gearboxes are based on a design from the 1980s (very similar to the Peugeot 205’s gearbox) and are very unrefined. Like the 6-speed gearbox they are very baggy with a long throw. In terms of reliability there are a few things that go wrong with them – you may notice crunching or knocking going into certain gears; mainly going from gear 1 to gear 2 and gear 2 to gear 3. 

When they are cold these gearboxes are very stiff and sometimes you will struggle to engage first gear – they usually loosen up as they warm, however. You may notice whining or grinding when in gear or when engine braking in fourth or third gear – this can be a sign that you have missing teeth on one of the gears or that other internal parts such as the lay shaft or main shaft are worn and need replacing.

Peugeot says that these gearboxes are sealed for life but in my experience you tend to get between 100,000 and 120,000 miles out of these gearboxes before they need rebuilding (I had one in before at 50,000 that needed a full gearbox rebuild) so I would recommend changing the oil every 40,000 miles to maximise the life of the gearbox. These gearboxes take any 75W-80 or 75W-90 gear oil – I would recommend Total or Mobil as that’s what the Peugeot dealer will use.

Engine oil pressure fault – timing belt

This refers to the petrol model 208s, specifically the 1.0/1.2L VTi/Puretech engines. It doesn’t apply to the GTi’s 1.6 THP engine, as this engine is driven by a timing chain. The timing belt in these vehicles runs in oil, and if the incorrect oil is used the belt has a tendency to break up. These bits of the timing belt end up in the sump, where the oil pickup draws them up into the engine and they block up the oil channels in the engine leading to oil starvation. 

The problems this causes are numerous but obviously first off if you have a weakened timing belt it’s more likely to snap. These engines are interference engines so if your cambelt does snap it will likely cause terminal damage to the engine. Additionally if bits of the engine block up the oil channels in the engine, you will get an engine failure where the engine will run too hot and without any lubrication (because the oil pump can’t circulate any oil to it). The engine will weld itself together when running, and when you switch it off and go to start it again it won’t start and will need a full rebuild or replacement.

This is why it’s SO important to replace the timing belt in your Peugeot 208 at the recommended intervals.

This can also throw up lots of weird errors such as engine oil pressure fault, or engine failure, or similar. If you’re getting any of these you should have someone check your timing belt as quickly as possible, as you still may be able to save your engine if this is your problem.

I’m not going to write too much on this as I’ve written about it extensively in other Peugeot 208 articles, so if you want to know more about this issue feel free to check out any of the relevant articles listed at the bottom of this post.

Knocking sound from the front

I cannot even begin to tell you how many vehicles I saw with this problem. Generally the symptom is an intermittent knock from the front offside or nearside of the car when travelling over bumps at low speed.

The problem with this (and when I first started seeing these cars I fell victim to the same thing) is that the problem isn’t easily replicated unless you sit in the car and drive around with someone for hours. Most mechanics when they hear it can accurately diagnose it as being a failed front top strut mount, but I’ve had issues where I’ve had someone’s car in and driven it about for around an hour and can’t replicate the problem.

The problem is the front strut top mounts. The front suspension leg consists of the strut itself, the coil spring and the top mount. Part of the top mount is a little metal disc with a bit of rubber around it, and the rubber absorbs some of the movement from the shock and the wheel when you go over bumps. Over time this rubber perishes, and instead of the rubber pushing up against the car, the metal pushes up against the car and causes the knocking noise. It may also sound a bit like a squeak or a groan but you’ll know it when you hear it and it gets annoying after a while.

When I had my Peugeot 208 it went in once a year without fail for this issue. It is exceptionally common on these cars and I would say every 208 owner experiences it at least once – some decide not to do anything about it, some get the idea that it’s elsewhere in the suspension and go changing ball joints, bottom arms, suspension bushes, etc – and this isn’t where the problem lies. 

