1995 Vauxhall Tigra review from UK and Ireland

After wanting a Tigra for several years I finnally traded my Corsa in borrowed some money from my dad and boughtone.I'ts Arruba blue with a black interior, the first warning sign should have been when I turned up at the garage to test drive the car it was covered in chrome add-ons, even the gear stick had been changed!the second warning sign should have been that the salesman assured me that it had full service history, on closer inspection it had'nt.But by this time I was in love with the car and wanted it no matter what, I was asured that all the chrome would be stipped off and a standard gear stick would be fitted, and it was. The first time it went back to garage was a couple of weeks later as I thought the exhaust was loose, I was assured it was'nt. The noise got worse so it ent back again, and again until they agreed to put a new exhaust on free of charge. December was when things really started to go wrong, it started to cut out for no reason and the problem just got worse, after taking it back to the dealer three times they could not find a fault, they finnally linked it up to a diagnostic machine a fault had shown up this timeand that it was the EGR valve and the cost was in excess of £200.00, by this time I had owned the car 7 months.

Then in the March of the following year the car started to cut out again, this got quite frightening as it would happen on the motorway whilst doing 70mph.I took the car back to the dealers who again could not find a problem, I finnaly took it back and insisted that someone from the garage drive it. They finnally came back with an answer, after having the car for about a week they diagnosed sticking valves, quite a common fault with the Tigra I believe!and that's when I had to pick myself up off the floor, the cost was going to be in excess of £700.00,They told me it would have to be sent away to specialist engineers I had no choice, but to get the work done and nearly a month later I picked the car up and handed over £730.00 that was in May. The Mot was due in July so I took it to a vauxhall approved garage close to where I was working, Imagine my horror when I came to see me and told me that the engine was knocking, I did'nt understand exactly what he meant, but it did't sound good. He advised me to take it back to the dealers, so once again I left it at the garage whilst they tried to diagnose the fault, to cut a long story short, yes, it was engine trouble again, but this time a different part of the engine!and wait for it, the cost would be somewhere in the region of £800 to £900.It was at this stage that I asked to speak to the service manager, I told him that since they had been working on the car's engine recently I would have thought that they would have picked up this problem, I explained to him all that had gone wrong with the car previously and how much money it had cost me to-date and after a lot of debating he very kindly sorted it out for me free of charge!! I am eternally grateful to that man.

I can't even remember how many times the bulbs have blown, and amyonewho owns a Tigra will know that to replace the front headlights you have to take the bmper off! very expensive when being done by the main dealer!!! or anyone else for that matter. I have still got my Tigra, but have lost a lot of faith in it, and I have been warned that the valve problem could re-occur.

It's a shame because the car looks good, but is defective mechanically, which is something that has always been known by Vauxhall, ther was a watchdog programme all about the Tigra's problems.