"Lifetime" warranty ? ?

[rizzer]

I have owned a Mk1 Cavaliar, Mk2 Astra, Mk3 Astra, Nova, Corsa B and all have been great reliable cars, and no rust issues, however we currently have a 05 Mk5 Astra (from new) which has been the most troublesome car you could imagine. Its never broke down as such but so many things just keep failing and its only done 23k miles. I wish it had the lifetime warranty. I know its time to change, but what to? I like the astra size and it does seem to handle well.

 

[Benzmanc]

But then MB have looked after me well so that does help mitigate against it.

Which is what the J D Power survey is all about, the whole experience. Yes mb cars have faults as all others do but the way they rectify things and in general the whole experience is what it's all about. I'd rather look at a star on my steering wheel than that stupid lion/griffin thing or whatever it is.

On another note why do vauxhall have to make most of the rears of their cars go to a point, tis really annoying.

Daz

 

[jk037]

My girlfriend's dad has an 06-plate Vectra which, despite only having covered 40000 gentle miles, has recently been back and forth to the Vauxhall dealer with a recurring failure to start. At various points they've said it was starter motor, wiring, ECU, etc etc. Twice they've tried to give it back as repaired only for the poor sod to get in it and find it won't even start to get off the forecourt!

The V-plate Vectra he had before that managed 80,000 miles before performing the Ecotec engines' party trick of throwing a rod through the block.

Fortunately I think I've managed to persuade him to stop wasting money on these s**thouse GM things and get a Ford or maybe a Skoda next time around.

Vauxhalls of recent times have been simply abysmal in terms of design and quality; it was only with the Insignia that they managed to drag their interior designs out of the 1980s, and they haven't managed to make a reliable four-pot engine since the carburetted Cavaliers went out of production. The late-1990s Ecotec units had a major design flaw in the oil pick-up which had a tendency to clog with sludge, resulting in an uncommonly high number of the engines suffering oil starvation and hence a crunchy death at or around the 100,000-mile mark.

JD Power Survey 2011 - The best and worst... - Car and Car-Buying News - What Car?

Says it all really, even fiat are better

Fiat have actually been making decently reliable and well-made cars for the last 6 or 7 years now, it's just that the British public have been brainwashed by a motoring press who still think the Italians are knocking out Betas which rust away before they're off the boat. I've had a Bravo for nearly 3 years now, which has covered 65000 trouble-free miles and counting.

Interestingly, the least troublesome Vauxheaps are those fitted with the Fiat diesel engines!

 

[BTB 500]

Current Vauxhalls may be rubbish but I've had four Vauxhalls in the past and no trouble with any of them. The most recent being a 98/R Sintra 2.2 petrol, which I had for 4 years and was great as a dogs/caravan workhorse. One brilliant feature was a switch on the overhead console that turned off all the interior lights (being an MPV there were quite a few). So you could leave the tailgate open in the summer (when parked ) without flattening the battery.

 

[Doodle]

That's surprising Bill, as the Sintra is generally regarded as the biggest piece of sh*t Vauxhall ever produced!

You got lucky, clearly!

 

[Rory]

... and 1 Cavalier. Not once did any of them break down.

Hmm...one of mine did, three times, and one of those times left me on the central reservation of the M62 (thankfully with enough space to get the car off the carriageway) for an hour once until the Police arrived.

Another one blew a spark plug out of the head when I was 150 miles from home at 5PM on a Friday evening.

 

[Dieselman]

^ Reminds me of my then new Mk2 Chavalier. After finding it had a remarkable thirst for oil and a tendency to fire on 3, after 3 months one piston decided it had had enough and blew.
The new engine was pretty good...

 

[renault12ts]

Current Vauxhalls may be rubbish but I've had four Vauxhalls in the past and no trouble with any of them. The most recent being a 98/R Sintra 2.2 petrol, which I had for 4 years and was great as a dogs/caravan workhorse. One brilliant feature was a switch on the overhead console that turned off all the interior lights (being an MPV there were quite a few). So you could leave the tailgate open in the summer (when parked ) without flattening the battery.

You can leave the tailgate on a W210 open all day too...without draining the battery...you push the plunger in to use the feature.

 

[Dieselman]

The interior lights on a w210 go off after a set time anyway.

 

[BTB 500]

That's surprising Bill, as the Sintra is generally regarded as the biggest piece of sh*t Vauxhall ever produced!

Yup, I remember it came bottom in some survey at the time. I think the number sold in the UK was very low, so a small number of issues would have seriously affected the average scores ... hence the bad rating.

The most serious problem I had in 4 years was that the (plastic) lens came off one of the headlights (typically, just after the warranty expired). I expoxied it back onto the light unit - 10 minute job and good as new. I sold the car to a friend of mine for the PX price that a VW dealer offered me against the Sharan 4Motion I replaced it with.

Another friend of mine had a 3.0 V6 one which did serious mileage as a company car ... she never had any problems with that either.

 

[BTB 500]

You can leave the tailgate on a W210 open all day too...without draining the battery...you push the plunger in to use the feature.

In the summer I had the side doors open as well:

There was a delay on the interior lights (10 mins?) but that reset every time you opened or closed a door. And as I said, there were a lot of lights - puddle lights in the doors, footwell lights at the front, 3 roof lights, loadspace lights, etc.

So being able to disable them all via a switch was great.

When I got my Sharan I used to remove the fuse that covered most of the interior lights - not so handy.

 

[Benzmanc]

Current Vauxhalls may be rubbish but I've had four Vauxhalls in the past and no trouble with any of them. The most recent being a 98/R Sintra 2.2 petrol, which I had for 4 years and was great as a dogs/caravan workhorse. One brilliant feature was a switch on the overhead console that turned off all the interior lights (being an MPV there were quite a few). So you could leave the tailgate open in the summer (when parked ) without flattening the battery.

wasn't the sintra the one that vauxhall themselves admitted was utter rubbish and dropped it pretty quickly largely due to the horror stories during crash tests
Opel Sintra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[davidjpowell]

I had an Insignia for a few months. It was well built, handled ok, and I thought quite stylish. Top spec, so had plenty of toys.

Driving it to be honest, bar the engine which was a 2.0 diesel with odd gearing, it would give some of the premium makes a run for their money.

I'd expect to see life after 100k and compared to the w211 that we had at the same time, I often chose the Vauxhall.

 

[BTB 500]

AFAIK the unreliability stories re. the Sintra all stem from the one Top Gear / JD Power survey (which was based on a tiny sample).

Wasn't aware of the NCAP test ... US built/dervied vehicles have often done badly in those (Chrysler Voyager was similar). I managed not to have a head-on crash in mine so it didn't cause me any issues