current Vauhall Insignia….

…quite horrid I think 😯

Have one as a hire car this week while my company car gets a bash fixed. It says ‘sri’ on the side and its white with black glass. It is gutless and over the 200 miles so far this week it is averaging 29.5 mpg. (My diesel does 44 mph for same profile). My route home on the M77 out of Glasgow has a long gentle climb, and with cruise set at 70, the car slows down to 56, thats how gutless it is !

The seats are uncomfy, the boot is narrow to get a bike in, the heater is crap, and while it has fancy looking LED sidelights, the headlights are mightly dim (and yes, they are clean).

There is one good bit – my 8 yr old thinks the inside door handles are like space weapons 🙂

I guess it’s cheap probably and safe, but it doesn’t feel like a well engineered piece of kit at all

i had a hire one in holland … 1.6 i think – like you had SRI on the side.

loaded up with 5 blokes going from den helder to den hag it was like pulling teeth … looked like a hearse in estate version as well… probably why my neighbour likes his 2.0CDTI – its got a bit of go(150bhp) AND he is an undertaker.

We use insignias in work, 1.8 petrols are utter utter cra#. The diesels are quite good but:-
1. Seats are bloody uncomfortable
2. The lights are pi## poor

AND he is an undertaker.

The professionally offended will be along shortly to tell you that’s illegal.

My route home on the M77 out of Glasgow has a long gentle climb, and with cruise set at 70, the car slows down to 56, thats how gutless it is !

Think you need to look at the speed limit on that road, maybe your insignia is auto correcting your speeding.

I Had a few different 2L diesel insignia’ from Enterprise a couple of years ago for business travel, utter dog shite, the engine was underpowered if you had to brake from say 70 down to 50 on the Motorway and then get back up to speed then you’d be dropping to third from sixth just to give you a chance at not being run into from behind…
I also couldn’t quite work out why the wing mirrors were so tiny and had such a poor field of view…

But pray you never get given an Auto one to drive, all the same flaws with GM’s best ever attempt at a truly shit gear box, never in the right gear, atrocious MPG makes you wish you’d opted to walk 200 miles instead…

Probably using way too many bits borrowed from some 4.2 litre engined Yank SUV in an overweight, underpowered European saloon…

Gary_M – Member
My route home on the M77 out of Glasgow has a long gentle climb, and with cruise set at 70, the car slows down to 56, thats how gutless it is !

Think you need to look at the speed limit on that road, maybe your insignia is auto correcting your speeding.

Gary – I normally set the cruise at 55 from town out to the 60 limit signs after Silverburn and am always passed by a procession of speeders 🙂 I then usually pop it to 70 once in the 60 section, on the basis that the car will likley be doing around 66/67, in a 60 limit dual carriageway, which is unlikley to attract a penalty for speeding

I posted this a few months back about mine…

I would avoid like the plague, especially if its your own money you are spending.

I’ve had one now for almost 4 years and 80k miles as my company car and it has been very unreliable, is uneconomical and fairly expensive to service/maintain. It has been back to the garage 6 times in about 3 years for 2 electrical faults, power steering failure, electric hand brake failure, blown turbo and seized hand brake.

Its had 2 sets of front discs, one set of rears and numerous pad replacements. And last week the front badge fell off, this is also a known fault with the fixing of it. It costs £122 plus vat if you want Vauxhall to stick it back on.

I have the 2.0 diesel (160) and get at best 45 mpg and average around 41, so its very thirsty.

All this aside I actually enjoy driving the car, its spacious, very comfortable and eats the miles. I disagree that the interior is poor, its quiet and has no rattles. Its much quieter than my wife’s Golf which is the same age.

However I would NEVER choose to spend my own money on an Insignia. The negatives unfortunately outweigh the positives……

I’ve just changed to a Passat and I have to say in some ways I miss the old Insignia. It was quieter and more fun to drive especially on winding roads. However the spec on the Passat was way better for the money than a similarly priced Insignia this time round, so they aren’t really that cheap.

So 55 in the 50, 70 in the 60, just as well you turn off for EK before the 70 🙂

Luckily I only use that road once or twice a week.

🙂

Gary – I just leave it at 70 the whole way home from there over the GSO 🙂 Whilst venturing off topic, it amazes me how fast people go up that road, especially as there are unmarked cars in the slip roads most days – it must be a great earner for the traffic police. It’s one time that I really do appreciate a cruise button, as the tendancy would be to go with the flow, which is generally all ‘proper’ speeding, rather than just my ‘baby’ speeding 🙂

Had one as a hire care to go to Scotland and back earlier this year.

Had far too much fun getting the faintly posh sounding lady in the voice activated computer thingy to say various snippets of gutter filth to notice how it drove.

iainc – Member

My route home on the M77 out of Glasgow has a long gentle climb, and with cruise set at 70, the car slows down to 56, thats how gutless it is !

Presumably in 6th gear?
Have you tried changing to 5th? It’s probably geared for economy. You might get more than 29.5mpg out of it, if the engine isn’t labouring so much.

SRi is presumably just a trim level, rather than a statement of performance?

Vauxhall’s have never appealed to me, but my Wife had the new Astra (1.6 petrol I think) as a courtesy car for a week or so. It was surprisingly pleasant. Not sure I’d want one, but it seemed OK.
Although having said that, the Dad of a friend of mine has always been an ardent Vauxhall Astra fan; has owned them for years and years, always upgrading to the latest one every few years. That was until they got the current version which he apparently had loads of problems with. I don’t think Vauxhall were particularly helpful in sorting it all out, so he’s now swapped to a Golf.

As a cyclist and road user, I appreciate that the brake lights on these cars strobe if you brake heavily. It’s a clever warning system.

it amazes me how fast people go up that road

Yep, and jam into the middle lane at the latest opportunity, which isn’t really an opportunity at all.

Presumably in 6th gear?
Have you tried changing to 5th? It’s probably geared for economy. You might get more than 29.5mpg out of it, if the engine isn’t labouring so much.

I did wonder about that but it has a gear shift indicator which doesnt trigger a suggested downshift to 5th, and it still sits at about 2000 rpm at 56mph

I had the estate ecoflex version of the insignia when it first came out in 2009. I found it OK to be honest. It ate motorway miles happily enough, carried enough (with roofbox) to take the family to France for a few holidays and performed faultlessly over the three years I had it. Funnily enough despite being the eco model it actually had more power than the standard cars and that made it OK to drive. I did have a 1.8 SRi as a courtesy car and it was awful to drive, it felt completely underpowered, harsh and the seats were awful.

I think that SRi used to only apply to the sports models of Vauxhall, these days it seems to reflect a trim level rather than a sporty car.

The headlights were truly woeful on the insignia, no wonder so many folk seem to go for the xenon upgrade these days.

I asked a vauxhall dealer what SRi means these days, he said “Absolutely nothing”

Every time I have to hire a car for work travel I specifically say “NOT A VAUXHALL” as the seats kill my back.

So 2 weeks ago what did I get…

Yep An Insignia SRi CDTi with drug dealer wheels & privacy glass 🙁

OK I know its a first world problem but despite having a whole raft of adjustments the seats are pure torture, the switchgear is like someone just fired as many buttons as the budget would allow at the general direction of the dash/wheel, the VLP tyres just fidgeted about the road with no feedback & the whole slot window experience is made to feel like you have a full face helmet on with a tinted visor!

I was so glad to get back into my Mazda 6.

I am glad that I’m not the only one ! Interesting common issues, gutless, seats, lights etc. My wife accused me of being a car snob 😀