Dont laugh, i am thinking about recommending a vectra.

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Jez

Jez

Jez

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Ok, boring thread really. But for a second imagine you want a reasonably comfy and cheap to maintain car for a budget of say ~£1000 give or take.

What is there, i have asked myself this on behalf of a female friend who wants a cheap car. I am going to ignore smaller cars because they command a premium because of new drivers and are therefore worse VFM than slightly bigger unloved generic old rep cars.

This leaves me with the rep fleet from 10 years ago (ish) of which i guess the main choices are vectra or mondeo.

Assuming you do not like Ford's and very much prefer the styling of the old vectra, and are not in any way concerned about how technically the mondeo is a dynamically better car. This then leads you to the old Vectra.

media


Not a bad looking car for the price of a telly? And what else is there? Mondeo is out of the question which was my first thought (this car is for a woman, and we know what women are like when it comes to irrational thoughts towards cars), Omega is unreliable, Laguna is unreliable, Japanese cars tend to be old and minging for this money.

Method to my madness here?
 
You don't buy £1k cars based on asthetics because they are all cheap old cars. Therefore you buy the Mondeo as it'll just work, whereas the Vectra is a pile of turd.
 
Ignore the fact the mondeo even exists, as this is for a girl. Just wipe it completely. What else is there?

Also, is the Vectra actually a bad car? It gets slated as not being as good as say, the aforementioned Mondeo. But are these likely to be unreliable, or simply not very good to drive? I dont really know much about them other than that the few people i knew with them when i was a child and they were current never seemed to moan too much about them and kept them for years...
 
I dunno, I suppose you have hit upon one of the very limited sets of circumstances where it wouldn't be the worst possible choice. Still, I'd perhaps look at what Volvo and Saab have to offer at that price.
 
I thought that, and personally i would have a W124 E-class (oh wait, i do :D), but everything from the "better" brands are all absolutely ancient at this rather low budget.

Maybe i will tell her to take the bus or finance a better car.
 
At £1,000 I'd personally take anything that was half comfy and reliable.

Quite who stitched it together 10 years ago would have little concern to me.

If that left me with a Vauxhall then so be it.
 
Thats my thinking, but are these cars going to leave her stranded and paying garage bills every 14 minutes? The last time i knew anyone with one of these was when i was about 15 years old and a neighbour had one. He kept it for a good few years and never seemed to complain about it then...but that was a long time ago :)
 
I know what you mean about women & buying cars it's Madness.

Woman. I have a grand to spend I want a car NOW !!!
Man. Here you go Love here's a 2 grand car for 1 Grand.
Woman. Nope.
Man. Huh.
Woman. It's Green !!!

:( :p


I'd have a look at a few old Hondas, My Little Sister & her Missus really like theirs.
As for the Vectras I've known a few owners in the past & I also think the colour coded ones don't look to bad either. The only Horror storys I've heard are concerning the Derv ones with the Expensive pumps on them.
 
They're not fundamentally unreliable, they're just crap.

That makes them perfectly viable at £1,000 in my book.
 
merlin said:
They're not fundamentally unreliable, they're just crap.

That makes them perfectly viable at £1,000 in my book.
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Indeed, totally my thinking as crap doesn't matter. Its going to be a girl driving it around at 20mph with a new cd player fitted so she can listen to her ipod.

Malc - agreed about the looks, definitely by far the best looking cheap old rep car going, hence why she is drawn to them when i showed her the late 90's rep options.

Seems crazy to be recommending a vauxhall, but its not actually a bad looking car for the money if its likely to be half reliable too..
 
The Vectra is just a poor design, a supposed "evolution" of the Cavalier which was actually a better car to drive. Quite smart looking though. I don't think it has any massive reliability issues, though I've heard the Ecotec engine has an appetite for sensors and cam tensioners.
Primera as an alternative? Seriously bland looking machine though.
 
Lopez, have you experience of their mechanicals at all? When you say poor design are you referring to it as a drivers car or as liability?
 
Moeks said:
Say what now :eek:
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No big deal mate, They're getting married later in the year & I am giving her away. :cool:


Another benefit of the Vectra if that is what the Buyer wants is that because of the poor rep you can bag a low mileage good'en for fair money. A Minter with 80k up it colour coded & CD & she'll blow yer. :D
 
To be fair, my girlfriends dad has an Opel Vectra 2.6 V6 estate, it's reliable enough, as was his previous 1.6 Vectra, albeit slow but it never went wrong. My Gradad had a Vauxhall Vectra 2.5 CDX years ago too, that was also reliable

As you can see, I have been around and still am around more than my fair share of Vectras, my uncle had one too (used to have several at work also), although that was a Mk2 pre facelift, that wasn't so reliable though. I don't like them, but I wouldn't say that are unreliable, more annoyingly reliable if anything :p

malc30 said:
No big deal mate, They're getting married later in the year & I am giving her away. :cool:
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Aye yea of course, just checking that I read that correctly is all, good for her anyway :) ...the immature little boy within me just felt a nagging sensation to flag it though I suppose.
 
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shame you dont really have as many camrys out there like we have down here.

They might not be the most exciting to drive but they get the job done :)
 
Oh totally, they are SO cheap its unreal. Reluctant to buy a car like this as i would normally buy cars (BCA), though. A car this cheap needs a test drive really.

I am alright as far as the bj goes though, i'll point her in your direction mate ;)
 
Moeks said:
To be fair, my girlfriends dad has an Opel Vectra 2.6 V6 estate, it's reliable enough, as was his previous 1.6 Vectra, albeit slow but it never went wrong. My Gradad had a Vauxhall Vectra 2.5 CDX years ago too, that was also reliable

As you can see, I have been around and still am around more than my fair share of Vectras, my uncle had one too (used to have several at work also), although that was a Mk2 pre facelift, that wasn't so reliable though. I don't like them, but I wouldn't say that are unreliable, more annoyingly reliable if anything :p
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They don't sound too bad to me. Its very much an aesthetics based decision but if its reliable under the skin then why not :)
 
Jez said:
Lopez, have you experience of their mechanicals at all? When you say poor design are you referring to it as a drivers car or as liability?
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Yes mate, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with them mechanically, other than the engine weaknesses I mentioned above :)
 
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