2006 Peugeot 206 Verve review from UK and Ireland

At around 4,000 miles, the engine started developing "flat spots" which the dealer keeps telling me is normal. At 11,000 miles the car is almost undriveable, with the engine hesitating and misfiring at 2,500 RPM, 4,000 RPM and 5,000 RPM. The dealer cannot fix it.

Central locking intermittently refuses to work.

Water getting into boot.

Leaking heater hose.

Heater direction control stopped working.

If you can live with the fact that it is woefully gutless, it's quite a nice little car for an A to B runabout. It still looks good (in my opinion), handles tidily and is very frugal.

The performance I knew about before buying, as I knew about the nasty dash plastics and the less than solid feel. With it's "old school" 8 valve engine and long running design, I did expect at least some nod towards reliability, but I have been sorely disappointed.

The engine basically has a host of flat spots through its rev range which nobody seems able to even admit are a fault, never mind fix them. As the engine passes three points in the rev range it hesitates and stutters, but apparently this is normal behaviour for a 206. Strange that it never did it for the first 4,000 miles.

There is also a worrying list of silly quality control issues and niggling faults, and the dealers redefine hopeless.

I've owned two previous Peugeots (306's) which were both brilliant cars, the first one racking up 120,000 trouble free miles. This thing however has destroyed my faith in the marque. Looks like Japanese next time for me. I will never buy another Peugeot.

Absolute rubbish.