1996 Vauxhall Astra LS from UK and Ireland - Comments

Hi.

I have a 1996 Vauxhall Astra LS, I think the general running of the car is excellent - I swear by them. But, I do agree with the irritating rattling of the rear parcel shelf, and I also had the boot lock (not the key bit) rattling - the only way for me to overcome this was to wrap masking tape around it, so the fit on the lock is padded, and a more solid fit.

Wayne.

1997 Astra, 1.6 8 valve, LS 5 door. Had it 2 years now, good car, good runner, very economical, but a bit sluggish compared to my old Mk2 1.6 (cat?).

One front suspension bush changed by myself (also my job). Always liked the Mk3, had a Mk2 for 10 years, was a good car to me.

I agree with the irritating rattles. One comes from the passenger door. Even after dismantling the door the problem persists. The second is from the engine which was I suspect is the head gasket not being put back together properly by the dealers. I have a 1.4 16V Multi-point which is quite quick top end, but very sluggish acceleration. I found the the anti roll bar links do go a lot, I've been through 2 sets in the last year.

Overall nice car to look at, but very high on maintenance which I find frustrating.

I have an Astra 1.4 16v MKIV estate X reg. It has an annoying squeaking noise from the boot cover thing. It drinks oil like a tramp on Tennents Extra and the engine makes a horribly rattling noise after the last oil top up.

On the plus side, the aircon is nice and it's fairly nippy for it's small engine. The cd player ain't half bad either!

I think you will find the noise coming from the door is the hinges try packing them with grease. as this worked with my 1996 Astra LS 1.4.

I have a 1992 Vauxhall Astra cd, that up to now has run quite well, then it started to run rather rough. I was told that my cylinder head gasket had gone and it had to be replaced.

This was done and all was well for twelve months when the same thing stared again. When we stripped the head down to put another gasket on, the old gasket had not blown, but was changed anyway and now we cannot get any compression on any cylineds at all, I've tried to find out what it could be, but nobody that I have asked have any idea what it can be.

If anybody can help please reply to this

THANK YOU.

Lack of Compression after cylinder head gasket change.

I have just experienced a very similar problem with my 1998 1.6 Astra which required a cylinder head gasket change. On rebuild there seemed to be no compression i.e. the starter motor spinning the engine at the same speed whether the plugs were in or out. Eventually traced the cause to the hydraulic tappets keeping the valves open on the backs of the cams. Solution was to force the tappet head back into the body by putting the tappet in the vice and squeezing the oil out. Takes a few minutes to get all the oil out, but the tappet head can then be pushed into the body by hand pressure alone.

Hope this helps - it has held up the rebuild of my car for 3 days!!

Hi I was wondering if anyone could help me, I have recently purchased a vauxhall astra mk3 LS 1.7 td. I recently changed the altenator, but still have problems. the alternator is not charging the battery, but there are no battery warning signs appearing on the dashboard, where as before I chagned the altenator there was, I have been told there may be a problem with the cars earthing, any suggestions & I would be grateful, thank you.

Please send me your solutions to GerLlew&aol.com.

Hi

I have just purchased a 1997 astra, every thing was working

until I was bumped from behind, the car that hit me had done very little damage, but when I got home and I turned the engine off it now refuses to start can anybody help?

We have recently spent a year rebuilding our 1992 Astra Mk3 1.7D Estate, one of the first 3000 built. The engine was rebuilt and rebored, but is reluctant to run on all four cylinders - as you might expect, it's the hydraulic tappets which won't let the engine run properly.

Any ideas of how to get them to behave without having to dismantle too much?

Vauxhall Astra 1.6 SOHC lack of compression after cylinder head gasket replacement.

Thank goodness for this site!! Just spent two days puzzling and almost breaking down into tears doubting my own ability. Have spent much time doing these repairs before (albeit on engines 20 years ago!) Couldnt find out why I was unable to get compression from any of the cylinders after rebuilding. I had noticed that the cam was stiff to turn on assembly and on removing the camshaft housing I noticed that some of the cams were holding the valves slightly open allowing all the compression to escape. I couldnt seem to assemble it without obtaining any valve clearance. (A 1600 crosflow would have been together and purring lovely by now!)

Well.Eureka! After reading the above comments, (Thank you wonderful contributing people) I was able to squeeze the oil out of the hydraulic tappets. It needed reasonable pressure being applied to them to get the oil out and being left for several minuites to do this. With the tappet body removed from the head, I put the cam follower ontop of the tappet head so as not to damage the wearing surface and then squeezed the whole thing inbetween a suitable sized G clamp. I inserted the ring of a ring spanner between the bottom of the tappet and the dished turning bit of the clamp and the other end held the cam follower on the non machined face.

Now looking forward to putting it back together with a chance of it working.

I wonder why this vitally important step was not mentioned from the very popular workshop manual that I had been using?

I am sooo happy I have found this. I rebuilt an X20XEV engine and put it all together, but it wouldn't fire, then myself and a friend who has done plenty of these had we found there was no compression on cylinders 2 and 3, and so off the head came, we spent all day puzzled trying to work out what the hell was wrong, when we put the inlet cam on all 8 inlet valves were open slightly, so we presumed it must be this, but as of yet haven't tried them.

When squeezing them one popped and is now really loose, does this mean its now broke?

I have vauxhall astra ls 98 model. when the car is cold it starts fine. when it gets warm and I stop and turn engine off it won't start. again until cool its been in garage. we tried coolant sensor wire into e.c.u and a new e.c.u and still same problem persists. any help would do.

Does the 1.6 ls astra automatic 1997 estate have a cat.

I have an 2003 Astra 2.0 TDI. I have had charging problems for the last 5 years, changed alternator and replaced two batteries. I can never get more than 13 volts max. I had to bench charge the battery so it did not go flat on me every week. I checked all the usual connections IE earth, alternator battery etc to no avail.

Enough was enough, either I cure the problem or the car has to go. So I clamped my volt meter on the battery; it read 12.4 volts. I started the engine, it went up to 12.9 volts. I purely by accident leaned on the large negative main wire that is crimped to the main battery terminal; the voltage suddenly shot up to 13.6 volts. I ran solder into this bad crimp; the voltage then read 13.8 volts. So then I did the same to the positive side; hay presto, then my voltage read 14.4 volts. My car now turns the engine over every morning just as if it's been on charge all night. I have not used my bench charger now for over 5 months. SO CHECK YOUR BATTERY CRIMPS FIRST before you spend your money on alternators batteries etc that you probably do not need.