1996 Vauxhall Corsa Reviews - Page 2 of 6

Rear door lock needed replacing twice.

2 new wheel bearings.

Original exhaust knocked against body - Vauxhall should have fixed this fault during the lifetime of the design.

In 118,000 miles it has never let me down.

Does about 40mpg out of town.

Cheap to service.

Comfortable.

Runs on a shoestring.

No rust.

Head Gasket was on way out when went to look at car, least the garage was upfront enough and changed it before I bought the car. engine now all running great.

Tried to open sunroof for first time the other day, very stiff, nothing a bit of WD40 never sorted out though.

Fuse blew in stereo system, replaced it, but dash display now displays 'safe' as if the stereo needs to be decoded.

Cam belt will need changing soon.

Car has got good acceleration.

Good Road Handling when driving, bit hard on the maneuvers though as no power steering.

Interior is comfortable and far more roomy than some other small cars from around the same time. Quite basic though as only manual windows & sunroof, probably a good thing though for an older car.

Very economical to run, great as a first car or for young driver as only insurance group 3.

Because it was very new when I had it nothing that I can remember (apart from a dent in the driver's door-not the car's fault)!

The old shape Corsa was based on the Nova chassis, and it showed.

Handling was of the it will go round, but don't try too hard variety, and performance from the old nail of a 1.2 engine (origins in the 1970s) if you were overtaking was kind of just shut your eyes and pray! A Fiesta 1.25 16v was on another planet for performance, for example.

It was built well though, and as my first company car, I still thought it was cool, especially as the Vegas special edition had a Sunroof and colour coded bumpers, wow!

Altogether a pretty crap effort though, and I'm glad they don't make them like that anymore.

Radiator went at around 75,000 miles due to a stone chip, although this can happen at anytime to any car.

Alternator went at 78,000 miles. These are very expensive to replace costing over £160 as the alternator for this model is an isuzu alternator to match the isuzu engine.

Tyre wear seems quiet high on the front tyres due to the weight of the 1.7D engine and the fact that the car does not have power steering.

Trim on all these model corsas fade. It's a fact they go grey, but using back to black once a month keeps them looking good. Its the sun that fades them not polishing.

Rear wash wipe stopped working. The wiper operates, but the water leaks out under the car.

Excellent all round can't really fault the car at all.

Very low insurance.

If anything on it breaks just go to a local breakers and pick the part up for next to nothing.

I service this car myself its that easy and can give the car a full service for only about £35.

MPG on a run (i regularly go to Scarborough and back) I can achieve an average of 62 MPG and I don't hang about. Usually cruising up there at about 75mph on the M1.

It helps as with all diesel cars to regularly treat the fuel to some injector cleaner to keep the injectors spraying the juice in rather than dropping the fuel into the engine.

The only down side is that the car can be a little noisey. It dosent bother me though as I usually have the stereo on quiet loud!