Comments: 1-15, 16-30
Clutch slip got progressively worse, had to replace.
Muffler rusted through, exhaust system needed replacing.
I love the way this car goes, when it goes. The problem is how often it goes, it plays up when wet and has required two expensive pieces of work withing the first 8 months of ownership. Hopefully these are beyond me now and I can get back to enjoying it as a toy, although I may just get the belts done to be on the safe side.
I do not belive you have ever owned a 205 GTi as they are very reliable, I have owned one for 6 years and have never had any problems. I find your report inaccurate and un-true.
Hehehe, he wouldn't be the only one to have problems with his GTi, loads of people seem to, however mine has been almost totally reliable in the 20 months I've had it, needing only a driveshaft, alternator, battery, and other minor things (1989 1.9), and I thrash it everywhere!
I'd like to know a bit more about the faults as I've just gone and bought an '88 CTi.
You're all daft these are classic cars and need a little tlc. not thrashing (big ends gone in my 89 1.6 at 157k after an enthusiastic run damn.)
I've just bought an 89 'gti' 1.9 and its great. I've replaced the whole exhaust system and replaced the cold start. apart from that its fun fast and handles like a dream.
You brits and your crappy cars. 45 horsepower! Is that a joke? Iv'e seen go-karts with more power! The smallest cheapest least powerful american car has 75 horses and it is not even close to what id call fun. I wonder if these little 205s can actualy be any fun. My 98 camaro SS has 320 horses and can do 0-60 mph in 5.3 seconds and pulls 1.09 gs on the circle track. But theres MANY cars faster than it. It can smoke the tires in 3rd gear at 50mph.
Can I remind the enlightened individual who commented above that Peugeot are actually a French company, not a British one, and that the 205 GTi model to which the review applies in fact makes 130 hp not 45? As a British citizen and employed in our globally reknowned motorsport industry, without which neither the "American" IndyCar or Champ Car series would exist in their present form at all, I find this viewpoint somewhat puzzling.
Can I also politely suggest that he gains some experience of road conditions outside the US (yes, such places really do exist) before dismissing a nation's cars as "crappy"? 320hp and garden roller tyres (sorry, tires) or not, I suspect his Camaro would be even more of a joke on a typical twisty, challenging British B-road as that 45 hp 205 would on the wide, straight, smooth US tarmac. Acknowledge that different road conditions in different countries favour different types of car. Acknowledge that outside the US, straightline speed and raw BHP count for little in terms of making a car quick in the real world.
Basically, in the nicest and most respectful terms possible, can you at least make it sound like you have some experience of the wider world before abusing it?
Totally agree with my fellow brit in the comment above me. Being a person owned a 205 and had it shipped to the U. S because I loved it so much. It wasnt much use on those lond open roads and no I didn't keep up with those big engined cars that the americans have...but...i soon caught up after a few twists in the road.
205s are as legend in thier own right. They might not be the quickest in a straight line, but I must say they handle the road really well.
It may not be well built, but please name 1 american car that is. This car was built to be 100% all rounder.
Anybody who disses them must not of owned one or drove one...
As an American, I would agree with the July 12, 2004 comment.
45 horsepower for ANY car is bad, and after checking out the Peugeot specifications @ streetcar.net link, it seems that few of those cars can go from 0-60 in under 10 seconds. It's hard to find new American cars which are that slow.
But as someone said, in Britain many of the roads are probably very twisty, unlike American interstate highways, and power isn't what counts.
Having said that, after driving my vehicle, which has over 400hp, it would be hard for me to get used to such low horsepower. And the talk about how unreliable American cars are is simply hype. Some car magazines are very biased against our cars and people read that, and then decide that American cars are therefore unreliable. If you look in other sections of this site, there are also many problems with other car makers, including Lexus, Acura, Honda and Toyota. And European car makers are well known for their bad reliability, and over-priced status symbol cars.
Theirs nothing wrong with big tanks, but cars in other countries like britain and Europe don't need huge engines and huge bhp cos our cars are a practical size (then again it does'nt matter if you have a tank with the size of your roads). But Britain, Europe, japan ect are better at producing cars with relatively small CCs, but still getting huge bhp out of them. I don't know of any 300bhp american cars with just a 2ltr engine, you'd need about 5ltrs to achieve this.
Come on, get real, so it has 400 BHP, show it a corner and it'll be crying. It is no good having a 400 BHP car if it can't handle.
Actually, it corners just as well as any normal car, it isn't designed to be an auto-cross vehicle, but not everybody measures a car on how well it goes around a corner! It will however, out accelerate 90 per cent of other cars out there, and to me that's more important then flying around corners making everybody sick!
Errrm no!!! I have had two 205GTi's (one got stolen and the other was written off by some idiot white van man) and will admit they can be very tempermental for reliability stakes, but for PURE driving pleasure they isn't much that can beat it!
Your comparing chalk and cheese with a 205 and a big engined american car as they will both have different characters. The 205 being quicker around corners and the ameriacn tank being quick in a straight line.
I now drive a 106 GTi which is very close to the 205 GTi is all respects, but it isn't a 205 GTi, hence why I'm saving a good couple of grand to buy a mint 1.9.
Just 1 more point why is an american comparing his camoro to a 205? Shouldn't he compare it against a TVR/Aston Martin or an BMW M5,which would all probably show a camoro a thing or two. :-)
On the right roads, and in full flow, very little will pull away from a well driven and healthy 205 GTI 1.9. That even includes "exotica" such as Porsches, Ferraris and Astons. Even French car hating Clarkson admitted as much when he revisited one recently and punted around some Welsh mountain roads. He clearly stated several times that nothing he'd ever driven would be quicker on those roads. A very significant statement from a man whose car ownership history includes an Escort RS Cosworth, a Ferrari F355, a Mercedes AMG SL55 and a new Ford GT.
The principles behind this are not rocket science. Most American cars that have "twice the power" of this car also have twice the weight (and three times the engine size). Combined with a complete lack of understanding of chassis dynamics (the second commenter is quite right when he/she says that American motorsport relies heavily on British chassis expertise), the average Brit finds the average American car generally quite fast in a straight line, but hopeless everywhere else.
If I was in America, that Camaro might make sense, but I'm not. It would be annihilated by this little French car on my drive home from work.
What Clarkson says (to me at least) doesn't hold much sway, because he seems to hate anything that isn't from Germany or England. Take American cars, it doesn't matter how good our cars are, he ALWAYS says they're junk. He's on That BBC top gear, which is really a joke (albeit entertaining) because when they drive American cars... well lets just say they are VERY biased against them.
And it may be true that our cars are twice as heavy, but that still doesn't explain why they're faster. Most european cars (aka those ugly little hatchbacks that people over there love so much) are really slow! I mean with the size of engines they use, I'm not really surprised. But I guess with the way our roads are, bigger, faster more comfortable cars are the way to go.
Oh and another good thing about our cars is that you can get a high performance one for under 70k! Sure you can compare a BMW M5 to a 5.7 Camaro, but can you get one for the same price as the Camaro? No, because to get a new high performance car in Europe you have to pay a lot more!