I bought a new 81 Peugeot 505 turbodiesel in 81 and loved and hated it for 15 years and 200k miles.

The diesel motor was primitive and noisy but the car delivered 25 to 30 MPG for its entire life. It was tremendously fun to drive. The best riding car in the world if you are on rough roads. The suspension had 6 0r 8 inches more wheel travel than any car on the road. When you jacked it up the wheels just kept going down! It had struts in front and independent semi trailing arms in the back. The rear suspension was similar to a 123 or 126 except that the semi trailing arms were mounted on a subframe bar that went straight across as opposed to an eliptical subframe. So the rear wheels did not toe in and out as they went up and down. The car had wonderful compound valve shocks which combined with the wheel travel made the car feel like it was floating on a cloud. You would be driving along and cringe to see a huge pothole in the road that you wouldn't feel at all as you went over it. to sum it all up, I was driving down a real rough New Orleans road with a friend in the car and he asked "did they fix this road?" I guess that is why it was the number one selling car in the third world.

The problem with the car (and the reason Peugeot ultimately failed in the US) was that it was a maintenance nightmare. In the course of owning the car I ended up reengineering the electrical system. The alternator (a Paris-Rhone)kept blowing out diodes and I had it in and out of the car 4 times before I replaced it with a Valeo. Same with the starter which I could take out of the car blindfolded before I replaced it with another type of starter. I had to rip out the fuse box and completely re-wire it to get rid of the electrical gremlins in it. I constantly fought with the brake lights until I decided to run my own wire to the taillights. I had to have the car towed 3 times because the primer pump for the diesel system was just a little cheap diaphragm pump with a flimsy diaphragm that would start leaking air after a couple of years. My fix for that was to have a couple of extra diaphragms in the glove compartment.

Parts (which were always expensive and low in quality) got harder and harder to get after Peugeot withdrew from the US market. I finally got to the point where the car was only worth $200 but had a leaky head gasket and a bad steering rack and a bunch of other problems that would have cost a few grand to fix. That's when I got my 300SD.

I'l have to say that that it was the best handling and riding car I have ever had but I dont see how anybody could keep one of those suckers running today!

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Tom Hughes
St. Louis
84 300SD
92 300D
86 300SDL