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Rybo89

Rybo89

Rybo89

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Joined
13 Jun 2007
Posts
13,951
Location
Chesterfield
Astra VXR, Leon Cupra R, Mazda3 MPS.

All completely different cars from 1 and another, i know. I just want to know stuff from the people who have actually owned each of these cars.

What are they like to live with day to day?

Real MPG around town and the motorway. Reliability, fun factor etc etc.

I have now test driven a Clio 197 F1 which was a brilliant little revvy car and it did put a smile on my face. But something is stopping me from just going out and buying one. Maybe because i have been looking at CS members for sale threads and looking through there post history and finding they have had problem after problem with there cars.

I test driven a Astra VXR this afternoon and i thought it was brilliant and sounded amazing when giving it some. The looks have kind of grown on me to and the interior is far superior to that in a Clio 197. Bigger aswell for when it comes to school runs and family outings. Supposedly a good car for the motorways to.

Not found a garage locally with a Leon Cupra R or a MPS what i can test drive yet. Heard the MPS is a massively underrated car though.

Mainly wanting to hear about the VXR, Cupra R and the MPS. The 197 is still on the top of the list, well for the time being.

Thank you muchly :)
 
I did originally put another 2 cars in there aswell. would have made sense then :p

Ford garage near me has a MPS in. Will go in tomorrow after work and see if I can go test drive it.

Sooooo.... Anyone here owned any of these cars? Feel free to leave a little review. Don't be shy. :)
 
Surely these are going to be extortionate for you insurance wise Rybo judging by how much you're paying for your ST?
 
Rybo89 said:
I did originally put another 2 cars in there aswell. would have made sense then :p

Ford garage near me has a MPS in. Will go in tomorrow after work and see if I can go test drive it.

Sooooo.... Anyone here owned any of these cars? Feel free to leave a little review. Don't be shy. :)
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I owned an Astra VXR which I had taken to stage 3 by Thorney which I sold and bought the Monaro VXR.

I had an Astra VXR for two years and I adored that car so much. It certainly had it's faults though but it had character. The M32 gearbox is made of cheese and these really don't like being taken above 280bhp, so many stories of them lunching the gearboxes and throwing up error codes.

Handling wise at stock and with the stock map it's pretty poor. The throttle is on and off and power comes with a big wollop, at the time coming from a 1.6l Focus I loved that feeling of mentalness. Now though after owning a 6.0l V8 with a perfectly linear power curve I couldn't go back.

Get a custom map on it which will take the power to about 260bhp but offers a much more progressive power delivery, an LSD and a rear anti roll bar and you'll have a hatch that will keep up with the very best of today's hot hatches.

Interior wise, build quality is OK, certainly not as good as the Focus ST it's also very poorly equipped. Standard you'll get part leather and manual aircon. You won't find many VXR's which have had any options ticked at all, shame really.

Economy wise I averaged about 28mpg which is a nice mixture of motorway drives, hoons and stop start urban driving around the Midlands.

Ah and please don't get the 19" wheels that I had, totally ruin the ride and look crap really. The 18" ********** handle so much better and the ride is not as crashy!

So the Astra VXR a flawed car at stock but with some mods it's a fantastic car!

DSC00304.jpg
 
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Logsi said:
Surely these are going to be extortionate for you insurance wise Rybo judging by how much you're paying for your ST?
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An insurance company through Adrian flux called market study seem to like my postcode. Clio 197 F1 with 15k miles fully comp business insurance is £1400, VXR is £1650. MPS, Cupra R, Focus ST are the same prices. Type R EP3/FN2/DC5 are still silly premiums though, it's mad....


Princey, great write up! I can remember your VXR and when you got it mapped. You ended up selling due to gearbox failure didn't you?

Think my budget can just get me into the 08/58 VXRs which have the updated dash. Still need to do a lot of looking into them before I take the plunge. Plus trying out the other said cars to.

Also a good thing I have seen about the Astra VXR is that they hold there money up to about 80k. One day soon I'll be buying a house and will maybe have to go get a sensible car. :(

EDIT: just realised that was mrlol with the broken VXR.
 
