I tried to poste this in humour but fell foul of the 3 post rule. 
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I know a chap whose 2024 VW Passat wonāt let him reverse when his trailer is attached. Even VW canāt figure it outā¦
The best part as far as Iām concerned is that he got the Passat to replace a Seat āthat had too many gadgetsā.
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Remind me not to tell you the saga of my old Passat whose dicky electric parking brake needed three garages including a VW main dealer to sort out.
The third garage finally realised that they had been removing the old faulty dashboard switch and then putting it straight back in again instead of the new one. 
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The infotainment screen on my Citroen has taken to sometimes not coming on. Ok for some of my phone apps but a bit of a disaster for the satnav app. Just wondering how cars, where every function is controlled through the screen, manage if this happens?
My Peugeot 307SW is an āSEā. I presume that means āSpecial Equipmentā. They need not have bothered.
Being āSEā it likes to play with its toys. The rear wash/wipe used to operate entirely at random or join in with some other electrical event such as the turn indicators or windows. The flow of water down the rear screen was copious. The result being that when I wanted to wash/wipe the windscreen the tank would be empty. I took the fuse out. That stopped its little game.
I find it absurd that the hatchback is an an electrical release. It hasnāt locked me out yet but being a Peugeot electro-gizmo, it may well. There is a mechanical work-around. It probably involves dismantling the trim round the load bay with tools not immediately to hand.
A couple of days ago I saw a note on the screen Iād never seen before āECO mode engagedā. I have no idea what that is [Iāll look it up] and I have no idea why it āengagedā.
The auto mode of the wipers is infuriating. If the stalk is in that position the wipers either go mental and lash back and forth long after any reason to operate has gone or they go into a reluctant, desultry occasional flick, just when a steady wipe would be useful. My Vivaro [Trafic] has a wipe that can be set on stepless timing.
The bonnet release is an example of a design to fix something that aināt broke. I have never before come across a bonnet release that is not a cable slacked off by a lever set in line with the cable. Pull the lever. The cable, attached to the top of the lever, runs forward, pulled by a spring on the bonnet catch. Simples.
The 307 has a flimsy lever set at right angles to the cable. I have an image of how this is set up. Iāve never seen it, buried high up in the pax footwell. The lever has to be carefully refitted by feel after every operation, as it falls off its mounting each time.
Worst of all is the spare wheel set-up. Itās in a cradle under the centre of the car. To deploy it, anything in the load bay has to be removed and then the carpet lifted. This reveals a bolt head. A cable is attached to the other end of the bolt, under the car. Turning the nut anticlock unwinds the cable wrapped round the bolt. The cable runs forward, over a pulley 1m further up the car and unwinding it allows the spare and the tools, in a fibre case, to lower to the ground under gravity. You must then lie on the ground to pull this case, cable still attached, out from under the car.
The cable is retained in the top of the case by a captive nut which is freed by passing it thru a keyhole in the case top. Unless tension is maintained on the cable, disaster awaits.
Having changed the flat for the spare you have to reverse the procedure to stash the case back under the car.
Thereās a law: The Law of the Meads and The Persians, which can never be undone. If the cable has been allowed to go slack, winding it up will result in a riding turn and the cable will be stuck, with the case dangling in midair under the car.
Even if this ridiculous rigmarole is carried out to perfection, it would be difficult enough on flat ground, in daylight and no rain, by a person limber enough to crawl about under a car. Send for Murphy. It will be black dark, blowing a wet gale, on a muddy verge on a road with passing traffic blasting spray at you. Or at the unfortunte recovery truck operator.
The general opinion, amongst Peugeotistas that discuss this, is that in effect there is no viable spare wheel system for these cars, unless the spare is carried in the car. I had the case, spare and tools removed by the garage when it was on the ramp one time. I have a couple of cans of leak blocker. Theyāre not in a snazzy mahogony box, as suppled by Aston Martin, but they may serve.
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My commiserations on owning a 307SW. The one redeeming feature with the diesel version we had, was that fuel economy was outstanding, and it would regularly exceed 70mpg on a motorway run. Otherwise it was a mess of poor design and and unreliable electronics, as you cite, though ours would go into limp mode for a day or so every week, and the discs would warp often causing the front of the car to wobble under braking.
I was grateful at the time for the economyā¦
Bingo Ancient_Mariner.
My spare wheel was always, always carried in the car.
It was between the finally about-to-finally-fail-and-be-irreparable electrics, or the big end going, as to whuch failure would finally finish the car. The big end won. But the garage had already given it a DNR. As they said whichever failure occurs first, DNR as the other one will be just behind. So DNR.
If you ever do find out how to stop the boot hatch opening being electric, Iād be really grateful if you could post the method @captainendeavour. As you are absolutely right. When the battery goes flat, the rear boot hatch is locked and thereās no manual way to open it. Too bad if you left your tools in the boot. Youā have to hope you can still get in through the side door and can remove the parcel shelf snd collapse the seat back to retrieve them. And anything else in the boot.
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My Honda Accord Estate does not have any such luxury as a spare wheel - just a can of Honda-supplied tyre sealant/inflator which is now long past its sell-by date. 
So I keep two cans of Holts TyreWeld in the handy compartment under the luggage area where a spare tyre should go. 
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Which is great until you clip a kerbstone and tear an L-shaped hole in the tyreās shoulder that you can fit your hole hand into.
Which is what a friend visiting from Ireland in a hired Nissan Juke did. On a Saturday.
No spare, no jack, no wheel brace, just an inflator and a tin of tyre weld.
Fortunately, she pulled into a car park where a chap with a jack, axle stands and a wheel brace could whip the off, drive the visitor to Feu Vert (only place open) and get a rather expensive new tyre fitted.
I wouldnāt own a car that didnāt at least have a space saving spare, jack and wheel brace in the boot.
This happened to us when we came over and signed the Acte de Vente. Fortunately we had a space saver.
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Mine has the jack etc. But I didnāt realise it had no actual spare wheel until after Iād bought it.
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I have my 307SW in van mode. I took the shelf and rear seats out instanter. Itās been marvellous as a van ever since.
I did have a bit of a moment when I loaded 6 x 2.4m x 60cms bathroom grade chipboard. They stuck out back about 50cms. I lashed them down with rachet straps and likewise pulled the hatchback down on them as hard as I could.
I failed to run the straps across the ends of the boards. These boards are quite slick. Making a sudden move onto the roundabout hard by Bricomarche, Vire, the boards dispensed themselves, one after the other, onto the roadway. It was raining. It was ārush-hourā [Vire version.]
I ran up onto the grass centre of the rd/abt and set about retrieving the boards. Fortunately, passing traffic made a point of not running over them.
Those boards are heavy. Amazingly, a short, roly-poly shaped woman stopped and began helping me, one each end of a board. Then a burly bloke joined in. A board, solo, no problem for him.
What angels! How supremely kind!
Now I have the LWB Vivaro for that sort of gig ā¦ But the 307SW continues in good service and in good shape.
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