2019 Peugeot 5008 Crossway long-term report part two

School holidays can be a trial for parents. Luckily I’m stuck here at work while my patient wife deals with the little tyrants. She cunningly devised a plan to ditch the two older ones on a family friend’s farm.

It’s what city kids need; dogs to chase, horses to groom, cows to milk and chickens to harass. They raided the coup near hourly to see if any eggs had been laid. We’re not sure if the animals have yet recovered from the trauma, but the kids sure loved it.

It gave the 5008 a chance to stretch its legs, putting a few kays on its young clock as we journeyed down and back to the top of the great lake twice in one week. The Peugeot proved a good long distance traveller, the driver’s seat still comfy after a few hours behind the wheel, road noise subdued and the door pockets sufficient to store the vital sustenance needed to sustain attention levels on such a journey.

The lack of active cruise wasn’t too worrisome on the highway; we tend to miss its helping hand more in traffic. Lane keeping is valuable when travelling down boring main highways, helping with lane discipline and keeping you well left of the centre line.

A few tanks of gas through the system has seen the trip computer accuracy improve. In our last report it was fairly optimistic, but with a few kays on the clock it’s now reading true, with the last three refills being spot on in terms of what the trip computer suggested versus the actual amount of fuel used. The best we managed was 7.4L/100km over 720km, most of those kilometres travelled on the highway.

The average for the 2765km we’ve racked up so far is now at 8.7, which is close to the 8.84L/100km story the fuel receipts tell. These also reveal just how much it costs to fuel up when you require 95 octane, which has spiked again, paying anywhere in the region of $2.25 to $2.40 a litre.

We’ve become quite accustomed to the Peugeot’s driving position, the iCockpit set-up with its small wheel – you peer at the dials over the top of it – becoming more natural the more you drive it.

The seats are manually adjusted, which isn’t a hardship, but when you share the car with other drivers, you realise the value of memory electric seats, a quick push of the button has you back in your preferred set-up. Oh well, we’ll survive.

One convenience feature we have disabled is the electric tailgate’s foot-operated opening function. This proves a little too sensitive with the boot closing on us inadvertently as we’ve pottered around the tailgate area.

Normally these things are quite hard to activate for you need to kick them in just the right spot. There’s no problem with the useable boot space however. We’ve managed to cram quite a bit in when needed, the uniform shape of the hold appreciated. The kids love fiddling with the window shades and thankfully these are still working as intended while the fold-down tray tables have proved more of a gimmick than of any real use.

They are a tad small and the shiny plastic surfaces sees things slip off them quite easily. Cleaning up the mess below led to the discovery of some underfloor storage spots that had been hidden under the mat.

These were quickly covered over again to save them being filled with rocks, sticks and other treasures harvested while out and about exploring beaches during the holiday period. And the 5008 is proving a great family wagon for such occasions.