9th Jan 2010, 16:21

You only need to read any of comparison of those hot hatches made in any magazine to see that the Civic and Clio are better cars than the Peugeot. There isn't anything wrong with the Peugeot, it's just not as good in handling or power.

P.s. the Civic is available with air con, plenty have it.

11th Jan 2010, 09:14

I agree with the above, There is nothing actually wrong with the Pug 180, but it doesn't excel either in any areas, unlike the Civic Type R and Clio 182!

15th Jan 2010, 12:24

Well adding aircon is another 40-45kg on the kerb weight, which is about 6bhp per tonne less. If you show me a rolling road that shows a Civic that makes 197bhp standard, I'd be more than happy to roll my car on that RR! The Peugeot weighs with aircon, more than 100kg less than the Civic, so at 197bhp, the Civic would have about 165bhp per tonne, the Peugeot standard, 158bhp per tonne.

Anyway, the point is neither the Clio nor the Civic excel at anything. Yes they are good cars to drive, they all are but neither the Clio nor the Civic are significantly better than the Peugeot. As I said, I'd have a 172 Cup stripped down any day, but for £4000 on a hot hatch with 35k on the clock (bought 1 year ago), the 180 looks the part and drives so well. Find me a Civic for that price with aircon!

15th Jan 2010, 14:45

The Clio is good value for money, but the Civic has good residuals, so it will get more when you come to sell it on.

Do a Google search and see if you can find a comparison that puts the 180 as a better car than either the Civic or the Clio, because I just did, and the reviewers just kept saying it's (and I quote) "a bit of a halfway house" and doesn't really excel like its competitors.

The power is between 5000rpm and 7000rpm, which makes even the Civic Type R look like it has a huge power band, and the gearbox is pants, making it hard to enjoy the power you do have.

This is one of the poorer reviews I found for the car:

http://autospeed.com/cms/title_Peugeot-206-GTi-180-Road-Test/A_2192/article.html

There is a reason you don't tend to find such negative reviews for the Clio and Civic... because they are better cars.

16th Jan 2010, 05:35

The Civic and the Clio ARE significantly better than the Peugeot though...

Magazine testers struggled to match the Peugeot's book figure of 7.4 seconds to 60mph!!! I know for a fact that the Clios and the Civics are frequently clocked to match their stated 0-60 times within a couple of milliseconds. Also go on the owners forums to see how close these cars get to their stated power, the answer is almost always very, the lowest I have seen is 194bhp, which isn't the same as the Peugeot, which is never that close to claimed power.

19th Jan 2010, 08:26

The worst thing is, we all know Peugeot can do better. The 205 and 306 GTIs wiped the floor with the competition when they were current, and NOBODY has ever made front wheel drive cars that handle, ride and steer so fluidly as the classic Pug hot hatches. I wonder when Peugeot will get their balls back?

20th Feb 2010, 09:24

Just to add a bit more ferocity to this discussion. The Peugeot 206 GTi 180 and Clio 182 have roughly the same power as standard when tested on the same rolling road.

Firstly, as standard the cars are quoted at 174bhp and 176bhp respectively. This is because Peugeot advertise their car at 177PS, which is 174bhp, and Renault claim 179PS or 176bhp.

Both the 182 and 180 produce around 160bhp on the RS Tuning rolling road, with owners struggling to get more than 176-177bhp with mapping exhaust and induction.

Just check the Clio Trophy website and see the thread 'who is actually running 182bhp'.

My own car (Peugeot 206 GTi 180) made 159.2bhp and 138.5lb/ft standard (or 134whp, 117lb/ft wt) After adding an induction kit and mapping, she produced 176.7bhp and 161lb/ft torque (or 149whp, 136wt).

The drive train losses for the car worked out 15.6% (calculated by the dyno).

The car driven standard was very unsatisfactory unless revved the hell out of. After mapping and better breathing, the torque curve is freer and more accessible in town driving, resulting in a smoother, rewarding drive.

Most people fail to realise that many rolling roads produce figures well in excess of the nominal 15-17% drive train losses suffered by FWD cars. The trick is to check your wheel horsepower figures against the calculated BHP figure.

I hope this makes more sense. Also I would like to hear from other owners and their respective figures!

22nd Feb 2010, 13:10

Well, the Pug 180 might not have the character of the 205 GTi and 306 GTi... and what about the 106 GTi; none of the mentioned cars handle like it!!!

I wonder why Peugeot did not go for the old school stuff... People did you forget about the famous Peugeot engine... the Mi16... later developed into the T16... 2.0L Turbo (230bhp)... that is an engine... was only fitted on the 205 and 405 Coupé for rally, and only on 300 street Peugeot 405, which by the way around 120 of them went to the French police cars.

The 206 looks the best for me, but that is just me. Everybody has the right for an opinion. But as someone just said, fuel, plugs, pressure, air temp... all play an important part in reading BHP. Plus the dyno do has its own tolerance for error.

8th Nov 2010, 05:38

I have a GTi 180, and think it's great for the money.

Personally, I think it has the best interior and is a great all rounder. It is fast; let's face it, any small hatchback with that sort of power is not going to be slow is it!

Although my friend has a Type R, and there is not loads of difference, but the Type R is faster, no doubt about it.

I like the fact that the 180 engine seems to be quite torquey... I drove a Type R before I bought this, and to be honest with the vtec it was great fun, however round the city, I found myself at 4000 rpm all the time just to crawl down the road.

I also have a mate with a 182, which is very nice, and although well equipped (air con, leather, suede etc), there are no bucket seats like the rivals, and it should have them really. After all, it's supposed to be a road going sports hatch.

All in all, I think they are 3 great cars, if I was going for a car that I just wanted to race around, I would personally have the Type R, but as a car to use everyday, the 180 is the best all rounder.

I'm now having some work done to the 180 (cams, induction kit, Stainless Powerflow exhaust system, bigger throttle body and remap). My cam belt snapped so thought I would go all out, as it had to be rebuilt anyway, so hopefully this should make a fairly good difference in power, I've been told maximum of 215 hp, although I would expect it to be more around 200 mark myself. When it's finished and I've had it on the RR, I'll let people know =)