2001 Holden Vectra CD review from Australia and New Zealand

Firstly, The engine and airbag lights appear randomly. This has occurred since we purchased the car.

Then we had the coolant leak through the heater tap. This piece of plastic costs $150au, which is ridiculous when a heater tap for a Commodore is only $30au!

Then, the car started running very rough on initial starting, no power, rough idle and ridiculous fuel consumption, no cure found for this yet.

Next, I had a full set of tyres fitted and a wheel alignment. The alignment found the right rear stub axle was 13mm's out!!! This is after a Holden Dealership inspection which gave the car a clean bill of health!

Then, the dash began going crazy. Lights blinking, speedo going nuts etc. As I am a trade qualified auto electrician, I looked at this fault and what I found was the wiring harness had rubbed through and lost insulation to 7 circuits where the harness crosses the steering column support cradle (I have photo's of this if anyone would like a look). It took 8 hours to disassemble the car to gain access to the harness for repairs, 1 hour to fix the wiring and another 10 hours to reassemble the dash. This fixed the dash faults.

Then, the ignition barrel failed. Now I have been told that this is a security measure to prevent thieves from forcing the ignition, but the transponder key fob should also prevent this. The barrel snapped along its length and simply turned so we could not start the car.

We waited three months for the replacement part which, when It arrived, did not fit!!!

We are still waiting for the correct part which still has to be coded to fit the key.

Now, the car has dumped the engine oil into the coolant system. It did this during a 4hr drive to Brisbane for my youngest son (He spends more time at the Royal Childrens Hospital than he does at home) and my family was left stranded in the middle of nowhere at 11pm!!

A compression check found two cylinders where low so the front (even) head was removed. No fault has been found even though there are several litres of oil in the coolant.

The car is great to drive, a nice experience.

The issues with the car have been written off by Holden, they don't want to know.

The electronics are beyond a joke, and no-one at the dealership has any idea of how to correctly diagnose them.

Parts are expensive and hard to get.

The engine is a nightmare.

A workshop manual is only available on CD Rom at a cost of $2000 AU, and only from Holden.

If we could sell this car, WE WOULD.

Now I have a car with a ignition barrel that I cannot replace, and a dismantled engine with a fault no-one can find!!