My Vauxhall Vectra Review

[mu51im]

We have a volkswagen passat 2001 and it isnt astonishing but good nevertheless. my friends dad had a peugeot 306 1997, it was crap. he has now bought a new car, vauxhall vectra 2006 so he took me for a ride.

First of all, let me point out that i go to school and i have not got arthritis.

Pros, looks. price
Cons, everything else.

let me explain, it does look, fantastic, inside and outside. i cant think of many family hatchbacks that look better.

but, as soon as you get in (the back) the legroom, awful, same as the peugeot, and the seats, my god they are solid. its like you're sitting on a park bench, i have still got the back pain from sitting in there about an hour ago.

next, the ride, its good sometimes but most of the time its awful. these are the side roads of birmingham i must remind you, potholes and bumps everywhere. This thing, i swear has very soft suspension and no shock absorbers at all. i could feel every bump and pothole and when going over a speed bump, a normal car just bounces up and down, this sloshes from side to side! also, the ride feels very, inflated, cant really explain it, it feels like, a balloon. i'm not making a joke there by the way.

also, this overdoes the laws of physics, in physics when a car accelerates the weight goes to the back, when it brakes the weight goes to the front, when it turns the weight goes to the opposite side of the turning direction. This, is very apparent in the vectra, when you are going forwards even at a speed of say 15-20mph, you are pushed into the seat and you are looking towards the roof. and when you brake, you are pushed into the seat in front of you, in a normal car you dont really realise.

another thing, noise, not engine noise there isnt much but road noise, my god, its loud. the peugeot was especially bad because, im not joking here, at 30mph it was like when you're in an aeroplane taking off and your ears pop, it was that loud. the vectra however isnt as bad as the peugeot, but still bad, 20mph and its like a normal car at 50mph. and dont think that i only have the passat to compare it to, we've also got a 1994 toyota corolla.

it also seems as, maybe it was just that particular car but, the clutch is very bad, any acceleration and you could here the engine rev like if you are doing it in neutral.

the gears, they are very jerky, and the gearstick is too long, any longer and you'd have to stick your hand out of the non-existant sunroof to change gear. its a manual and whenever you change 1-2nd or 2nd-3rd its like there is an emergency stop and then someone crashes into you from behind. its that jerky.

So that concludes my roadtest of the vectra, and i dont like it, nor does jeremy clarkson, i thought he was bonkers for not liking the vectra, but now i know what he was on about.

No offence if you have a vectra, most of this was probably just that particular car.

Comment please! any thoughts would be good! even if you think i'm a stupid kid who doesnt know anything about cars, i still want to hear your compliments and critisism.

 

[YSSMAN]

No major complaints, really, because its fairly understood that the Epsilon-I cars were otherwise ish-ish depending on which brand is on the hood, and which trim level you had. Some of what you talk about there may be due to poor maintenance, however, particularly with the ride quality and NVH issues. Poor tire inflation can cause a lot of problems.

...As for the clutch, I can't talk. The only version we had of an Epsilon-I car with a stick was the Pontiac G6 GTP and GXP, which used an otherwise solid mechanical base, but Pontiac did a poor job sorting out the overall feel (it was a little rubbery).

We had a cool sibling model in 2006:

2006 Chevrolet Malibu Maxx SS

The chassis tune was brilliant, they fixed the steering problems the regular model had, and the interior was improved. Well, as much as you could improve a piece of Tupperware. But, the choice in favor of the 3.9L V6 versus the (then) new 3.6L was disappointing, and the four speed automatic only listing was a disappointment as well.

Good news is that we have the "good" version now:

2008 Chevrolet Malibu LTZ

But. You guys get the best semi-sibling now...

2009 Vauxhall Insignia

We won't be getting that one (based on Sigma-II) until 2010:

=====

My Point?

GM does a terrible job of keeping things consistent between what are otherwise the same models of particular cars. A terrible, terrible job.

 

[Jondot]

Comment please! any thoughts would be good! even if you think i'm a stupid kid who doesnt know anything about cars, i still want to hear your compliments and critisism.

