1997 Opel Vectra CD review from United Arab Emirates

Had a missfire and subsequent loss in power at approx. 58K. This was fixed.

Lumpy tick-over at approx. 61400. This has been a major problem which resulted in the replacement of HT leads and coil.

When this work was being done it was noticed that the engine bay wiring harness had perished. Apparently this is a common fault on all German manufactured cars that are not GCC specked. It gets very hot out here in the summer 50C is not unusual. As this is a Japanese specked car, we could not source a wiring harness locally through the GM dealer and had to have one made up.

When that was fitted, I had to have the ECU reprogrammed, as the techie told me that the coil was only receiving one pulse, so the engine was only firing on 2 cylinders, not good for acceleration.

It now appears that I might have a problem with the timing. The tick-over is fine, but pulling away the acceleration is very poor (flat) feels like it is a 4 cylinder.

My biggest problem here is getting spares. As this is a Japanese specked car, the local agent does not stock and is not interested in stocking spares or even trying to fix or service the car. I have to rely on the Mr. fix-its that we have in abundance in this country.

The car itself, when everything is working, is great to drive. We have excellent roads in the Emirates, most are dual carriageway 4 lane highways and as a cruiser, this car is great.

It handles quite well, but I can't really test it on these roads.

I find that adjustment for the seats is quite adequate with all the minor controls easily to hand.

I don't want to get rid of it, but I might have to because of the spares situation.