It took a while for me to warm to my Vauxhall Vectra, mainly because of the sheer size of it. The back window doesn't help with that as it's quite small and doesn't make it that easy to check your blind spots and traffic generally. It is otherwise very good in traffic though, I think it's designed mainly for motorway and long distance/time driving, which is probably why it's so popular among travelling sales types and taxi drivers. I should imagine the diesels are more economical to drive than my petrol, which struggles to get near 40 miles a gallon.
It's reasonably plush inside, nice little things like the air conditioning and smooth feeling suspensions, nice seats. Two of our kids are still living with us, fully grown and they fit in the back fine.
The boot in our Vauxhall Vectra Design is very large indeed compared to the overall size of the car, which probably explains the small rear window. My mother has a wheelchair, and it easily takes that in there, as well as her shopping and ours.
I've been impressed generally with how the Vauxhall Vectra handles, the steering is predictable and true. I mentioned it's comfy on longer drives, but if the suspension and general ride were just a little softer I certainly wouldn't complain.
I have only had the car a few months (second hand) so I've had no real problems to report. There's a little niggle with the glove box latch, but that's about it. The Vauxhall Vectra is a popular car as well, so I'm imagining that parts are fairly easy to come by if need be.
The Vauxhall Vectra 3.0 V6 is like a weird mix of a boring rep car and a drag racing nutter car. It is hugely fast, at least from my modest experience. We've usually got the kids in the back so most of the time it's just nice to be cruising comfortably along the motorway knowing that I'm clocking easily 45 mpg.
But when I'm on my own in it and I've got some decent twisty roads it's great to let the V6 roar and let it eat up the road. You do get the feeling sometimes of how heavy it is, and it is a heavy car, but mostly it feels really agile and fun. No doubt that lowers the economy of it, but meh, too much fun!
My Vauxhall Vectra was second hand so I don't know about how it behaved for the first five years of its life. Might have needed all sorts doing. I had to pay for the flywheel to be done but apart from that it's been only tyres. It's approaching 80k now so I'm suspecting that the gearbox might need doing soon, but to be honest there's no signs of it so far.
Like I said it's mostly the kids in the back, but it's easily big enough for grown ups when we've got them back there. Big enough for three in the back really, the only problem was for my taller friends that the headroom seems to sort of tail off at a really odd place, just a few inches before it should. Actually that's also a bit of a concern if we got rear ended, as their head would crack against the roof, hmm.
The Vauxhall Vectra 3.0 CDTi is a big car but that doesn't really make it hard to move about. The previous owner fitted parking sensors at the back. Thinking about it, the rear window isn't that easy to see out of, so that might be tricky without the sensors. No matter for me though.
I should have been a bit wiser than to buy a second hand car at seven years old and with over 50 thousand on the clock, but it was cheap enough and I kind of needed a car in a bit of a hurry after our old Astra finally gave up the ghost. So I went for the Vauxhall Vectra without really thinking too much about it, which was my first mistake.
Basically it's just been a bit of a headache all along, lots of repairs needing. Thankfully this wasn't a case of dealer deception as they gave a one year warranty with it, so they've footed the bill for most of the work, but it's been really disruptive having it back with them so often. Off the top of my head it's had a steering rack replaced, the turbo failed a couple of times and needed doing, and it had a lot of persistent trouble starting up in the really cold weather, which never got sorted out.
It's been a few months since the last problem and I can only hope that's the end of it. I really don't want to go through the whole car buying process again, and I want to believe the Vauxhall Vectra will up its game and just behave from now on. Thing is, when it's working, there is a lot to like about it. There's the lovely enormous boot which is fab with two kids around (one with a pram, the other with a little bike).
Cruise control is a big bonus as well, felt like quite a luxury at first but now it's just a must. The diesel engine I thought was quite big when I was shopping around, but the dealer said it had good fuel economy and that's turned out to be true really. Our Vauxhall Vectra manages easily 50 miles a gallon most of the time, and we keep quite tight tabs on that.
I just really hope it stops messing about soon, it could be and should be a really nice family car.
Car Review - Vauxhall vectra 1.8 SRI, VVT, SAT NAV.
Brilliant car if you have a family with its large and spacious interior and a massive boot. Great build quality, eveything is well put together and finished nicley. The stereo is awsome. Altogether a realy good motor and cheap for the money they are going for now.
I had a Zafira for a while and just hated it. I was originally impressed by the seating and the space inside, but it had some many stupid faults and repairs needing I just had to get rid of it. I almost walked away from Vauxhall completely but the Vectra had much better reviews so I gave it a look. Comfort wise it's very good indeed, so that was a first plus as I have a slight back problem.
The Vectra's boot is nice and big. We've had a little trike and two big holdalls in there before, with space for bits of shopping whilst we were away. The inside of the car has plenty of space and cubby holes and things, I mean it's not a limo but it's a lot of car for the money really. It's really quiet as well, I've always liked that about Vauxhalls, even when you're going pretty fast, you can hear yourself talking to the kids in the back easily.
It's ok to drive. It's got plenty of power and the steering is very responsive, not flat at all. It's not really exciting I wouldn't say, but it's ok. I find myself quite interested in safety these days, what with the kids, so that's always comforting to know about it.
One thing that kind of annoys me about the car is that the plastic bits inside are pretty tacky and cheap looking, and the kids have managed to dislodge bits and pieces of the interior in the back. There have been a few mechanical problems here and there, like a windscreen wiper motor failure.
I got the satnav fitted in our one. So it comes up on the display in the central bit of the dash. Thinking about it now, I reckon I'd probably not bother with that given the chance again, because although it's handy not to have to mess about moving a satnav around with you, it is actually quite a bit harder to see the display while you're driving. I used to have a satnav mounted on the windscreen where it was right in my line of sight, really easy to see what was what, but this one in the middle of the dash (and quite a way down as well) really isn't that easy, can be a bit dangerous to be looking down at it so much. And the panel isn't even facing you either, it's just pointing into the middle of the car. Not very clever.
For size it's quite big. I have to say I think I'd prefer something next time that's a bit more clever with the bonnet, like one of those Mercedes tall cars. The Vectra pokes out quite a way in front which can make parking just needlessly difficult. The parking sensors help, but still it could more cleverly designed overall.
I came across the Vectra by accident whilst at a dealership looking for a car for my son, I wasn’t even looking for a new car but SRI Vectra caught my eye and once I had taken it for a test drive I wanted it. At the time I was driving at least 80 miles a day in an old BMW M3. The model I chose came with the usual comforts including a factory fitted satnav, which was really simple and easy to use. I found the driving position very comfortable and was a factor in buying the car. The interior is well laid out and easy to use. There is bags of room in this car you can easily fit 3 comfortably in the back, the boot size is another plus point as it’s huge and if you need more space the back seat fold almost flat giving you even more space.
The car handles and rides really well, one niggle I had with the car was the suspension being quite stiff, but as I mainly drove on the motorway this wasn’t a huge problem for me, but if someone was to use the car for mainly city driving I could imagine it becoming a problem. The steering isn’t as tight as I might of liked but once again as I mainly did motorway miles I didn’t find it too much of a problem.
Fuel consumption was around 45-50mpg, the road tax was £200 for the year and the insurance wasn’t very expensive either. In the 3 years I drove the car I had no unexpected costs and only had to replace tyres, light bulbs, etc and pay for servicing. So in terms of running costs it was a very cheap car to run.
Another niggle would have to be the depreciation of the car, I think at one point it was losing £250 per month.