Peugeot 208 Touchscreen Problems

Most Peugeot 208 models from 2012 onwards were fitted with a touchscreen unit for the radio, Bluetooth connection as well as some in-car settings like the trip computer and viewing your fuel consumption. Some (but not all) were also fitted with units that had navigation and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Unfortunately these screens aren’t particularly good and are prone to a few problems. There’s a lot of information on the issues with these screens out there on the internet, but having owned a Peugeot 208 for three years and having been a mechanic for ten years, I can add some value and help you out if you’re experiencing Peugeot 208 touchscreen problems.

Let’s look at some of the most common issues with the touchscreen on your Peugeot 208 and what you can do to fix them.

Background to these units

The touchscreen units fitted to the Peugeot 208 were named SMEG and came in several different generations. The most notable difference between the generations is between generation 5 and 6, as generation 5 was the last generation fitted to the pre-facelift model of Peugeot 208. 

This has become a point of contention in online forums for people who bought a pre-facelift model of 208, saw the screen and thought they were getting navigation and CarPlay, only to find that it isn’t possible to upgrade a SMEG5 or older unit to include these features if they weren’t fitted from the factory.

These units were also fitted to other Peugeot cars including the 508, as well as some Citroen cars such as the DS3. As mentioned they are not particularly reliable units and are prone to problems and issues, the most common of which we will run through in this article.

Blank screen when turning the car on

This is a common problem and one that I used to experience at least every few months when I owned my Peugeot 208. One thing that would always solve it is removing and reseating the fuse for the touchscreen. The touchscreen fuse is located in the glove compartment fusebox on RHD cars and to the left of the steering wheel in LHD cars. 

The fuse you need to check is numbered fuse 18, and is a 20A fuse. Visually inspect the fuse for signs of damage, and if the fuse looks damaged, replace it. If the fuse looks OK, put it back in and see if you are still experiencing the problem.

You may also find that this is because of heat. As we’ll discuss in a later section, these touchscreens are very sensitive to heat. There is a thermal cutout on these screens and if the internal temperature gets too high, they will turn themselves off. It may be the case that the screen is too hot even to switch on, so when you start the car you get a blank screen. 

The solution to this is to run the car with the air conditioning on for at least half an hour and when the internal temperature is low enough, the screen should switch itself back on.

Another cause for this is a low battery - you’ll also find that other features such as the stop/start don’t work if the battery charge is too low. This is a symptom of a failing battery or alternator if this happens too often, because that indicates that the battery is not receiving enough charge or isn’t able to hold a charge above a certain level. 

As mentioned, when the battery drops below around 30% charge, it will start turning systems off, including the touchscreen. In this instance you should leave the car running to get some charge in the battery and see if the screen will come on. If not, you may need a new battery.

I have heard of people dismantling these units and reviewing how the fan connects to the board - apparently the connection is designed to be flexible as the heatsink can expand and contract with heat, but sometimes the connection is too flexible and it can cause the screen not to come on. 

Some people have managed to force the fan and heatsink assembly to make a connection with the board to force the unit to come on, but I don’t have any experience with this, and unless you’re electrically-minded, wouldn’t recommend you start dismantling your touchscreen unit in case you can’t get it back together again.

Delayed response to button pushes

This is really frustrating but it is normal. These SMEG units fitted to the Peugeot 208 are not brilliant touchscreen units (at least nowhere near as good as the newer ones fitted to Peugeot cars after 2019) and you will occasionally find that if you push a button, nothing happens for at least two or three seconds.

This is normal on a lot of cars - I recently had a Ford Mondeo (which is a cracking car, by the way) in for repair and I was playing with the touchscreen and the delay was really, really obvious. However it does seem to be worse on the Peugeot SMEG units than some other cars. 

I would say that if it seems very excessive to you (i.e. you’re waiting in excess of five seconds for something to happen after pushing a button) you ought to get the dealer to look at your car. Otherwise, it’s normal and the only solution is either to replace the head unit with an aftermarket one or swap out to a newer car.

Switching off in very warm weather

Again, while annoying, this is not a fault. Sometimes you will find when the cabin is very hot (above 35 degrees) the screen will flash up with a message along the lines of “Console Temperature Exceeded” and the screen will turn itself off. 

When it has cooled down enough, it will switch itself back on. You may also find that the unit doesn’t switch itself off, but instead restricts volume to either 10 or 15 (which generally is so low that you can’t hear the radio over internal fan noise.)

Sadly this is normal and can become very annoying on a hot day. The problem is that there is not much room for cooling in the head unit cavity so it is very easy when the cabin temperature is high for the unit to overheat and restrict operation or turn itself off to avoid overheating damage.

The reason the volume is restricted is because there are safety thermistors mounted to the output amplifier chip heatsink, and if this gets too hot, the temperature is restricted to prevent the amplifiers burning out due to heat. As annoying as this is, it’s a design issue with the car in that the screen is unable to cool itself properly, and there’s nothing you can really do about it other than try to keep the cabin temperature as cool as you can by running the air conditioning in the summer. 

Screen reboots itself constantly

This is a really common problem on post 65-plate Peugeot 208 (facelift) models. Unfortunately as we’ve mentioned, these touchscreen units aren’t particularly good anyway but it seems as though around the time of the Mk1 facelift in 2015-2016, there was a bad software version that went out that caused this issue.

This is well documented on forums online where the touchscreen would reset itself every three minutes or so and Peugeot owners were getting no luck having the units replaced by the dealership. It seems as though around the end of 2015, however, an updated software version was released that fixed this issue.

If your touchscreen is rebooting itself it may just need a software update. Go to the Menu and press the Settings button for around five seconds and it should give you the SMEG version and the date. If it’s anything below 2016, you should get the dealer to update your head unit’s firmware and see if this fixes the issue. 

You might expect to pay an hour’s labour to have this done - around £120. The Peugeot software has been leaked online a couple of times but unless you really know what you’re doing, I’d suggest just getting the dealer to do it - there is a risk of bricking your screen and needing a new head unit if you get it wrong.

It’s worth mentioning that this will likely only work on SMEG6 units - SMEG5 units were fitted to the pre-facelift 208 (prior to Sept 2015). Following the instructions above to find the version number will tell you whether you have a SMEG5 or 6 unit.

We’ve written a huge amount of content about the Peugeot 208, and if you’re experiencing problems and issues with your 208 you should check out some of our other articles: