1999 Vauxhall Vectra GSi review from UK and Ireland

Uneven front tyre wear.

Failed electric window.

Poor idle quality.

ECU warning light came on at random. Dealer could not find a fault.

Clonking from front supension.

Failed immobiliser ECU.

Total pile of junk! Not only was it the most spectacularly unreliable car I've ever known but, performance apart, wasn't particularly special to drive.

This is an historic sporting Vauxhall - lovely engine, aggressive looks and everything else forgettable or just plain bad! Use the power and the traction control has to work overtime, and the steering is overassisted and dead, apart from when the copious torque steer makes the wheel squirm under hard throttle. The V6 is a peach and sounds beautiful, but what's the point when you can't use it properly?!

Thanks to fat tyres the handling can be quite good fun in a grippy, point-and-squirt kind of way, but beyond the limits of adhesion, and in the wet, it's the same old plough on understeer that you'd get in a 1.8 LS. I prefer a car to be adjustable when it lets go, and the GSI just isn't. The chassis deals reasonably well with bumps, corners and hard throttle, but if you give it more than one at a time to cope with, it struggles. All three will have you off the road, traction control or not.

Vauxhall would do well to cane a Mondeo ST24 or Peugeot 406 SRi round some country lanes, and see exactly how wide of the mark this car is. Either of them would toast the Vectra in the twisties, despite being 40 bhp down, whilst giving the driver twice as much feedback and excitement. To be fair to it, the GSi is an excellent motorway car, but then so is the massively cheaper 1.8 LS model!

If there was no competition it would be okay, but you can do so much better than this!