Faults:

Glove box won't shut properly - that's all.

General Comments:

After driving my much loved, but much abused Peugeot 405 for many years, I decided to try out the unassuming 309.

This car is superb! Cheap, incredibly reliable, and believe it or not quite speedy when you need it.

The interior is a little dated in it's appearance, but to me, that adds to this little car's great charm.

The 309 will sit happily at 80 mph with a full boot load of scuba kit in it - and that's heavy!! The inside is roomy, and the boot will swallow all of my kit with no complaints at all.

I get an average of 44 m.p.g from this car, and she starts first time every time - with a little help from the manual choke.

No oil leaks or engine problems reported so far, and a mechanic friend of mine says that these cars are pretty much infallable.

A real recommended CHEAP run around!

Faults:

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...).

General Comments:

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.