First drive: Peugeot 508 SW facelift

The Peugeot 508? Remind me, please.

We wouldn't blame you for overlooking it. Even among the declining Passat/Mondeo family wagon set, the Peugeot 508 has been a particularly forgettable contender.

It's neither outlandishly French enough to be interesting, nor as polished and engaging as the Germans it would so dearly love to kick up the derrier. Now it's been facelifted, which is as good a time as any to see if Peugeot has pulled one out of the fire second time around.

Doesn't look that different...

In the estate bodystyle we've driven, you'll only tell from the front. The LED rear lights and flanking panels are all carried straight over from the last car. Up front, Peugeot's switched to a less fish-like two-piece grille and some more feline LED headlights.

Pug has a nasty habit of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory when restyling an ugly car's conk (see RCZ, 207, 3008, etc) and, to these eyes at least, the 508 continues that unhappy trend.

Has the 508 got a teeny steering wheel and much new insane Frenchness inside?

Nope. The 508 predates the Little Tykes car steering wheel set-up ushered in by the 208, and Peugeot has understandably not totally redrawn the car's cabin to accommodate it for this facelift.

Oddly, that makes the car feel more ergonomically sound than something like a 308, but also more dated, because the wheel is big and button-heavy and the dials, though clear, look old.

Newness inside mainly comes in the form of a new touchscreen infotainment centre. This, in line with all Peugeot touchscreen efforts, is not as futuristically brilliant as promised, but instead a five-inch festering rectangle of fail that infuriates with its unintuitive menus, unresponsive screen and allergy to accepting postcode entries.

The new Mondeo's SYNC 2 screen is a much slicker, quicker affair. So is the Kia Optima's, come to think of it.

You get a tiny new cubby hole on the centre tunnel where once lived buttons for navigating the old system, but it won't hold a smartphone. Hurrah for progress.

But it's practical, right?

Yes - not that that's changed during the facelift. On our mid-range £27,715 Allure model, you get a remote auto-open tailgate to access the 512/1598-litre boot, and there's plenty of room in both the front and rear seats. Climate control, a rear parking camera and nuclear-powered heated seats are all present too.

Materials are mostly up to snuff and the full-length glass roof does a great job of making the whole interior feel much airier than that of rival estates.

Anything else new?

The engine. It's one of Peugeot-Citroen's new super-clean BlueHDi turbodiesels, emitting only 109g/km in return for 148bhp and 273lb ft. All that torque arrives in a big lump at 2000rpm, whereupon the 508 feels quite brisk. Either side of that torque peak though, the intergalactic gearing of the notchy six-speed gearbox makes acceleration pretty lacklustre.

It doesn't take long to realise this car has been hamstrung on the road by the need to decimate the official EU fuel cycle test. The claimed 67.3mpg looks amazing on paper, and is all down to the long gears and boosty, grumbly engine. But real-world driving, 45mpg was TG's best effort. Still, at least the fuel tank's a generous size, at 72 litres.

Still an also-ran then?

‘Fraid so. More than anything, the 508 is hobbled by the fact Peugeot's pulled its finger out since it signed off this big, beige family-mover.

The new 308 is the most imaginative Peugeot since the RCZ, which has itself recently been turned into a bona fide driver's car in the RCZ R, following on from the likeable 208 GTi. The current 108's much-improved too. Peugeot is making some properly competitive, interesting cars again these days, but the 508 ain't one of them.