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Peter

But it is worth reducing risks as far as possible - unless you are young enough to still think you are immortal :-) Of course, budget does come into it. £3k is probably a lot less to older family guys than it is to you (not meaning that in any kind of patronising way, I well remember when I was driving £500 cars and worried about every pound added on to the cost).

In any car you will still have all the shock, stress,

Yes, but it could make the difference between a crushed-amputated limb and walking out of the wreckage. Costs are dealt with by the insurance company (eventually), you have to live with the injuries. I was in a collision almost a year ago - I was lucky enough to walk out of it, but still have muscular problems and am undergoing physio. That kind of experience makes you worry more about the safety of the car (and, come to that, the weight of it - for purely selfish reasons next time I want my car to have more momentum, and so come to a halt slower or simply push the other car out of the way).

I thought that in my teens-early 20s too :-)

Yes, they can, and with the complexity of modern cars it's amazing they are generally as reliable as they are. What makes all the difference is how they deal with problems when they occur. Peugeot simply don't give a damn, their head office say that that is why you get a three year warranty (inferring that I shouldn't expect to have a working car until the warranty has expired), and I should continue going back to the dealer who "will be pleased to repair it" (it has been returned to two different dealers for the same electrical faults well over a dozen times already). It is also almost impossible to talk to anyone at Peugeot - you have to call in to their "customer service" number, then wait three days for a call back (which in my experience over 50% of the time doesn't happen). It's now going down the legal route...

Next time certainly won't be Peugeot. I've driven them for 15 years, including several new ones, but if you can't rely on the company to help out when things do go wrong then it's time for a change. When I was replacing the car that got written off last year (another Peugeot we'd had from brand new), for the first time since the late 80s I didn't even bother looking at the Peugeot range. Our plan had been to replace the written off car anyway this year, with either another high end 807 (giving us the flexibility of two MPVs) or a top-of-the-range 407. I just went to a non-French manufacturer instead. You'd have thought Peugeot would want to look after customers who buy their most expensive cars, but apparently not.

Matt