Faults:

Interior air supply fan dead with around 100.00 km

Alternator dead with around 120.000 km.

General Comments:

Simple, cheap to run and reliable and still nice to drive. Ground clearance is nice too, I´ve put the car in some pretty bad places without scratching anything down there. Not a thing you usually look at in this kind of car, but pretty important sometimes (with some cars you can easilly bang the oil pan sometimes). Fuel economy is amazing too, you can get under 4 L per 100 km in motorway and it´s not a lot more in normal driving.

Faults:

Absolutely nothing in 8000 km/5000 miles.

General Comments:

Superb car. My third Astra. Hoped to get new version (it's a company car) but the estate version doesn't go on sale till November. End of line model loaded with extras - radio CD/alloy wheels/metallic paint/automatic wipers/self-dipping rear view mirror. Steering seems stiff compared to previous 1.7 DTi model, although economy is similar, and performance is scorching in comparison.