PEUGEOT 406 1999 test drive - 2004 sedan

Sparring partnership

Russian representative office Ford Motor Co. It has long suggested that we take a new Mondeo for a long test. Since our first meeting on the Russian territory, a year has passed, the novelty from Ford has ceased to be a curiosity for our consumer and successfully fights for a place under the market sun with very strong competitors. Last winter, on our test, Mondeo easily withstood the comparison with Volkswagen Passat and Mitsubishi Galant. Now, a no less worthy rival of PEUGEOT 406 will perform the sparring partner of the ambitious Ford.
 
In my opinion, Peugeot 406 is one of the most stylish cars not only in its class, but also far beyond its borders. The French generally took up the world of automotive fashion in a circular one, offering a slightly stunned from their stylistic pressure to the consumer to nothing like anything, at times simply revolutionary, a look at quite accessible to a simple mortal machine. But even against the backdrop of compatriots, any modern Peugeot looks frankly in a puree, delighting the look of a modern person with the elegance of forms and the lightness of the lines. The individual behind the wheel of the 406th is unambiguously perceived by others as a prosperous and not without taste of a character, who at this stage of life in complete openwork. And a slight aggression in the eyes of narrowed headlights only adds a charm to a car: in principle, I am polite and cultural. But if they bake, I can not break after me!.
Inside, the pepper is slightly smaller than it might seem outside. In principle, many modern machines sin this, even a higher class. But such a light disharmony is a little disappointed, because the interior space clearly allowed passengers a little more air. Moreover, the PSA specialists have convincingly proved to critics and skeptics on the example of Peugeot 307, which they can use each cm3 of the internal volume of the cabin by 101%. Traditionally, machines of this class are rather 4- than 5-seater. The three of the back will be crowded, but for two not too tall passengers, the place is quite enough for both the legs and above the head. VIP zone front right seat. A rather comfortable landing, solved in the Italian spirit. If you carry out parallels with furniture, then by the services of PEUGEOT sitting in front they offered comfortable chairs, and not soft deep chairs. I am sure that in such conditions you get tired much less on the long journey, but the tall driver will constantly look for the opportunity to lower the pillow a little lower, so as not to look at the road and the crafts. Fortunately, not all buyers of the 406th can complain about a height of 190, and the average 175-182 have the opportunity to get a workplace of the driver with maximum comfort.
In the movement, the 2-liter Peugeot demonstrates all the charms of the breed lion for so many years to successfully bring their predators to racing tracks, and then introduce successful finds into civilian life. The excellent thrust in the entire speed of the 196-horsepower engine, a very elastic operation of an automatic KP, to the best of an informative steering ... It slightly reduces the pathos of this health, it is not clear who and why the suspension adapted to the roads of the East European market. I had to cover considerable distances at the 406th in terms of special adaptation to Europe and there was a sin about the behavior of the car. However, performed by the Urals, the chassis so inadequately behaves even on a straight line (not to mention driving with a spark along suburban paths) that the 406th that came to our test was the first car in my life, in which I was frankly motionless at the wheel (! ) Even on the surface of the Moscow Ring Road. And at the passengers, after the stop, it was embarrassing to look, as if I was not a tester with experience, but a leading actor in Taxi-2. Salvation fans of the true Peugeot can find in tuning companies that are willingly offering everyone relatively inexpensive sets of normal, rather than adapted shock absorbers and springs for every taste. Several of my main friends in Moscow have already returned to the original source and were very pleased with the result. And the whole test did not leave me a desire to reduce two 406s in a short duel, them and ours, and finally make sure that people who were weak with the real road reality of our country were engaged in refinement under our conditions in Europe.
I hope that the PEUGEOT representatives will be as attentive to our comments as in the Ford representative office, because according to the results of several publications in the Russian automobile press last summer, the specialists of the blue oval still found and recognized the error in the engine control program adapted for our A-92 Focus and immediately took measures to eliminate it! Such a reaction to criticism from the largest automaker better than any words testifies to Ford came to this country seriously and for a long time.
 
