Comfortable, durable, reliable
Slight water leak in the heater resulting in a wet mat.
This is a great car and has served me well as a driving school car.
Its my second one which speaks for itself.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 13th November, 2005
Very capable, comfortable car - just keep on top of the servicing
Door light switches were corroded.
The clutch cover plate 'hardened', which had to be replaced.
Poor rear wash/wipe (depends on which revision tailgate the car has).
Poor front wash, but is easily fixable.
An absolute belter of a car in terms of comfort and performance. Feels best on your favorite twisty B road.
Interior comfort isn't brilliant - the seat backs seem to be an odd shape and I had difficulty getting comfortable. If you're keeping it for some time, invest in some Recaros!
Interior generally looks slightly dated and can wear easily, but as long as you take care of it, this shouldn't be a problem.
Do not be tempted to lower the suspension too much, and don't fit big wheels. This completely ruins the cars ride and handling. 17's are fine on a glass smooth track, but comfort and predictability suffers massively on the road. Peugeot spent a huge amount of money to get it right - why pay £500 to destroy it again?!!
Maintenance and running costs are disappointingly high. Do try to buy high quality replacement parts when needed. Fuel costs day to day are high if it is driven quickly - if you don't, what's the point in buying it?
Cam-belt tensioners are very critical on these engines. A large batch of poor tensioners were fitted too many a 306 and some have been known to fail at 25K miles. If in doubt, always replace the cambelt, water pump, roller and tensioner. At a decent garage this is a £300 job.
Clutch cable tensioners can become stiff, but are a fairly simple and cheap job on a Rallye (GTi6 has AC to contend with!). This causes a stiff pedal - if it's still the same after changing the cable then it's a new clutch. The heat produced by the engine causes the cover plate to harden, causing the stiff clutch. Clutch change is another £300 job if done by a garage (including parts).
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 21st April, 2005
Good performance and looks, reliability and mechanical problems common
After about a week, whilst in a multi-storey car park I discovered the handbrake did not hold on steep slopes. This fault has still not been put right.
Very smokey especially up hills. At about 60k the turbo went - £800 repair!
A few hundred miles later, more smoke. I took it to independent garage, and they charged £130 to change oil and a general service.
Oil and stop lights flickered when changing down gears to slow down. Garage changed the oil sensor, problem recurred.
62,000 had to get a new battery as old one developed an internal fault.
At 63,000 engine overheated and suffered damage. The car is currently getting a replacement engine.
Regardless of the above reliability problems, the car is very nice looking. This model has a sporty look despite it being a 5 door car.
The model is packed full of features. It comes with power steering, electric windows and mirrors, air conditioning (which didn't work on my car), half leather interior, front foglights, automatic wipers (I like that feature).
The car is quite slow off the mark as should be expected with most older model diesel cars. In second gear the turbo takes effect at around 20mph, third and fourth gears see a remarkable boost in power - quite possible to do 40-60 in about 3 seconds in 4th, so excellent for motorways etc.
Fuel economy is great providing you don't have problems with the turbo.
Make sure that you buy a car with a Full Service History - this is essential for diesel cars (mine didn't have a great SH, but lesson learned...)
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 13th December, 2004