All I can say is if you do have this problem, identify three or four stretches of road where the noise usually or always occurs and insist a mechanic comes with you and hears the noise for themselves.

You can expect probably to pay £120 per side to have this issue fixed. More importantly, when your front shocks need replacing, insist that they put on new top mounts and you should save a bit of money – it won’t be much, if any extra labour to have this done.

FAP/Adblue Problems

This only applies to diesel Peugeot 208s. Pre Euro 6 diesels (2012 – 2015/6) were fitted with a FAP pouch (FAP is a French acronym – ​​”filtre à particules” which means “particulate filter”) and Euro 6 models (2016 +) had an Adblue tank. FAP and Adblue are both additives that get added to the exhaust to prevent the release of harmful gasses into the environment.

The problem with FAP (and Adblue) is that it runs out and will eventually need to be replaced. I’ve heard of 100,000 miles 208s not starting because the FAP fluid has run out. What you’ll need to do in this instance is buy a new pouch of FAP fluid from Peugeot. The FAP pouch is fitted behind the rear wheel arch liner so the rear wheel and arch liner need to come off for it to be replaced. This isn’t a difficult job but obviously it is a bit of a pain if your car won’t start and you can’t get it to a garage to have the work done.

Adblue is similar in that it will stop the car from starting if you’ve run out of Adblue. Adblue is a little bit easier to top up, however – all you need to do is lift the boot liner and spare wheel out and there is a nozzle in there for you to fill up with Adblue – and Adblue is available at most service stations and garages. 

Stop-start not working properly

I also saw a number of cars with this issue, and unfortunately it’s normal. Occasionally you’ll notice that even though the “ECO” light flashes on the dashboard, the car won’t stop the engine when you’re sat at a set of lights or waiting in traffic.

The stop-start is very picky on these vehicles. Firstly it will only work if you’re in neutral and off the clutch, and as soon as you put the clutch back down it will start the engine again. However, if you’re drawing power by using the AC or the heater, usually it won’t switch the engine off as it needs the engine to be running to provide power. 

Also the onboard computer will only switch the engine off if the conditions are perfect – i.e. if the charge in the battery is high enough, if the outside temperature is optimal, etc – so if you’re not meeting all of these conditions, the engine will stay on.

My 208 would never switch the engine off in the winter – so from around November to March the stop-start wouldn’t work, but as soon as it got warmer it would come on again – so the stop-start not working is perfectly normal and you shouldn’t be worried about it.

Engine burns a significant amount of oil

This mainly applies to the petrol 1.0L and 1.2L VTi and Puretech engines. You may find that the engine burns a lot of oil between services, and you have to keep topping it up. 

Sadly this is normal – as these engines go for higher miles, they start to burn more oil. Peugeot have said that up to 1L/1000 miles is normal, and so if you do have one of these engines and it’s done more than 75,000 miles make sure you’re regularly checking the oil level. Keep a bottle of the correct oil for your engine in your 208 as well, so you’re not caught short.

The other thing with these engines is make sure you get them serviced every single year or when you hit the mileage interval – they’re OK engines but don’t take kindly to a lack of maintenance.

High clutch biting point

This again is normal – most French (and Japanese) cars have quite a high biting point. The clutch in the Peugeot 208 is a hydraulic clutch and therefore can’t be adjusted using a clutch cable, so this is unfortunately something you’ll need to get used to. 

However, if you really feel the bite point is so high that the car is undriveable, it may just be that the clutch is worn and needs replacing. If it’s been around 60,000 miles since the last clutch replacement this may be your issue and you’ll need to get the clutch replaced. 

Hopefully this gives you a bit more information to work with when choosing to buy your Peugeot 208 – again, this article isn’t meant to put you off buying one; not everyone is going to experience these issues and even if you do, they generally aren’t too expensive to fix.

If you’re looking at a Peugeot 208 and want to know more about the cost of maintenance or more information about common problems, check out some more of our articles below!