Vauxhall Calibra - What to look for?

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Hi lads,

my girlfriend has owned a rover 416si for her first year of driving, and after a number of annoying faults followed by the head gasket failing she wishes to get something more sporty, she has a budget of £1000 to £1250 and we both like the Vauxhall Calibra (I will be driving it occasionally at weekends also) preferably the 2.0 8v or the later ecotec 16v model (shes not bothered to much about power, and is very reasonable on insurance) what would you look out in the way of problems when we go and look at some private examples tomorrow.

Cheers in advance.
 
I was under the impression that these were cavalier's under the sporty shell, and thus should in theory be very reliable. I'd just take a damn good test drive (without the current owner) and put it right through all the gears including reverse, listen for knocks, check the coolant/oil quality, service history.

I do know that the 4x4 models are best left alone though, but i guess that wasnt in the equasion anyway.

Nice cars for the money imho.
 
Jez said:
I was under the impression that these were cavalier's under the sporty shell, and thus should in theory be very reliable.
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Yep, just a Cavalier in a party dress.
 
With a budget like that on a Calibra you could be walking into all kinds of trouble.

I'm not going to spout on about what you 'could get' with the money, as I know there are other people who love doing that, so i'll let them miss the point and get on with it.

Me on the other, i'll aim to answer your question assuming its definately a Calibra you are set on.

Hard to see out of and very difficult to reverse. Though they handle better than the Cavalier they still suffer from understeering limitations. Front-drive Calibras will always come off the road front-first. Six-speed gearbox on 4x4 turbo fails and costs a fortune to replace. (but I dont think you'll be going for this)

The Bulkhead can crack around steering rack mountings.

On 2.0 litre 16v models a problem can develop with the idle adjustor control valve necessitating replacement and modifying by the fitting of an oil separator.

Plug leads deteriorate and are ridiculously expensive to replace.

Timing belts on 4 cylinder 16v engines also drive the water pump which can shed its impeller blades and seize, throwing off the belt, so best to change water pump too. Tensioner bolt which passes through oil pump also prone to fracture, leving belt untensioned and apt to fly off.

Listen for steering creaks and look for cracks around steering rack bulkhead mounting points, a £700 job to repair.

Compared to a modern car the interior is absolutely DIRE!

Basically you are buying a cut up Cavalier and car that is now apporaching 9 years old since its LAST production run.

Other than that - a lot of coupe for the money, especially the Turbos. Finding ANY un chavved good Calibra could be hard!
 
I'd sooner go for the Nissan primera GTI (see recent thread) at that sort of price point.

Might as well go for something with 4 doors and is newer (mondeo etc) rather than a 'sporty' coupe thats older and thrashed unless you are confident with your own diy and car buying/assessing skills.
 
rot boxes.
the tin worms flavour of choice.

also listen for a chattery top end from the 16v models.
starship money to put right.

V6 is the best model to go for.
 
Which is why there are so many calibra 4x4 models now running in 2wd permanently!
 
emailiscrap said:
Which is why there are so many calibra 4x4 models now running in 2wd permanently!
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partly Vauxhalls fault, partly the owners fault though.
we can't lay all the blame with the manufacturer for that transfer box problem.
 
Not at all, they were predominantly owned by people who thrashed the gobbitts off them. They were abused big time, and not maintained at all.
 
emailiscrap said:
Not at all, they were predominantly owned by people who thrashed the gobbitts off them. They were abused big time, and not maintained at all.
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personally, while i agree with you, i don't think it was thrashing 'em that sent so many transfer boxes to the great automotive graveyard.
it's the classic story, people didn't read the instructions ;)


EDIT, gobbitts is such a good word, must try to work it into conversation tomorrow.
 
The_Dark_Side said:
personally, while i agree with you, i don't think it was thrashing 'em that sent so many transfer boxes to the great automotive graveyard.
it's the classic story, people didn't read the instructions ;)


EDIT, gobbitts is such a good word, must try to work it into conversation tomorrow.
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Yeah, like not checking tyre pressures and mismatching tyre treads! that killed a lot of boxes very quickly!
 
Oracle said:
Yeah, like not checking tyre pressures and mismatching tyre treads! that killed a lot of boxes very quickly!
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actually mate the biggest cause was something else.
even the handbook told owners to change all four tyres at the same time but of course many simply changed the worn ones.
this is general advice for all 4wd vehicles but what made this problem acute was the specific way the Vauxhall system performed it's job...ie not being a permanent 4wd system.

(i'm starting to think others may think i've got a "superior than thou" complex going on here, i really haven't i assure you.)
 
You could get a decent 2 litre Honda Prelude for that money which is a million times better than any chavved up Calibra.
 
The_Dark_Side said:
actually mate the biggest cause was something else.
even the handbook told owners to change all four tyres at the same time but of course many simply changed the worn ones.
this is general advice for all 4wd vehicles but what made this problem acute was the specific way the Vauxhall system performed it's job...ie not being a permanent 4wd system.

(i'm starting to think others may think i've got a "superior than thou" complex going on here, i really haven't i assure you.)
Click to expand...

Interesting!

I have a mate with a "B" reg XR 4x4 Sierra, still running 4WD after years of abuse, odd tyre swaps etc etc etc.

Taking into account the failures of the Vauxhall 4x4 systems, am I right in assuming the Ford system is different?

Well, it must be as its permanent 4x4, but I'd have thought the same problem would have affected it, it has'nt.

Also, another mate of mine has a 16 year old 4x4 Sierra thats still going strong.
 
My old man had a 2.0 16v 4X4.

And yeah, it got thrashed :D Then the top end made a strange rattling noise, a valve spring snapped which made a mess of the head and valve train. Big money to fix, then the bottom end exploded..
 
I loved mine

The 8v is gutless

The V6 wasn't all that and had poor gear ratios

The 4x4 Turbo was a cracker but the 4x4 transfer box used to blow and costa fortune to replace so lots run fwd only.

The earlier 16v redtopls c20xe (if mem serves) were the ones to go for as they had 150bhp as aposed to the poorer ecotek 136ish bhp ones

They can suffer with porus heads betwen the oil galleries and the water veins in the block so look for mayo under the oil cap and any crap in the coolant.

Rear arches rust but what car of that era didn't

They have one of the lowest drag coefficients of any production car they have a good 0-60, handle pretty well and are ten a penny.

I think they look lush :)

Get a good one and you will have some cheap fun
 
Yea I've always had a soft spot for these too :)

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Bit hard to track down any decent pics at short notice :D
 
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