I had an '07 Mazda 3 MPS and loved it to bits. Very unassuming car that went pretty well. Good levels of kit and can be had for decent price too now. Downsides are obviously fuel consumption ~230 miles to £65 of V-Power and the older model falls into the £400+ VED band.

18126453.jpg


I now drive an Astra VXR after a brief foray into the diesel world. Mileage is much the same between the two ~260ish from the Astra and that's mostly sat in M6 crawl traffic with the odd blast at the weekend. Astra doesn't feel much slower, but having driven the diesel in between for a few months I find it difficult to draw a comparison. One thing I will say is the VXR seems to spins it's wheels up more readily than the MPS ever did, and I don't think it handles as well, with the tyres (I had the same on both cars) screaming for mercy much sooner than the Mazda ever did.

28996241.jpg


Not much between the two cars for me, if I had my time again though I would have kept the Mazda.
 
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Rybo89 said:
Compared to the Clio,Mazda3 and ST they do.
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Glass's has a 2006/56 50k Astra VXR @ £5600 trade, a 2006/56 Focus ST at more or less exactly the same price.

Brand new the Astra was actually about 200 quid more expensive.

Therefore, no, they do not 'hold their value' compared to, say, a Focus ST. None of them do compared to, say, the Golf GTI which will now cost you noticeably more.

I just cannot see why you would buy one. Every other hot hatch does most things better. You want bonkers headline power? Buy the Mazda3. You want something that handles well? Buy the Focus ST. You want something that's a fantastic allrounder? Buy a Golf GTI. You want something with a fantastic chassis? Buy a 130.

You want something with an interior fashioned from the sort of plastic last seen in a Mr Kipling Pie Tray which spins its wheels at the slightest provaction and suffers from chronic understeer every time the turbo comes on boost and dumps a load of power through the front wheels? Yea, sure, buy the Astra VXR.
 
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Rybo89 said:
An insurance company through Adrian flux called market study seem to like my postcode.
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Markerstudy

I had a quote from them via A-Plan. Agreed to the quote and then was later told that actually, they couldn't use them as they didn't like my occupation ("IT Consultant" is apparently high risk... I guess they make the assumption there's lots of business use of the car... even though I get the train to a consistent place of work). A-Plan did the honourable thing though and honoured the price and found another underwriter.
 
[TW]Fox;21551163 said:
Glass's has a 2006/56 50k Astra VXR @ £5600 trade, a 2006/56 Focus ST at more or less exactly the same price.

Brand new the Astra was actually about 200 quid more expensive.

Therefore, no, they do not 'hold their value' compared to, say, a Focus ST. None of them do compared to, say, the Golf GTI which will now cost you noticeably more.

I just cannot see why you would buy one. Every other hot hatch does most things better. You want bonkers headline power? Buy the Mazda3. You want something that handles well? Buy the Focus ST. You want something that's a fantastic allrounder? Buy a Golf GTI. You want something with a fantastic chassis? Buy a 130.

You want something with an interior fashioned from the sort of plastic last seen in a Mr Kipling Pie Tray which spins its wheels at the slightest provaction and suffers from chronic understeer every time the turbo comes on boost and dumps a load of power through the front wheels? Yea, sure, buy the Astra VXR.
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Its probably a better bet than a Focus ST in terms of value/re-sale. There are just so damn many of them for sale. There are double the amount of ST's for sale compared with VXR's on autotrader!

On the flip side, the Focus ST market is a real buyers delight so you could probably find a very nice car for a steal.

I mean facelift 2008 ones can be had for sub £9000 with reasonable miles.
 
Jono8 said:
Its probably a better bet than a Focus ST in terms of value/re-sale.
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I've just demonstrated the value of the two cars is largely the same.

There are just so damn many of them for sale. There are double the amount of ST's for sale compared with VXR's on autotrader!
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Exactly, this is why the fact the ST is a better car isn't reflected in used values - the fact its better is cancelled out by the fact there are more of them.
 
[TW]Fox;21551439 said:
I've just demonstrated the value of the two cars is largely the same.



Exactly, this is why the fact the ST is a better car isn't reflected in used values - the fact its better is cancelled out by the fact there are more of them.
Click to expand...

You said "more or less". Could have just given us the figure ;)
 
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