How seriously and for a long time the new Mondeo came to us. I will not tire of repeating that with the advent of this model the times are returning when, at the mention of the name Ford, motorists around the world respectfully removed hats. It is no secret that the birth of Mondeo is more than the merit of the computer, and not the designer's pencil. Everything in it is subordinated to one goal to offer the consumer an optimal car for all occasions, provided that the potential buyer is not a snob and understands the difference between a means of movement for $ 20,000 and his analogue with a wild cat on the hood for $ 70,000. Moreover, from the point of view of sled characteristics And consumer qualities, vital for a simple mortal, Mondeo is practically in no way inferior to his rich relative from a noble family of Jaguar.
Mondeo is produced in three variants of the sedan, hatchback and station wagon. We opted for a 2-liter 145-horsepower sedan with an automatic KP, which simply perfectly brought us from Moscow to Sochi in September last year. I really liked the spacious and comfortable salon with a low -blade front panel and the most remotely removed from the driver's eyes with a windshield (such a layout was first used on Honda Accord CB3, and then migrated to Citroen Xantia, and both of these cars seem to me with a standard of thoughtful ergonomics). It seems that Mondeo in Mondeo is much more spaciousness and air than it really is.
The skeptic will notice that in this machine there is no comfort of the native apartment, which gives the driver Peugeot. I absolutely agree with this observation, but I note that the Mondeo salon is made as an ideal room in a European hotel on a business trip either you also do not feel at home, but after several days in a good hotel, a business person understands that there is everything for normal life and work in the room. That is why he constantly caught himself thinking that if I were the owner of a rental office or a co -owner of a prosperous company, ready to purchase a park of official cars, or even a person who needs a comfortable, dynamic, safe and modern means of transportation, alternatives to Mondeo, most likely, I just could not find it. Let's see how he can withstand the first 10,000 km ...
Text Alexey Mochanov, photo Alexander Nozdrin
 
How do they look:
Nikita Rozanov
     
Outside:
These two European models have long been known and well known to everyone, but if the appearance of Mondeo has undergone cardinal changes in 2000, then the current Peugeot design is nothing more than the facelift of the same 406th release model of 1995, carried out in 1999. First of all, the French veteran gives an archaic approach to the interpretation of the architecture of the Three -Bobs body for the 21st century. Now this is no longer worn, but as the Ford Mondeo design shows, the antiquity of the triangler can be both dynamic and modern. But Peugeot is so simple, and its shape still looks elegant and no less stylish, which, without a doubt, will remind the Mourmans the times of the former cooperation of Peugeot with the Italian bodybuilding company Pininfarina. Both manufacturers solve recognition in their own way. Ford trusting in the brightness of the invented style of New Edge, Peugeot putting on the forefront of the canonical heraldic reeded lion. The comparison of the bodies according to the silhouette is clearly not in favor of France, and although Peugeot is aristocratically elegant, it is inferior to the German sedan in accuracy in modern sounds and lines, plasticity, and forms of age ...

Results:
Ford Mondeo in the design of Mondeo quite successfully connected the features of the Ford style of New Edge and its feeding from a more rational and modern techno.
Peugeot 406 lines of this model are clean and very beautiful. However, age takes its own, and it is the clothes that give out the head of the year of release, and the priorities of that former design.
Inside:
The fact that Peugeot design is four years older also manifests itself inside. The age also affects the architecture of the instrument panel, where the volume of the combination of devices seeks to reunite with the central console, and in a wooden plank, which covers the connection of two parts of the upholstery of the door panel. At Mondeo, everything is different: the central console decisively divides the volume of the bulk of the panel in half, reservating the place in the upper part for the future navigation display. Only the silver oval of the arrow clock and the radio panel wakes nostalgic memories. Naturally, in the finish, instead of a tree, silver metal, and the shape of the seats is more warlike, with developed lateral support. And even the four -spoke rudders identical in design are completely different in style. The Peugeot steering wheel is made in archaic flowing plastic, while the mondeo bagel, emphasizing its leather origin, defiantly autonomous from silver knitting needles. Ford upholstery is also perceived as more integral and concise.

Results:
Ford Mondeo is a modern design that fully characterizes both European fashion and the forming world style of the beginning of the century.
PEUGEOT 406 solid design, which is rapidly aging and is increasingly the more speedy replacement.

Source: Cars