Peugeot 5008 Review 2026

The Peugeot 5008 is undoubtedly one of the best cars of its type. Importantly, it has the practicality and versatility to match any of its seven-seater SUV rivals, while it’s also comfortable, entertaining and refined to drive, and comes well stocked with luxury and safety kit. Even better, it’s more stylish than most rivals, and has a jaw-droppingly attractive interior. There are some absolutely cracking cars in this class, including the Skoda Kodiaq, SEAT Tarraco and Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace. However, the Peugeot stands comparison with the very best of them.

They say good things home to those who wait, and looking at the Peugeot 5008, they may well have a point. You see, it took Peugeot a wee bit of time to get the car right. The first generation car was good on practicality and everything, but it had some fairly fundamental flaws.

The ride was a bit firm, the quality was a bit iffy in places, but most importantly, it looked horrendous. With an MPV shape that Peugeot tried to embellish with a few SUV-style touches, the result was awkward and unattractive. It still did okay sales-wise, so the appetite was clearly there, but it could’ve been so much more.

Happily, Peugeot learned the lessons when cooking up the latest incarnation, and the result is unquestionably one of the finest cars of its type. It’s a proper SUV this time, with no schizophrenia about its styling, and one of the more handsome ones in the class at that thanks to its bold, flamboyant features.

If you really want flamboyant, though, all you need to do is open a door and look inside. The interior in this car is like nothing else in the class. With sophisticated design, gorgeous materials and thoughtful, stylish finishes, it feels more comparable to more expensive SUVS from the likes of Audi and Mercedes than it does to the Skodas and SEATs of the world.

What’s more, the 5008 also has the other important bit of any seven-seat SUV - practicality - nailed, too. One of the roomier cars of its type in any of its seven seats, it’s better than most rivals when faced with the task of carrying seven adults.

And, with seven individual seats that fold and flip in all sorts of genius ways, it’s a versatile load-carrier, too. Yes, one or two key bits of equipment are reserved for the range-topping models, but most versions come with most of what you need for a comfortable family life.

And talking of comfort, the ride that was brittle and unsettled in the first-generation car has become much, much more forgiving.

This is now one of the comfiest cars in the class, and in a car that’s designed to ferry lots of people around, that’s the most important thing. That handling is stable and assured, meanwhile, while even the entry-level petrol and diesel engines provide impressive punch, excellent economy and really good refinement.

Granted, it’s not perfect. The infotainment system can be confusing and frustrating to use, even after you’ve familiarised yourself with its foibles, and if you go for a version with the panoramic roof (standard on the top two trims, optional on most of the others), the amount of headroom you get is absolutely ruined. Other than that, though, there’s very little to complain about.

The 5008 is one of the comfiest cars in its class. Whatever your speed and whatever the surface you’re on, the soft suspension does a great job of mopping up lumps and bumps of all shapes and sizes, and only the largest, sharpest edged potholes will have any chance of sending any shockwaves through to the cabin.

It feels just as at home plodding through town as it does belting up a motorway, making this a comfortable way to get to any destination. The ride quality does dip a bit if you go for a car with the bigger 19-inch wheels, though.

The forgiving nature of the suspension does mean that you feel a shade more body lean than in rivals, meaning that changes of direction don’t feel quite as crisp or as agile, but the 5008 feels far from clumsy.

The steering takes some getting used to, because the tiny wheel makes it feel quicker than it actually is, but it won’t take you long to get to grips with.

Looking for a second opinon? Why not read heycar's Peugeot 5008 review

Four engines are available, two petrol and two diesel. The petrol range begins with a 1.2-litre turbo with 131PS. It has loads of urge from low revs and it keeps on pulling as the revs climb higher, so it feels really perky and brisk the whole time.

For those who mainly do short journeys, this is definitely the engine to have. There’s also a 1.6 turbo petrol with 181PS, which is quite a bit faster on paper, but we haven't tried it yet.

High-mileage drivers will probably be better off with one of the turbodiesels, and for most of them, there’s probably no need to look past the entry-level 1.5-litre unit with 131PS.

It’s muscular enough in the bottom half of the rev range to pull the car around with reasonable urgency, even though it could never be described as fast, and it runs out of puff a bit when the revs climb higher. The 2.0-litre diesel, offering 177PS, does make the performance a good bit more muscular, but it makes the car a lot pricier.

Happily, the 5008 has already been smashed into various things by the experts at Euro NCAP, and it emerged with a five-star crash test rating. That’s probably because all versions come with a very useful amount of standard safety kit, including six airbags, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning and speed limit recognition and display.

A space saver is also included on all versions except the most powerful diesel. However, more is provided as you progress up the trim structure.Allure cars get lane-keeping assistance, blind spot monitoring and automatic emergency calling.

GT Line cars get brighter LED headlamps and LED cornering foglamps. The Range-topping GT trim, meanwhile, gets adaptive cruise control with a full stop function.

First things first, we’d implore you not to buy a car with a panoramic roof. It absolutely massacres the amount of headroom you get.

Live without the glass above your head, though, and the problem goes away completely: front- and rear headroom isn’t class-leading, but it’s absolutely fine. Legroom is also fine in both rows: not quite as generous as in some rivals, but there’s still enough space for long limbs to stretch.

Where the middle row really impresses, though, is when you’re carrying three people there. Each member of the trio gets their own identically sized chair, which slides and reclines individually, and the cabin is wide enough that three sets of adult shoulders will fit side-by-side.