Nope, sounds about right to me. Welcome to the benign land of the Vectra. You forgot one pro, though: it's cheap. Really cheap. I remember seeing brand new 58 plate ones for half price at some random dealer.

But yeah, they can be deceptively pretty. Particularly the pre-facelift models with the SRI alloys.

Oh, and as for the hard seats, it's just a modern car thing. Without sounding like a 70 year old man, I remember a time when car seats were actually comfy. I mean properly comfy - soft and forgiving. The newest car I sat in with seats like that was, incidentally, a previous-shape Passat. Oh well. Some French models aren't too bad - the Megane in particular has pretty comfy ones. Other than them, though, you won't find many. Certainly not any German ones (all modern Vauxhalls are essentially German anyway).

 

[mu51im]

yeah they are cheap, he got it for £4000! yesterday i looked and that is the equivalent of a bmw 3 series 2003 (a nice one with 70-90 miles).
also our passat i dare to say, has, decent seats, not as good or as comfortable as the corolla but you just want to sit in those seats and not the corolla's. and i updated my orginal post to put the price pro in and a few typo's corrected.

 

[Casio]

My friend had one of these piles of garbage a couple of years back. It went through 2 engines before he traded it to a new base model V6 Commodore, which is a hundred times better than the Vectra, and at the time of release was considerably cheaper too, as when that model Vectra was released here it was over 50k, before they realised no one would pay new 3-series money for a Vectra.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

The only good Vauxhall I've ever driven is a VX220, and we all know that that's a Lotus on dress-down Friday. All the others have been s***boxes. Unrelentingly, unremittingly, unstintingly relentlessly awful. From leaden steering through weedy noisy engines, bad gearboxes (slushy manuals and jerky autos, eh???), terrible handling, pointless "re-engineering" of controls, audio systems with "minds" of their own and interiors that defy accurate description of their awfulness, they really are hateful piles of crap.

We're looking for a mid-size MPV (for you Americans, that means Vauxhall Zafira, VW Touran etc), and we didn't even consider the Zafira. Then we ended up getting one as a hire car!! What a pile of big doggy stool. The Corsa isn't quite as awful as you expect it to be, and neither is the Meriva, but nonetheless they're still awful.

A lot of people like them, and that's fine. I don't.

 

[Pupik]

2006 Chevrolet Malibu Maxx SS

I drove a non-SS Maxx as a rental car (in the same dark blue) for 8 days back in 2006, while some Wilma-repairs were done to my GS, and it was actually a decent car.

1) Pretty good interior fit and finish, no rattles nor weird noises. Nothing felt like it was going to fall-off in my hand. The exterior was visibly seam weld-free and a nice metallic dark blue paint color that was quite rich and defect free from stem to stern.

2) Notch/Hatchback was excellent for hauling things (a trip to The Home Depot and a six-foot hero from Laspada's Subs proved that). Easy to fold seats, low cargo shelf for the rear, and plenty of room even with the seats up. Although with the large hatch, you do have to maneuver around it opening up high.

3) Solid feeling over bumps and in tight turns. Not quite a German-built car that feels as if it's casted out of single piece of iron, but you get the idea.

4) Comfortable and good ride quality; neither floaty nor rock-hard.

5) Sunroof for the kids! But, no children then. I would have liked that when I was a young 'un.

Okay thrust for a four-pot, a little groany, but nothing horrible nor even annoying after a couple of one-hour slogs on the highway.

Handling wasn't too bad, either. But the car felt heavier than it should have been (it weighs less than my car), but that was due to the steering feel being heavy and uncommunicative. Granted, my car has excessively light steering, but this was just not responding to delicate inputs. After a few days, I seemed to get used to it, but there's an element missing that you'd still notice when making 20+ mph turns, when the car just seemed unhappy and you had to saw at the wheel to put it exactly where you wanted it.

But there were some annoying touches that I'd like point out:

1) Trigger-shift manumatic is more of a toggle switch. Click up or down to the left and below the gear selector. It seemed more apt for a sunroof switch than something that chooses which gear I want, since the detent click was a very short range. It also confounds your choices at times, even if you're nowhere close to over-revving the motor...Boo!

