Faults:

NO FAULTS.

General Comments:

This car is very Stylish, it has French flair and does turn heads.

Everyone that has sat in the 207 comment on how comfortable it is and how much room there is for its size.

My wife drives a new Fiesta, it isn't a patch on the 207

Faults:

The plastic cover on the right rear suspension used to felt down every 2 or 3 days. The problem is now solved.

General Comments:

Nice ride, very comfortable, but with average accelerations. Very roomy cabin for driver and co-driver. Not too spacious in the back seat. Fuel economy is good. The dashboard is well designed and made from good quality plastics. Very good equipment as well even from the basic model which I own, with 6 airbags, ABS, electric front windows, electric adjustable door mirrors and radio-cd with steering wheel operational buttons. Maybe is not the best super mini, but a very decent choice.

Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

Actually this was a two week rental from Avis in Manchester UK, but I got to know the car quite well.

A small front drive four cylinder, with a five speed trans. Very quiet on the motorways, and while I can't give high marks for power, the gear box was the smoothest shifting five speed I've driven in some time.

The controls are a little on the complex side, an owners manual from the rental company would have been a help here.

I'm not sure that there may be problems in the long run with the radio, and trip computer being built into one unit. This looks like a expensive to service unit, that will tie the owner to the dealership when they want to upgrade the radio.

Having said that the little 207 took us all around Wales, and up into southern Scotland with no problems, got an average 45 miles per gallon, and we were very comfortable.

Don't know if I would buy one for use in the US, but it's a good car for Europe.

Faults:

Nothing - car was an Avis hire drive and brand new.

General Comments:

This was a one week hire drive from Avis, during which I drove about 640 miles on everything from motorways to narrow country lanes.

The car looks very nice indeed – stylish externally, and a well finished attractive interior. In a showroom, in competition with rival models, it will compare very favourably.

In practice, I found that while the styling was good, the car was not as good to drive as it looked. The main faults I found were.

· The swept back windscreen means that when the driver’s door is open, the “A” pillar is an obstruction to getting in and out of the car – you have to duck.

· Once in the car, the same swept back door pillar means that the hand grab on the driver’s side is too near your head – I am only of average height, but if I leaned my head slightly to the right I kept hitting the hand grab. A 6 foot male will be uncomfortable.

· The instrument layout is good, but the speedometer is graded from 0 – 130mph, but only fills two thirds of the space available in the binnacle. This means that all the critical speeds you need to watch – 30, 40, 50, 60 are all bunched up close together. By contrast, the rev counter, has much better gradation of numbers and is much more prominent.

· The central radio and information display has a silver surround that reflects badly in the windscreen.

· Part of information display includes a digital miles-per-gallon indicator. This fluctuated wildly between 40 – 70 mpg even when driving steadily, and when cornering or changing gear flickered between 19 – 140 mpg. In effect the information displayed was useless. The car came with a full tank of fuel, and was returned with a full tank, and I estimate true fuel consumption was around 35 mpg.

· The gears ratios are far too high. Trying to accelerate on motorways at 50 mph took a very long time – 5th is more of an overdrive than a realistic 5th gear. I spent a lot of the time driving only in 4th, which may explain the relatively poor fuel consumption for a 1.2 litre modern car.

I am sorry to be so negative. The car has a great “WOW” factor and looks smart. But the much less glamorous Ford Fiesta beats it as a practical form of transport.