Vauxhall

I always fancied the 3.0 v6 omega back in the day, rwd bargain barge for the motorway!

Recently had a Saab 9-5 for 4* years from the GM era, on the whole not my best purchase, but I liked it all the same. Aside the seats, the build quality was not great. So I'll assume vauxhall would be a grade down.

Edited
 
Last edited:
Never really liked them either. The newer stuff are particularly bad, considering the Vauxhall ranges all now share the same engines as Peugeot.

A few of my colleagues have new Corsas from 2021/22, and they've all been experiencing issues due to the wet belt failing.
 
I used to covet the Vauxhall Cavalier GSI/Turbo when I was in my early teens. Many years later and my first brand new car was a Vectra GSI 2.6. It had fantastic Recaro seats, but that’s where the love affair stopped. Terrible gearing and steering, coupled with general poor quality. I part exchanged it after a mere 10months for an E36 M3 Evo and never looked back.

Some time later I owned a Saab 95 2.3T Aero and thought it was excellent (great seats again), but I never touched another Vauxhall
badged product and wouldn’t today either. There’s no need, plenty of much better Japanese and Korean cars.
 
Last edited:
I don't have the greatest of experience with them but my dad had a Zafira at one time and several of my family have had Corsas from time to time - I've always found the ride comfort lacks the refinement of other similar cars with a harsher feel where it is like all the small vibrations are transferred to your bones - my dad had a Passat around the same time as the Zafira, and a Touran and a different Passat just after, and the relative difference in ride refinement was very noticeable. In all other respects I've found them very very average.
 
Last edited:
They're Peugeot's under the skin mostly these days, or another Stellantis product rebadged with a new body. They still sell well, my mum has a 70 plate Corsa which is a 208 under the skin. It does the job, but I find it difficult to get in and out of and when you sit in the seat it's impossible to reach the interior handle of the drivers door because the roofline and B Pillar are so intrusive so you end up pulling on the frame of the door. It was sold as 'having Sat-Nav' but the Sat nav requires a Smart phone with Satnav running on it to work!
 
I love my '16 astra, it has been flawless. This model was a massive step up, I had a '59 astra and it was pure garbage.

I'd consider another but they don't do leather seats anymore, deal breaker due to dust mite allergy. And it's all Peugeot now so prior experience probably doesn't apply.
 
Brother had an Cavalier SRI in the early 90s and then upgraded to the Calibra 16v, the head gasket went on the latter which permanently put me off Vauxhalls, next door neighbour has a 14 plate Astra 1.4 and does nothing but moan about how **** it is but as he's not really a 'car' person he's just going to drive it until it dies.
 
Apparently reliability got worse since Peugeot took over. Mostly electrical issues (shocker).

A friend had a 2023 Corsa and that went mental every time it rained. Things like auto wiper and headlights never worked properly. Funny for me, not for him. He swapped it for a new Astra earlier this year and that has been ok so far.
 
Last edited:
Whenever I've looked into them in the past, the engines when looked into have been prone to head gasket failure, from memory I think this was Corsa/astra. I once had to help an friend change a bulb through the wheel arch on his Astra....

These things put me off. The modern one I'm not so sure. I like the look of the new astra in some colours mind. I'd say parts are cheap but not sure if that's true since the takeover.

A friend had a purple cavalier which had very little issues, I liked that!
 
My 308 in disguise Astra hasn't had any reliability issues but the software is buggy as hell, it has random electrical glitches which while quite infrequent are annoying and the build quality is questionable.

Must be that German build quality we keep hearing about :p

Our Ellesmere Port built Vauxhall Combo Van seems to be better screwed together!
 