Overall, the fully-automatic transmission gear selection wasn't too bad, not many too-abrupt gearshifts at the wrong times. So don't bother with the "gear switch", unless you must select 2nd gear for starting, for example.

2) A seam-line or two in the interior was rough (nothing a little 1000-grit sandpaper couldn't resolve). So why wasn't it resolved?

3) A dull light-gray interior. Choose a non-gray one if you want this car.

Overall, if you want a medium-sized, wagon-like American car, I think it's really your only choice. And not a bad one, if you can get over the stubborn steering feel and can somehow get over the fact there's no manual transmission.

 

[eiriksmil]

A lot of people like them, and that's fine. I don't.

Mk2 Astra GTE..

 

[Jondot]

The Corsa isn't quite as awful as you expect it to be

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Actually the Corsa isn't too bad, in an inane sort of way. I mean I can't see myself walking into a dealer and buying one, but if you gave me one I probably wouldn't drive it off a cliff, let's say.

and neither is the Meriva

I'd disagree with that. We test drove one. Horrid. Ride could only have been worsened by opening the door and sticking your arse onto the road. And the interior was a mishmash of all the nasty bits from the Vectra and last generation Corsa. And it looks like it's going to overbalance.




Actually I don't mind the Astra either. I've never driven one, but we had one for a week and it was ok. Although every time I looked out of the window at it I instantly thought "Oh look, my accountant is here". I'm not entirely sure why I thought that (particularly as I don't have an accountant), but there we are. It was perfectly adequate, but I can't see any reason for buying one. There's absolutely nothing interesting in there at all.

 

[YSSMAN]

Overall, if you want a medium-sized, wagon-like American car, I think it's really your only choice. And not a bad one, if you can get over the stubborn steering feel and can somehow get over the fact there's no manual transmission.

Which is too bad too, because they had discussed bringing back a wagon with this newest version of the Malibu, and I believe the idea was scrapped after the outcome of the Magnum debacle.

 

[mu51im]

read what i updated in the first post about the gears.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Heh, reminds me of the last one I drove. It was diesel, but the turbo lag was so bad you had to slip the clutch when engaging the new gear to get any boost.

 

[mu51im]

finally! a moderator agrees with me!

 

[eiriksmil]

So that concludes my roadtest of the vectra, and i dont like it, nor does jeremy clarkson, i thought he was bonkers for not liking the vectra, but now i know what he was on about.

How can you do a roadtest without having driven the car?

 

[mu51im]

How can you do a roadtest without having driven the car?

by sitting in the back!

you cant do everything but most things, you can do perfectly, especially in the vectra's case.

 

[ServerKing]

I had a Vectra briefly last month, it was a 54 (2004) plate Club CDTi. I bought it from a 'technician' (I use that word loosely) who worked at a Vauxhall workshop in Ruislip west London. I thought, this will be cared for.

How wrong I was! The airbag light came on when I was driving it away after just 2 miles. I asked the guy to fix it, he stuck his hand under the driver's seat, jiggled a wire and said that'll do. There's reassurance for you:idea:

The next day, the power steering packed up. I took it to a Vauxhall dealer (these are some of the most workshy people on the face of the earth)
who 'Tech 2' the car (plug a hand held diagnostic reader that looks like something a traffic warden uses), says there's no fault, and if it comes back, then it will cost me over £1200 (after tax and labour!) for an ECU (main part of the car's electronics!).

I put up with the intermittent loss of steering (the wheel would seize up) along with the radio going wrong and losing it's security code. After 5 weeks, enough was enough (I haven't mentioned how noisy the engine was, it also had a dodgy intercooler!), and got a proper car.

Vauxhalls will only be taken seriously if they improve their reliability, and their dealer network. AVOID

 

[Jondot]

Vauxhalls will only be taken seriously if they improve their reliability, and their dealer network. AVOID

At least it was memorable.

To be honest, it's a 6 year old repmobile - its first owner will have been lumbered with it as a company car, and will therefore have hated it. After 3 years it'll have been sold on to someone else, who will undoubtedly have also hated its guts. And then probably someone else. And then someone else. And then perhaps you. A 2004 Vectra will have been treated with all the compassion and respect as a clown at one of Simon Cowell's birthday parties.