1990 Opel Omega GLS Caravan from Finland - Comments

When I bought the car:

Central locking didn't work.

Air conditioning didn't work.

Some oil leak from the transmission.

High fuel consumption due to broken lambda-sond.

Fixed almost all the problems by now. Only the air conditioning is still broken because repairing it will cost a lot and there isn't very many companies repairing those old freon-air conditionings. At least the local Opel-dealer doesn't fix it.

This is a refreshing of my own survey (Opel omega gls caravan from finland) Can you please replace the old texts with these? Regards: antero haaristo.

What things have gone wrong?

Air condition is not working: too expensive to repair.

Engine has started to show marks of wearing as one of the cylinders is leaking pressure. This in turn increases fuel consumption and has caused lambda sond to break.

Other problems that there were when I bought the car was broken central locking and one of the window lifters was broken. Those were repaired.

General comments:

Car has been a real luxury driving around the country. It is surprisingly agile also in the city. With rear wheel drive it can turn in very small space.

Engine failure is going to be costly to repair. I have asked from local opel dealer for prize on sets of seals that are needed if the engine is opened and repaired. Total cost for only the parts that are needed is around 1000€. Then there would be cost for making all the adjustments, so I have decided to visit germany to buy another car with better engine and take parts from it (including engine and transmission). At the same time I can patch those nice rusty places.

Would you buy: yes

Engine: 2.0i automatic (still)

perf: 8/10

reliab: 8/10

comf: 10/10

dealer: 9/10

Dist when acquired: 320000

Most recent: 350000

Prev: opel corsa

First year of own: 2001

Most recent own: 2002.

Engine now replaced with 3.0i 24V motor with automatic transmission (really no need for manual with this engine anymore). Engine is from -91, so it's a bit newer than chassis.

Quite lot of rusty places were fixed during autumn 2002. Worst places were metal behind rearwheels and metal between wheels under plastic covers. Whole car has been painted over.

Nothing new has broken excluding normal wear:

Front brakediscs, air filter, oil filter, fuel filter and few bulbs from instruments.

Things to repair soon: timing chain is better to be renewed just in case. This engine has been driven 270 tkm. If the chain breaks that will total the engine. New bearing to the viscous fan, it is not rotating freely anymore. There is also small oil leak somewhere, so I need to renew some gasket from the engine also.

Still very satisfied with local Opel dealer, they have been great help providing documentation for technic change as well as given few explode pictures.

Consumption has lowered a bit from the broken 2.0i engine so this has been worth it also in that sense.

Car feels still great. It is leaving from the lights quite fast, thou big mass and automatic are slowing it down in the first meters. But in the speedway taking over is very easy and safe since you don't have to wait so long for the possibility to take over.

Well some time has passed again since last update.

I opened the engine in late summer 2003 and replaced the timing chain as well as leaking gasket and valve lifters. I had the engine taken off from the chassis so it was much easier to work with. Engine had started to tick when cold, indicating that valve lifters were not working correctly anymore. Ticking lasted first only couple second after starting, but it was getting worse all the time, in two months it was lasting for couple of kilometers and just before engine work it lasted until engine was totally warm.

Sometimes ABS is not working, this might just be bad connection in connectors or then one of the sensors is going to break soon.

No other problems.

One year consumption has been average of 10,8 L/100 km including quite lot of urban driving, (11 km to work through city) One week autumn trip to Lapland (4 persons+dog, car very full of stuff) of 3500km consumption was 8,4L/100km when driving only highways. That has been the only time I got it going under 10L/100km between fueling.

Metal looks still good as it should. Viscous fan was replaced with old one from previous 2.0L engine (it's same part number) Working great and I hope it works fine for a very long time still.

Update time again.

Whole year has been quite quiet. It has been just driving a lot. Few things come to my mind during the year thou.

-distance meter works randomly so now it is getting kilometers now and then. (fuel consumption very high, 50 km on meter and 70l of fuel... =) )

-two of four steering rods needed changing so I changed all of them.

-Oil leaks from main chain tensioner, I have tried many different sealing stuff, but always it has started to leak again after weeks/months.

I have been on racetrack with the car as well and it was just great. Car took that also nicely and nothing broke even when driving pedal to the metal all the time.

Fuel consumption seems to be around 11 l/100 km still, can't be sure thou. Longer trips still get you under 10 l/100 km.