Peugeot e-208 long term test

The car Peugeot e-208 GT 51kWh Run by James Tute, Content Editor

Why it's here To see if Peugeot’s small electric car is agile enough for city driving while remaining practical for longer trips to the Shires

Needs to Be well-suited to rush-hour traffic and comfy on motorway drives, with enough range for hassle-free long journeys

Mileage 5996 List price £32,900 Target Price £32,900 Price as tested £34,760 Official range 248 miles Test range 195 miles

16 April 2025 – Is all well under my e-208’s bonnet?

My Peugeot e-208 has a feature I like to call the Orange Spanner of Doom – a wrench-shaped light that appears on the side of the driver’s display.

I first saw it last year when the infotainment screen stopped working for a while (you can read about that in my second e-208 report).

Then in January it came back, this time with a series of messages on the driver’s display, starting with “Service in 150 miles or 4 month(s)”, along with another little spanner next to the mileage reading. Bizarrely, that message appeared at 4656 miles – which suggests the official e-208 mileage interval is 4806 miles, which seems an odd number to pick.

I called Peugeot’s helpline and ended up speaking with Susan, who was very helpful and explained that my car was nagging me for a one-year service because it had been registered 12 months ago, on March 1, 2024.

And so one morning recently I dropped the e-208 at my local Stellantis &You dealership in Wimbledon for its first health check – by which time the driver’s display was slapping my wrists with the message: “Service overdue by 750 miles.”

I’m not sure exactly what went on between Stellantis &You and my e-208 over the next few hours, but they did send me a cool video of the underside of the car (good to know it still has four wheels!).

I also received a checklist showing there’s a problem with… absolutely nothing. And that’s as it should be with a car that’s a year old and has done less than 6000 miles. Peugeot did okay in our 2024 What Car? Reliability Survey, finishing 19th out of the 31 brands we have data for, so I haven’t been driving around waiting for the e-208 to conk out.

I’d been quoted £145 for the service when I booked it, and that’s exactly how much I was charged – quite a lot to find out a one-year-old car still works, but still useful for peace of mind.

On the plus side, the e-208 was filthy when I dropped it off and spotless when I picked it up. Parking up back home, I was stunned by how clear the view out of the rear parking cameras was again.

Better still – no more Orange Spanner of Doom glaring at me. Let’s hope it stays that way.

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