Peugeot e-208 (2020) long-term review 90,000km/56,000mi [Reliability, Problems, Breakdowns, Battery]

My experience with the 2020 Peugeot e-208 for the last 3 years and 90,000km/56,000mi inlcuding all the problems and breakdowns we have had with the car over the last 3 years and whether I recommend the car as a second hand purchase.

00:00 - Exterior Introduction
0:25 - Brief Introduction of Reliability & Problems
01:58 - Interior Walkaround & Wear/Tear
02:47 - Rear Seats
03:22 - Front Seats
03:55 - Cockpit
06:45 - Driver's Seat
07:28 - Range and Battery Degradation
08:40 - Dashboard and Infotainment
09:58 - Start of Drive, reliability cont.
13:11 - Handling, Suspension, Brake test
15:06 - Second Hand Buying Advice
18:18 - In-Depth Reliability, Repair Times and Repair Costs
24:20 - Conclusion and Warranty Details

[tzeimet]

Still waiting for the onboard charger since October 2023. Now Jan 2024

Update: Got the car back 26/01/2024. 100% Parts and Labour paid by Peugeot.

[stephen]

This is an excellently detailed video.
Great work. Thanks.
Very handy for someone looking at buying a used instance of this model.
👍👍👍

[craigjenkins]

Very interesting, thank you for that review. I've had identical problems with the OBC at similar distances. First time replaced under warranty at 17000km, then again at 86000km, 3 years old, replaced OBC, but Peugeot did pay 80% of cost leaving me to pay 688€, and wondering how long it will last this time! But, like you, I'm loving the car in every other way. I have no desire to sell yet but further repair expenses could change my mind. Bonne route, gute fahre and have a good trip!

[mindfreeze]

Thanks for this video. Ive never seen the base model e-208, I didnt know that EV's could have manual rear passenger windows. It sounds nice when its driving at least, relaxing even.

[ISuperTed]

Had mine for 15 months and done about 17, 000 miles in UK. Just had my first problem - electric traction system fault, which turned out to be a problem with the 12V battery. The car wouldn’t start and also kept saying the charging cable was plugged in when it wasn’t.

Easily fixed by breakdown cover man - just disconnected and reconnect ed the 12V battery but the car was completely immobilised until then. Seems the battery had lost some charge so just needed to run the car for a while, but I’d been driving it all week so not sure why it happened.

It’s a company car so no costs for me to get fixed. Apart from that issue it’s been a lovely car to drive and own. Probably won’t have another one though as the leasing cost on these is very high now compared to something like an MG4.

[muhammadhashimvapiwalla]

Excellent video in regards of buying a second hand car or used car.

[BIGBENN]

Im gutted now i was looking forward to buying one this is the first video that has highlighted problems so thanks for the heads up 😢

[swedishsaabguy]

Thanks for the review, was thinking of getting one as a second hand car (but in GT line). But this review made med think about it again. It was between en E-208, Zoe R135 or the MG ZS. The E-208 seems a bit smaler than the zoe and ZS.

[marcuslejona]

Not a single problem with mine yet, but it is a e-2008 GT MY22 (toggle shifter)

[CreRay]

Good extensive and honest review! I completely agree on your conclusions, if the model has issues then Peugeot should take at least the majority of the repair cost and not let the owners turn up for Peugeot's shortcomings. I hope my 2023 Corsa-e will fare better, with all its improvements. I can say that I saw in a Nextmove video that the OBC's are currently being replaced with a different part number, which hopefully last longer.... Does yours have the 1-phase OBC, considering it's the base model?

[Sherukka]

We have one of these but with the 11kWh charger and no faults for 4 years now. We have a second Citroen version and it’s also fault free for 1, 5 years now, also 11kWh model.

[enescalskan]

its nice to see some real experience about reasonably priced cars! wonder the battery degradation is just about the mileage or the year affect too?

