Peugeot 106 1.4 XSi Review

Overall Rating

Super light (c 800kg) and agile.
Lovely steering feel
Oversteer on demand
The most free-revving, abuse-demanding 8 valve engine I've ever experienced.
Top end shove is grin inducing
Utterly reliabile in the 2 years we had it.
Never less than 30 mpg, and was known to nudge 40.
Driver focused in a way cars just aren't any more.

Truly bad build quality
Hopeless on the motorway
Engine feels gutless and lumpy unless you thrash it.
Needed an oil cooler badly (fitted to later models and Rallye only). 15 minutes in the lanes driving as it begged to be driven saw the oil temperature needle nudge the red.

Drive this Peugeot 106 1.4 XSi car around town or with any mechanical sympathy and it felt awful. Throttle response was woolly, the idle erratic and bottom end and midrange pull simply wasn't part of the equation. Let the revs build however and it changed. The clattery engine note smoothed out, the exhaust note took on a lovely deep growl and at 5,000 RPM the engine took off, snarling to the limiter at 7,500 with shove that you just wouldn't expect from a 1.4.

The chassis was much the same. It had a surprisingly fidgety ride for a Peugeot, and didn't cope with big bumps very well at all. That said, at speed on a B-road it felt just brilliant. Body control was impeccable, you could feel surface and grip changes through your finger tips, and barrelling into a corner and snapping the throttle shut would induce a lovely, lairy tailslide. Thanks to the sharp steering and balance of the chassis, was an utter joy to catch and control, and never got out of hand.

People who like today's superminis will hate it. It's noisy, crude, rattly and in terms of feel at least, not that quick. People who hate today's superminis however will love it. Light, agile, a chassis set up very much for fun rather than safety (oh, how I miss that!), and total driver dependance.

Don't let the cheap and nasty interior put you off - the basic mechanicals are both tough and reliable. Despite sustained hard use, I rarely even had to top up the oil, and not a single non-service fault arose in the two years we had it. It had 91k on the clock when sold, still went like a rocket, and still handled superbly.

The 1360cc TU series engine is simple and easy to service, with even "major" service jobs like setting valve clearances a doddle for anyone with a Haynes manual and an ounce of mechanical common sense. The only job I paid for was a timing belt change simply because a local Peugeot specialist were doing it "all in" for £85.

Definitely recommended.