Perhaps, and I admit that "claptrap" was maybe a bit of a strong description.
I would certainly not dismiss the opinion of someone who drives Vectra's for a living, I can imagine that hard use as a taxi will throw up some anomalies that normal everyday use may well not highlight. However, anyone who knows anything about Vectra C's will be aware that the 1.9 CDTi is inherently less reliable overall, by a country mile than the 3.0 V6 CDTi. I owned a 3.0 V6 CDTi SRi for over 5 years and had not a single jot of bother with it, nothing went wrong. Sure, that's not an indicative statement which means that
all 3.0 CDTi's have had no issues, rather it's a personal experience. During that time I was an active member of the Vec-C owners forums which were and still are, riddled with threads regaling woes from owners of 1.9CDTi's. You read very few threads regarding issues with the 3.0. It's a hidden gem of an engine with gob fulls of real world torque and yet still manages to return high 40's mpg.
The 3.0 CDTi Isuzu lump is ridiculously over-engineered and to coin a phrase that I dislike to use - "absolutely bombproof".
That said, I would concede that the 3.0 is far rarer than the ubiquitous 1.9 which would perhaps go someway to explaining why there are more reported issues with the 1.9 than there are with the V6.
