All generations and engines together · 1,612 MOT tests in the 2025 data
Not enough recent tests to rate this saloon or estate. Watch corrosion and suspension. Not enough recent MOT data to call this one yet.
Owner folklore from forums and the motoring press, with how well each report stands up. Most of it never shows up in an MOT, which is why this section exists at all.
The AL4 auto fitted to earlier 407s (and the AM6 six-speed on later diesels) is a repeated forum complaint: hesitant kickdown, shudder pulling away or coasting to a stop, and pressure-solenoid wear that gets worse gradually rather than failing outright. Owners report it responds to a full triple fluid change with the correct LT71141-spec ATF (a single drain only clears about half the old fluid) or a dealer software reflash, but Peugeot has not put out a public recall for it. Expect it from around 60,000 miles on cars that have had infrequent fluid changes.
A hard, high-effort brake pedal was serious enough for Peugeot to run a recall in 2008 over a faulty brake servo. Owners on Honest John report the replacement servos fitted under that recall have themselves failed again on some cars years later, so a heavy pedal on a test drive is still worth chasing even on a car with the recall done.
This model's MOT signature fault is bodywork corrosion, and there is a real owner-folklore cousin of it under the skin: corroded fuel pressure sensors and connectors, and coolant/water ingress into the engine control module through the coolant switch connector, both blamed on damp getting into ageing wiring and fittings rather than pure road-salt rust. It shows up as limp-home mode, a Depollution System Fault warning, or a car that won't start, usually well past 80,000 miles. Bodywork-wise, owners also report sills and wheel arches getting thin and paint lifting at the bottom edges on cars that haven't been garaged.
EGR valve failure is repeatedly reported on the 2.0 HDi 136, often blamed on short runs and low-rpm driving that never lets it clean itself. The 1.6 HDi's turbo is more serious: switching the engine off immediately after a hard run lets oil in the feed pipe carbonise, starving the turbo of oil and wrecking it, with repairs quoted over £1,200 unless a modified feed pipe (£350-470) is fitted first. Neither issue applies to the petrol 407s.
The dual-zone climate control unit is known to fail outright rather than degrade, and Honest John quotes £1,300-1,700 in parts and labour to put right, which owners argue is simply uneconomical on a car worth a fraction of that. Some owners live with single-zone operation or a warning light rather than pay for the fix, so opinion is split on whether it counts as a fault to walk away from or one to just accept.
Owners and forums report the dual mass flywheel on manual diesel 407s wearing out from around 50,000 miles, announced by a rattly idle and clutch shudder on take-up. Clutch failure has also been reported as early as 29,700 miles on one 2009 HDi car in an owner review, which is unusually low, so treat any clutch slip or juddering bite point on a test drive seriously. Doesn't apply to petrol or automatic cars.
Ranked from this model’s own MOT record, then from what owners report.
Saveable checklistThe physical checks its own defect data says are worth your time, most telling first.
These judge the seller’s upkeep rather than the model, and they are where the haggling money is.
Drawn from the reports above rather than the MOT data. These are the model-specific ones.
Computed from DVSA MOT results, all of Great Britain, 2025. Nothing here is opinion.
Share of tests where each item was recorded. The dark tick is the class average across all tracked models; bars are scaled within each group.
The rows that judge the model rather than its keeper. 1,612 tests in this band.
Tyres, pads and stone chips say more about how the car was driven and maintained than about how it was built.
Same segment (Saloons & estates), best MOT record first. Compare before you shortlist.