2003 Vauxhall Astra Elegance from UK and Ireland - Comments

The only thing that has gone wrong is the radio/clock display. Half of that doesn't light up properly.

Other than that, it's been faultless and has not needed any dealer attention apart from a regular service.

The most important thing to me is comfort. Here the Astra excels, the seats are nice and supportive, not tiring even on longer journeys. A little bit of lumbar adjustment would be nice, but it's OK without it.

Economy is pretty good, averaging around 40mpg on daily long journeys.

The interior is quite nice compared to another Astra in the family. Here, the dash has tasteful fake wood trim which really smartens the look. The regular SRi with black trim looks so dull in comparison.

The gearshift is a bit poor, slotting into place with a sharp and unpleasant clonk. The gap between each ratio makes it tricky to drive the car smoothly too.

Performance is adequete most of the time, and the engine has a nice raspy growl. However, when the air-con is switched on, acceleration is noticably hampered. So much so that it's better to suffer the heat instead.

The effect could best be described as a kind of "butterflying", with the pull as you press the pedal down feeling like it is varying in time with the air-con compressor. I've tried the air-con in a more torquey Astra (the 2.0 diesel) and that effect was absent there.

Other than that, the car can bring a smile to your face, the steering is sharp and turn-in accurate. For such a dull looking motor from the outside, it can be remarkably good fun to throw about. The purposeful engine note makes you feel you might be in something more exotic too.

Try running on optimax, you won't notice the aircon lag so much.

Good idea. It seems a bit daft to have to run a regular car like the Astra on Optimax to get decent running though?

I'll try a couple of tanks and see how I get on..

Latest update...

We took the car back to Vauxhall after the interior lights failed. They fixed them and we asked them to investigate the poor running. It turned out to be the EGR valve.

All work done under warranty and the car is fine now.

Also, the interior bulbs behind the stereo/information panel display went. They're not covered under warranty so we had to replace these ourselves. One Haynes manual and an hour later of my time the problem was fixed with two £1.50 bulbs. The dealer wanted £60 to fix the same problem!!

Two more failures since last report: the adjuster on the rear drum brakes failed, causing the shoes to rub.

That was fixed quite easily.

Also, the interior lights failed again. This fault was related to the fix for the first lights failure, so was fixed under warranty. So far the fix seems to be holding OK.

OR again.

Another year on and the car is up to 34,000 miles now.

Since having the brakes done we've had no other troubles. New front tyres were fitted at around 26,000 miles - the back ones look good for a fair few thousand miles yet.

We're very happy with the car really..we're starting to think about changing it for something else for no other reason than we're a bit bored with it. A Mazda3 might be next...

OR again.

The car has now reached 41,000 miles and has been with us 3 years.

Nothing much to add since last review. Nothing has gone wrong, everything is just as it was. OK, we've replaced two headlight bulbs, but that's it. Only other cost is new tyres due soon and a recent regular service.

Needless to say, we're just keeping going with the car whilst it's no trouble.

Final review as we're selling the car. We're now up to 44,000 miles and nothing new to add to previous reports except that the EGR valve seems to be playing up again as the car is running quite roughly when cold.

Other than that, we've been happy with the car. I do wish the velour on the seats didn't attract dust and hair so badly though.

The replacement car will be a Renault Grand Scenic as we need more space. The Zafira didn't do it for us, as GMs constant cost cutting is really starting to show through on the finished product.