Speaking to a dealer friend of mine he says that the cars are not as good as they used to be in terms of build quality, especially since Stellantis took over. That's not to say they are bad but they are seeing more early problems than they did with Opel/GM product. Now that could be correlated with added complexity which afflicts all brands. Full disclosure I did work for Vauxhall and drove the cars for 20+ years and only ever had one issue - a 2.0l 1st gen Vectra that dumped it's oil and required an engine change. Personally I think the brand lost it's way completely since the French took over. They clearly positioned it below Peugeot in the pecking order and brand positioning and as such I think they were get the least preferred design iterations. That said I do believe that it is coming back but the market is so competitive that I can only see them duking it out with the likes of Skoda and MG going forward. They remain good used value, have an extensive dealer network and plenty of availability due to a lot of rental business.
 
Calpol said:
Speaking to a dealer friend of mine he says that the cars are not as good as they used to be in terms of build quality, especially since Stellantis took over. That's not to say they are bad but they are seeing more early problems than they did with Opel/GM product. Now that could be correlated with added complexity which afflicts all brands. Full disclosure I did work for Vauxhall and drove the cars for 20+ years and only ever had one issue - a 2.0l 1st gen Vectra that dumped it's oil and required an engine change. Personally I think the brand lost it's way completely since the French took over. They clearly positioned it below Peugeot in the pecking order and brand positioning and as such I think they were get the least preferred design iterations. That said I do believe that it is coming back but the market is so competitive that I can only see them duking it out with the likes of Skoda and MG going forward. They remain good used value, have an extensive dealer network and plenty of availability due to a lot of rental business.
Click to expand...
Was looking at a 2015-2018 zafira auto prtrol
 
As others have mentioned, theres a distinction from previous GM based designs and newer stellantis based ones. You should be careful of anything with the "wet belt" engine (stellantis or ford). See below my "adventures" with near wetbelt failure and excessive oil usage on the 1.2 puretech turbo

1.2L Puretech/wet belt issues

So i've got a 4.8 year old car at 55k miles with a 1.2L puretech. It was only after I bought it I became aware of the infamous wetbelt system. I'm the second owner of the car having had it for about 1 year and a few months. Timing belt replacement is 6 years or 60k miles (although dealer...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk

1.2 Puretech Turbo - Oil issues

Back again after that earlier infamous wet belt issue (which has been running fine since replacement/clean out). The car has never been great for oil. Maybe 0.5L every 1-2k miles. Recently though i drove around 100 miles worth very hard at about 5k RPM and noticed it ate probably around 0.8L in...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
Last edited:
Robert said:
What year did stellantis take over/startlriducing?
Click to expand...
2021 onwards. Basically any model that was in existence prior to 2021 should be less... French.

Edit - Actually they were part of PSA prior to that so you are probably looking at models that were around pre 2017 to get a Vauxhall Vauxhall instead of la Vauxhall française.
 
Last edited:
I had a 51 Vectra in petrol blue which was a pretty fair company car I did 40k in two and a half years without issue. Then I had the first angular Astra diesel, 04 plate which was a disaster, all sorts of crank issues and plenty of AA callouts. Went to Honda next.
 
BAcon said:
I always fancied the 3.0 v6 omega back in the day, rwd bargain barge for the motorway!

Recently had a Saab 9-5 for 4* years from the GM era, on the whole not my best purchase, but I liked it all the same. Aside the seats, the build quality was not great. So I'll assume vauxhall would be a grade down.

Edited
Click to expand...

Drove my dad's (I was 17) when asked to move it round the street, obviously I took it down some back road. It slide out. I **** it.

Great value barges for their time.
 
I, like a lot of people compare between Vauxhall and Ford, I had a 2009 Astra and a 2009 Focus.

I thought the Astra was better built inside, but the Focus better built on the outside. Mechanically and Reliability, probably the same, a lot of it does depend on usage. Engines, what would have been considered good at the time would also come down to usage, the Vauxhall 1.9 CDTI was a great smooth engine, the 2.5 Volvo engine in a Ford is a fantastic engine.

I hardly see any Vauxhall's on the road now, I thought the PSA takeover stopped a lot of the production.
 
Had a Viva (1800 SL, which was the Magnum IIRC) and a Victor 2300 in my time. Both didn't want to start in Winter, even with the choke pulled all the way out and a lot of swearing, but also both were fun.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom