Now, diesel or petrol. Arrgggg, i hate buying cars.
Petrol
Diesels are for skinflints who enjoy poisoning children
Diesels are for skinflints who enjoy poisoning children
Long or short journeys?
A petrol will have less low-end torque on the motorway, but will probably be better to drive.
A diesel with a DPF will hate you if you don't give it a good run now and again, but will probably be vastly more fuel efficient if you do a lot of motorway miles.
It's not a great comparison, but I bought a Focus 10 years ago and did a cost comparison, including fuel and servicing, with an average of 12k miles per year. The difference was about £20. Admittedly diesels need servicing less frequently now, but it's a worthwhile exercise if you're unsure.
And diesels poison children. At least as effectively as petrol engines.
Wifes 64 plate Foucus vs works pool 64 plate Astra...
Focus handles better but Astra more comfortable ride.
Astra seats more comfy, Focus front seats are so crap I often travel in the back as its more roomy & comfy. Your legs seems to disappear into a tunnel in the Focus, dashboard is bloody enormous it takes up 30% of the cars interior.
Don't know about Astra petrol offerings, but the 1.0 petrol Focus is an excellent engine, certainly not what you'd expect from a 1.0 engine in a 1300kg car. Not great on fuel though, high 30's at best. The 50mpg+ claims are utter rubbish.
If I were buying again I'd probably buy the Astra.
Or Focus.
In fact, I wouldn't buy either, I'd get a Skoda Superb Estate.
My view on Vauxhall is slightly skewed as my ex works in a Vauxhall garage. It's in a small town and she works in the warranty department. She's always busy!
She talked me into buying her a new Corsa (in 2005) to learn to drive in and i had the pleasure of using it for a bit. Needed disc + pads changed in under 10k. Seat (uncomfortable) broke and i lost count of the number of times i came home to find bits of coil springs lying in the drive. Radiator/head gasket issues followed. She changed to a Meriva and had the same issues (bar the seat collapsing). She still works there but drives a Seat now 😀
We had the previous gen Astra that you're looking at as a pool car at work a year or two back. IMO they were simply not up to the same standard as their major rivals, most of which I either drove or travelled in. Not terrible but just not as good as the others. I owned a 62 reg Focus 1.0 and it was better in every way compared to the Astra.
Saying that, the current one seems to be well regarded.
Don't buy a Vuaxhall ever. Horrible cars, most uncomfortable seats ever, even for an hour and a half journey. Dull, uninspiring, boring places to be.
Ah, that'll be the Vectra 1.8L, circa 2000, then. Company I worked for had one for a while while the director I worked with decided on a replacement for his Saab Turbo. Miserable, God-forsaken piece of crap, most uncomfortable car it's ever been my misfortune to have to spend time in! I've sat on a wooden church pew that was more comfortable for an extended period than that thing was.
Current Vauxhalls are a universe away from what those were, I can happily drive for two-three hours without wriggling around trying to get comfortable after five minutes, like I did with that bastard piece of shit Vectra.
What you going to use it for? Driving, obviously, but how far, how many people etc etc.
Currently in similar situation and am considering an EV. Renault Zoe can be had for sub 5k with 20k ish on the clock.
It's small and you have to lease the battery but worth considering?
I wild buy one, apart from one issue that seems shared across all Zafira's I've been in - they are agony on my leg and cause lower leg / sciatica type pain if I drive them for more than 30 mins or so...
DO NOT BUY A VauXhall PETROL, horrible, underpowered things. We have a few as company cars {Police Cars} diesels are far far betterer, the petrol models die/surrender at the very hint of a hill. 😀
The seats however, wipe clean very easily...
I've got a 63 plate Astra 1.4 Turbo SRI and think it's a great car, had very low mileage when I got it almost 2 years ago, only 5k miles.
It's a very comfortable car, I used to give one of my colleagues a lift quite frequently and he said its one of the most comfortable cars he's ever sat in, but the seats are SRI specific. The dash is a bit basic as it doesn't have a fancy colour screen but you can do anything you need on it.
The engine is pretty good, 0-60 in about 9 seconds, but I get 40 mpg on my commute to work which isn't bad for a fairly quick petrol car.
It has a massive boot, I can easily get 2 bikes in the back with the front wheels off and the seats down. Also the front seats can go back far enough that I can sit comfortably in it which I found very rare for hatchbacks when I was looking for cars. I found the Focus to be an appalling driving position for myself as I couldn't get the seats back far enough and just had the B pillar in the way when I looked out the side. Had a couple of Focus for hire cars and found the steering wheel to feel completely disconnected from the wheels, really disconcerting as no idea what the front wheels are doing. The steering on the Astra doesn't have the best feel but it goes round corners really well.
On visibility in the Astra, the A Pillar is E-normous which can be annoying when going round right hand bends, and the view out the back is pretty rubbish for reversing.
It also says TURBO on the back 😀
DO NOT BUY A VauXhall PETROL, horrible, underpowered things. We have a few as company cars {[b]Police Cars[/b]} diesels are far far betterer, the petrol models die/surrender at the very hint of a hill.
These things may not be unconnected. You're probably not high-speed persuit drivers, at a guess, so you're not going to get SRi/VXR levels of performance, are you, when passengers are likely to be unappreciative of the standards of transportation provided. The Astra GTC petrol is a perfectly adequate performer, and the Corsa SRi's I've driven have all been fine little cars on 200+ mile motorway runs; as I said before, I drove six over seven days from Cornwall to North Wiltshire or Somerset, between 150-220 miles, and they were all, without exception, lovely little cars to drive, and well equipped too. I'm six foot, and there are cars that will not allow me to stretch my left leg out by the side of the clutch/brake pedal, depending on auto or manual, which causes me significant discomfort as I have an arthritic left knee, but I have yet to drive a current Vauxhall that has caused me any problems.
Citroen and Peugeot, on the other hand, have almost reduced me to tears, there are only so many painkillers I can take over a given period.
It's the stupid footrest they fit by the side of the clutch/break pedal, blocking the space that allows me to stretch my leg out.
This is only on van-based cars, though.
Just picked this up as a rental for the week:
[img][url= https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4350/35595732383_c97e04c17d_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4350/35595732383_c97e04c17d_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/Wetr6R ]20170806_133203[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/91448594@N04/ ]Da_Milky_Bar_Kid[/url], on Flickr[/img]
Initial impressions are that it's well built with good ergonomics. Can't comment on handling as the tyre pressures are all over the shop so it currently pulls left! Bad points so far is that the paint seems very soft, small marks all over it, and the steering wheel is too small to let you see all of the dials at once. Can update when I've driven 200 miles in it this evening if that helps?
Our zafira is reliable, and it was cheap. It's even ok for petrol mpg...
Update:
It's boring but comfy. Steering system a bit direct and it tramlines a little bit on the motorway. The parcel shelf is the cheapest on I've ever come across, made out of compressed cardboard! Vibrates all the time. Also in low light the reflections off the silver trim on the dash are distracting.
A nice enough car but I wouldn't buy one, too many little things that would make it feel like a bad buy.
@sandwicheater - if you really don't care then don't limit yourself to those 2. we were in the same boat last year: went to a garage planning to buy something like that, sat in a few cars, came away with a Mazda 3. Same kind of price, is comfortable, hasn't broken down.
a mate who works in car manufacturing also speaks highly of Kia and Hyundai for reliability and being generally quite cheap. So there's that.
Have decided to ignore the issue of my gradually dying Focus and just get something on the weekend when it does die.
Looked and looked and just couldn't make my mind up.
Needs to be an estate for the dog and can't be much bigger than Astra/Focus as it's a tight park at my office.
Not even given Kia/Hyundai a thought. May need to sit in one as plenty popped up in estate version.
Had the pleasure of a 1.4T Astra K (latest model) a few months ago for 2 weeks whilst my BMW 325i was getting some accident damage sorted.
It went well and I thought its handling over rough country roads was a revelation. Steering numb but huge levels of grip.
The 1.6T has lots of appeal....
I understand paint a little thin and doors have had rust on around the seals. Whether they fix those issues, I don't know.
Nice motors tho'.
Current Vauxhalls are a universe away from what those were
To my mind, they peaked with the Cavalier. I had a 91-plate 1.6GL which was one of my favouritest cars I ever owned (over the years I went on to own three more, including an SRi).
A nice enough car but I wouldn't buy one, too many little things that would make it feel like a bad buy.
I had two Vectras (the mid-2000s 'C' model), an Elite with all the toys and the same engine as the SRi, and a poverty-spec one. That was pretty much my conclusion also, there was nothing [i]wrong [/i]with it per se but there were loads of minor little niggles which irritated me. Like the door pocket had just about enough space to store a cheese slice, or the DAB radio crapped out every time you moved between transmitters and had to be retuned back to the station you were listening to.
