2008 Holden Astra CDTI 1.9 turbo diesel from Australia and New Zealand

Summary:

Excellent value for money. Lovely car

Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

I bought this car as a dealer demo, at $9k less than on the road purchase price, and have found it to be a superb vehicle. Solidly built, quick and super fuel efficient. By far the best car sold by Holden IMO. Shame we don't get the Astra here anymore, and the vast majority of Holden vehicles are Korean imports, save for the locally built Commodore, and soon the Cruze. Also a shame about Holden's servicing department.

For the life of the car, the computer says we have averaged 5.8L per 100 km. That's with normal driving in the city. The computer is not accurate however and generally reads about .5L/100km over the actual consumption. So we are actually looking at close to 5.3l/100km (44mpg US)

The sports button really does something and changes the whole performance of the car. It can be seriously fun to drive, but cruises beautifully on the highway.

The only negative point for me is the lack of storage in the cabin. The glove box is huge, but there is no real console storage and not much facility for drink bottles eg in the door pockets. I got around a little this by purchasing an arm rest/console from Boomerang enterprises in the US. A very good product and looks factory.

I have found the Holden service departments to be unhelpful. There is a niggling rattle in the drivers side seatbelt adjustment, and the dealer told me that "it's just the way these are". The brakes squeal a little and I was told the same thing. But with 12 month servicing and excellent build quality, hopefully I won't be dealing with Holden much!

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 19th June, 2010

10th Jul 2010, 22:46

I bought my 2008 Astra CDTi new from Holden for my wife as a daily driver. It has done about 55000 km. What a great car to drive, solid as a rock. We looked at a number of small to mid sized cars, and test drove them all, but kept going back to the Astra. I think all dealerships are the same; as soon as there are any problems, they go running for cover.