Even better, the floor is totally flat, so there’s no transmission tunnel to rob anyone of foot space. Even the extra two chairs that fold up out of the boot floor are better than most cars in the class for space, with a shade more room than you get in a Kodiaq. 

With all seven seats in place, the luggage space you get is small, but a bag-for-life's worth of shopping or two will fit. Fold the reamost chairs, and the boot is massive, with a huge floor, impressive depth and completely flush sides. There’s no load lip, either, and the middle seats fold down completely flat and flush for when you need to carry much bigger loads.

You’d have to venture up in the realms of much more expensive Audis and Mercs to find an SUV interior with this level of wow-factor. The reason?

Well, every surface you see and touch is immaculately finished. Not only do the materials look effortlessly classy, but the colours and textures on show also have real variety, and the way they’ve all been blended together has plainly been thought about really hard.

Yes, there are a few cheaper-looking plastics here and there, but most of them are tucked away out of sight, leaving you to soak up an impressive feeling of quality and sophistication. True, the cabin doesn’t feel quite as robust as it does classy, with the odd creak here and the odd flex there, but it’s solid enough.

All versions of the 5008 get the same basic infotainment system, which uses an 8.0-inch central touchscreen, although the functionality you get changes from trim to trim.

Basic-level Active trim gets Bluetooth, DAB, six speakers and Apple Carplay/Android Auto, which allows you to use your phone’s navigation functionality - along with various other selected apps - through the car’s screen. Allure trim adds built-in sat-nav and voice control, while GT Line trim throws in wireless phone charging. Range-topping GT Line trim, meanwhile, adds an upgraded Focal sound system.

However, using the system isn’t as easy as it might be. The menus are convoluted and illogically arranged, so finding your way around the system can be difficult.

The worst bit, though, is the software. The graphics look rather dated, and everytime you jab the screen to register a command, there’s a seemingly endless pause before anything happens and you begin to wonder if your command registered at all.

If you were buying your 5008 brand new at the time of writing, then prices would start at around £28,000 for the 1.2 petrol manual in Active trim, and they’d rise to more than £40,000 for the 2.0-litre diesel GT range-topper.

We reckon the Allure is the one to go for, paired with one of the two-entry-level engines, and which you should pick will depend on what sort of driving you do. Manual versions of these cost around £31,000 for the petrol and £32,000 for the diesel. 

Compare these prices to rivals like the Skoda Kodiaq and SEAT Tarraco, and they’re bang-on, while they’re a lot more than you pay for a Nissan X-Trail and a lot less than a Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace.

Do bear in mind, though, that the Peugeot holds onto its value better than pretty much any of them, so you get a shade more of your initial investment back after your tenure is over.

These strong resale values will also help reduce monthly finance payments, and Peugeot’s website frequently carries various deals and promotions. At the time of writing, we saw the 1.2 Puretech 130 Allure Automatic being offered for £349 per month on a four-year PCP deal following an initial deposit of around £5300. That represents a depository contribution from Peugeot of almost £3000.

The 1.5-litre diesel, regardless of whether it’s paired with a manual gearbox or an automatic, will return around 58mpg according to official WLTP figures, while the 2.0-litre has an equivalent figure of 47mpg. Lower-mileage drivers will probably be more interested in the petrols, the 1.2 especially, and regardless of transmission fitted, this’ll give you around 46mpg.

The 1.6-litre petrol, meanwhile, falls just shy of 40mpg. Bear in mind, though, that although these latest WLTP figures are designed to be more representative of real-world circumstances than the old NEDC ones, they’re still laboratory-tested figures, and should still be taken with a sizeable pinch of salt.

Insurance groupings for the 5008 are about what you’d expect for the class, and premiums should be reasonably affordable. Group 14 (of 50, 50 being the most expensive group) is the lowest classification you’ll get.

Both the lowered powered petrol and diesel engines sit there or thereabouts, while at the other end of the scale, the pricest version to insure sits in group 25. That’s the 1.6 petrol, but the 2.0-litre diesel in only a couple of groups below. Our advice? Keep your choice of engine humble for the lowest premiums.

Many believe French cars to suffer from poor reliability, but this isn’t borne out in the various reliability surveys doing the rounds. In most of the ones we’ve seen, Peugeot puts in very solid performances indeed, while in the 2019 JD Power UK Vehicle Dependability Survey, the firm topped the manufacturer’s table outright.

All versions of the 5008 come with a very decent slice of standard equipment. Entry-level Active cars have two-zone climate control, remote locking, four powered windows, alloy wheels, automatic lights and wipers and a leather wrapping for the steering wheel.

That’s on top of all the safety and infotainment gear we discussed earlier. If you can, though, we’d recommend stepping up to Allure trim for its front- and rear parking sensors and reversing camera, as well as its navigation and its part-leather-effect upholstery. GT Line trim adds mainly styling touches inside and out, but you also get wireless phone charging, folding tray tables and retracting sunblinds for the middle row, along with brighter LED headlights.

GT Line Premium chucks in a hands-free powered tailgate, keyless go, a panoramic roof and front seats that’ll heat up your backside and massage your back. Good job it’s not the other way around. Range-topping GT trim, meanwhile, throws in a 360-degree parking camera, powered leather seats, the upgraded Focal hifi system and adaptive cruise control.