Vauxhall Astra 1.7CDTi EcoFlex

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

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Anyone seen this? It's a new version of the Mk5 Astra diesel.

You get some cloth seats, little handles to open the window in the back, a nasty plastic dashboard and manually operated air conditioning. You also get a staggering 109bhp, which is good for 0-60 in 12 seconds.

So how much does it cost? Are you ready?

£17,369.

Yes, thats SEVENTEEN THOUSAND POUNDS.

But don't worry, as it falls into the £35 road tax band so you too can spend 17 grand on an Astra diesel to save 100 quid a year on tax!

Who buys these?
 
The whole eco thing is nuts.

The judges also highly commended the BMW 118d with its EfficientDynamics stop-start and regenerative braking technology (with a WGC? rating of 34, and CO2 emissions of 119 g/km), and were very positive about the driving experience offered by this car. However, they considered that its 143 bhp engine would encourage driving which would make achieving the test cycle CO2 emissions less likely than in the Focus ECOnetic and some of the other models in the short-list line-up.
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Talk about removing every ounce of pleasure from driving!

http://www.whatgreencar.com/news-item.php?Ford-Focus-ECOnetic-Green-Car-of-the-Year-08
 
Fleet purchases. At my employer, the business use cars for those not eligible for a car allowance are Astra 1.7CDTI ... I doubt our leasing company pay anything close to £17K.

Also for the majority of the population, 12 seconds 0-60 and 109BHP is ample. I expect this car will quite happily sit on the motorway at 70MPH all day long with no complaints.
 
I'm talking about private purchasers. I am not interested in the fleet market for the purposes of this thread, only the retail market where i feel sure there will still be sales.s
 
It's a really, really crap car - I've driven a Mk5 Astra and it didn't have a single redeeming feature as long as you assume 'you dont get wet when it rains' etc doesn't count.
 
You would have to be clinically insane to buy this outside of fleet and even then it's a stupid idea. A gutless ****box Astra is going to get low levels of respect even for a fleet motor - I'll get hammered to squeeze out the smallest piece of performance. I also doubt it'll be that comfy on he motorway - it'll have special rock hard fuel saver tyres and hard suspension. Mind you, there is some level of achievement, making the Astra WORSE!!!
 
That's pretty damn awful for the money. I like the Astra, my parents have a 2005 SXi and it's nice, but they also paid almost half that for it when it was 8 months old. No idea why anyone would decide to spend £17 on such a basic car. But they do nonetheless.
 
Wow, I thought the idea behind these rubbish eco drive cars was they were supposed to be cheep?

Whilst I'm sure it emits virtually no carbons and kills literally no polar bears it still costs £17k to buy the thing, that is a massive amount of money.
 
[TW]Fox;13267287 said:
It's a really, really crap car - I've driven a Mk5 Astra and it didn't have a single redeeming feature as long as you assume 'you dont get wet when it rains' etc doesn't count.
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I beg to differ. It might not be amazing but its certainly no worse than its rivals such as the focus ect.. The average joe certainly doesn't care about handling. I found it just as comfortable as a focus and the build quality is just as good too.
 
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Surpised. The Focus I thought was considerably better in every possible way - the Mk5 Astra sums up everything wrong with Vauxhall. Truely nasty.
 
[TW]Fox;13267287 said:
It's a really, really crap car - I've driven a Mk5 Astra and it didn't have a single redeeming feature as long as you assume 'you dont get wet when it rains' etc doesn't count.
Click to expand...

A friend of mine just got a 08 plate Astra SRi for about £10k and she loves it, it looks nice from the outside but having been in it I thought it looked like a 10 year old Corsa.

Can't say I would want one personally. Are they really that bad to drive? She assures me it's really fast (sport button ***?) but looking around at book figures it's something like 10 seconds to 62mph (where as she says it's more like 7?).

She has the 1.8 (138bhp) btw.
 
They are nice to drive, I've driven most of its rivals too. Yes there is better but its no where near the bottom of the list like people make out.
 
Wasn't the old 1.7CDTI either 70BHP or 90BHP depending on the model... the 1.9 was 120BHP or 150BHP so not a bad increase on the power output.
 
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