[catherinegrimes]

I am so sorry to hear about the problems with your car, you look very disappointed with your experiences with it.
A friend has a 208 and would like to have a car with an automatic gearbox and I was about to recommend that she bought an e-208. After watching this video, I won't.
My car is 10 years old and am thinking of getting a small EV next year and the BYD Dolphin seems to be the best choice at the moment. Maybe you could have better luck with something like that?

[stx]

I bought mine in Nov 2020 and now it has 80.900km.
1. ADAS system with cameras replaced under warranty (c. 20.000km)
2. AC Compressor (c. 80.000km) 1900€ out of warranty

[jmgeinfobites]

I have a question Sir, what you think; can this particular car, withstand a tropical weather like in the Philippines dry and wet season, with occasional flooding when typhoon comes and scorching hot summers?

This car is so cool and looks better than Nissan Leaf..

[AdrianVisionM]

Hi, great video i love it!

Would you recommend buying 2020 GT model, on 32 000miles.
How do you check the battery degradation?

[bjorn]

Did yours have a heat pump? From what I’ve read it makes a big difference to the winter range.

[mkt]

I have model 2020 and AC compresor dead after 25 000km.. 1000€.. And shifter broken about 20 000km about 250€ for service Slovakia.. For now about 40, 000km..

[palusisko]

Very useful review - thanx a lot! I am going to buy small ev but I am scary from your costs of repairs... So maybe VW ID3 is more reliable ?

[mr_mayday_]

I have a ds3 etense so basically the same architecture as the 208e. It had pretty much the same faults

At 6000km it had a very big failure. Apparently the ac compressor failed. Car didn’t notify with any warning and It was the middle of winter so I didn’t use the a/c so the fault went unnoticed. The car was charged for several weeks and apparently the battery was overheating over and over again. Because it was winter I think that while driving it didn’t overheat because it was cold. But while charging it did. Well, I didn’t know none of this was happening as no faults or notifications were shown. Until one day I had the car charging and happened to go down to the parking because I had an unexpected plan and had to get the car. Went down and heard the fan of the car at max speed (it never did that under normal circumstances) that was my first tell that something was wrong. The car just in that moment stopped charging as the temp of the battery had reached the security temp to interrupt the charge sequence. This I know after piecing all what happened together but at that time you must understand that I had no idea what was going on. When I tried to start the car it didn’t turn on because it was overheated. After seeing what I saw I knew something wasn’t right with the car so I didn’t used it more until I had the appointment with the mechanic.

The day I had to take it to the mechanic I started it and it moved fine (since the battery had had several days to cool down) but while I was driving to the mechanic suddenly the central screen went black.

Well, it stayed at the mechanic for more than 6 months. On board charger had to be changed, a/c compressor changed as well, the screen was fixed, and some modules of the battery had to be changed because they had gone bad. All was covered by warranty and they gave me a courtesy car.

After repairs the car has the same if not a tiny bit more range than before and it workes fine.

After that experience I now check every month in the winter months that the a/c works. No need in summer as it’s constantly checked by it keeping me cool hahahah.

Thanks to checking the a/c every month it’s helped me in another situation, this time a line of the gas of the a/c system ruptured and all the gas escaped. It was in the middle of winter so thank god I checked if the a/c was working. Knowing how important it is for the battery the a/c system I took it to the mechanic without delay. In fairness this time the problem was not a bad ac compressor, just a ruptured line. A chip could have hit the line while cruising on the highway and ruptured it.

I received as well the recall for the software update for the short of the ac compressor which is what I think caused the initial nightmare. It was installed and hopefully it solves the problem of the ac compressor to not happen again.

After that the car hasn’t had any other problems. I should touch wood after this…

Btw, it’s very true that when it is very cold the cars range diminishes a lot. I think it’s because of active thermal management of the battery pack. When it reaches a very cold temp the car has to heat up the pack and wastes a lot of range doing that. Here in Spain it’s not as cold as in Northern Europe but on counted very cold nights I did notice it. I can only imagine it gets worse at the north of Europe. Also the car is very inefficient at high speeds. Definitely a city car. Anything over 100kph and you notice the diminishing range compared to the city.