1989 Peugeot 309 1.3 GLX review from UK and Ireland

Ignition lead fell out and set distributor on fire (not the car's fault).

Drive shaft oil seal.

Rusty rear brake back plate.

Various electrical problems when bought (mainly due to corroded connections).

Central locking was intermittent when bought.

Seats were split.

Clutch actuation arm cracked and then bent.

Some bush in the front suspension has worn out (to be fixed...).

This is my first car, so naturally I view it through rose-tinted spectacles :)...but I think that these are very pleasant, cheap and reliable cars. I paid £225 for mine, and so far nothing major has gone wrong with it in the year that I've been running it.

There were the few faults as outlined above, but these are all just little niggles, which I have all sorted (apart from the front suspension which keeps knocking at the moment). I managed to sort all of these problems with minimal expense - mostly it was just cleaning up components.

A lot of these, and 205's seem to suffer from intermittent central locking, especially the ones like mine that aren't the remote control ones. Despite what the Haynes manual says, there is no central control unit unless it is the remote control version. The problem was a dry contact inside the actuator in the driver's door.

Despite only being a 1.3, these are still reasonably quick (probably because they only weigh about 850kg), and the handling is very good, and very neutral - I haven't had any problems with lift off over-steer except when deliberately lifting off in the wet :)

The interior does rattle a bit, though I've managed to quieten things down with strategically placed bits of foam behind certain panels and mouldings. Other than that, it's a pleasant place to be, and the seats are comfortable enough for long journeys.

These cars are pretty robust, but when things do go wrong, the parts are generally available, and are dirt cheap. They're also quite good on fuel asw ell, making these very cheap to run.