1998 Holden Commodore VT review from Australia and New Zealand

Oil leaks from engine and transmission.

Central locking on drivers side wouldn't work when it rained.

Speaker grills made of very fragile plastic and are easily broken because they're in the lower door panel.

Cassette deck chewed tapes and would play too fast.

Air conditioning wouldn't cycle on and off meaning it was running all the time resulting in poor fuel economy.

Very slow and slurry automatic transmission. I can do quicker 1-2 changes in my 13 year old manual 626 (and without crunching it).

Engine sounded scratchy and rattly when idling, sounded like bad bearings somewhere.

Niggly design faults like internal trunk release in glovebox, no 60/40 rear seat folding, petrol flap that had edges that would dig into the back of your hand while refuelling and water would pool in the top of the rear bumper so when you opened the lid it would lift and drip water over everything in there.

Luckily this car was company supplied (through no fault of my own) so I didn't have to foot the bill for all the repairs. It had not been well looked after before I got it which could explain some of the faults.

It never actually broke down on me, but I hear it did to the guy who ended up with it after me. Twice.

Having had Toyota's and Mazda's prior to this (and 1 1990 Ford Falcon which believe it or not drove better than this thing) and I have to say that I would've expected faults like this to appear on a car with more than 250,000 k's. This had 79,000k's when I got it and all the above faults were present then

On the plus side it did have good cruise control and icy cold air conditioning (too cold at times) and it was comfortable on long drives.

But I can tell you right now that actually buying one of these with my own hard-earned cash would happen when hell froze over.

Thank God for Mazda and Toyota.