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I was very impressed with the Peugeot E7 semi-automatic that I test drove at the Coventry Taxi Show. I knew it would be show-cased at the exhibition and made a bee-line for the Cab Direct stand as soon as I arrived on Wednesday.
The automatic version has the same, or appears to have the same engine as the manual; a 1997cc Euro V. But whereas the manual has an output of 130 Bhp, the automatic’s output is 163 Bhp. I believe that is achieved by chipping the ECU to produce 25% more power, but the salesman flunky was totally and utterly bereft of any practical knowledge about the mechanical workings of the vehicle. Talk about Forrest Gump!!
The Forrest Gump salesman couldn’t even tell me whether the gearbox is a DSG or standard semi-auto, which I will have to investigate further.
The gear shift is a gated affair, with P, R, N and D [4 positions only] on the semi-auto side and on the semi-manual side [no clutch - achieved by pushing the gearstick to the left when in D], it’s the standard push the gearstick up for a higher gear and down for a lower gear. But if you are in semi-manual and want reverse, then it’s back into D and up the gated semi-auto shift to R.
The vehicle is very responsive for a taxi, with an abundance of power under the bonnet. In fact I would tend to describe it as racy when talking about it as a taxi, but if it were a car it would still be very acceptable performance-wise. There were just the two of us in the cab on the test drive, but IMO the power generated would be well more than adequate if there were 6-8 passengers with a full complement of luggage in the back.
The gearbox changes are very smooth indeed and there is very little roll on the vehicle now [the anti-roll bars have been re-designed apparently] as I discovered when coming off an island in what seemed to be 5th gear at 40mph and booting it to the floor. It changed down two gears immediately and away it went, climbing to 60mph very quickly indeed. The gearbox is a well-beefed-up version of my wife’s Citroen C4 semi-auto, but has ‘creep’ when stationary and you take your foot off the brake pedal, something the C4 lacks. It has 6 forward gears and the obligatory reverse [obviously]. The only thing I would fault when compared with the C4 is that there is no dashboard display to show which gear the gearbox is in, which the C4 has.
All in all, I was extremely impressed with the performance and the sales guy told me it had been down to London where it had a very enthusiastic reception from the trade.
If I was buying new now, instead of two years ago, I would have no hesitation in signing up for this little beauty, despite Cab Direct's reputation for their after-sales performances!!
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Kind regards,
Brummie Cabbie.
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