1996 Holden Commodore VS from Australia and New Zealand - Comments

Heats up quickly while waiting at traffic lights.

At 60kilometers per hour there is a whine in the rear differential.

Changes from first the second a little too hard.

Power steering whines when you turn the wheel.

Center rear stop light doesn't light up (simple globe replacement)

Whilst cruising then speeding up it picks up very quickly.

Generally comfortable to sit in.

Brakes firmly and it takes a fair bit of pressure to lock the wheels.

Feels a little heavy for its size, but I personally like it (the car is not hyper sensitive)

It would take a brave man to drive one at its limit continually.

Just an update now that I have had this car for a year.

Further problems I have encountered are as follows:

Lately the transmission slightly jolts around 80km/h when you go to gently accelerate to 100km/h.

Alternator charging wire corroded off leaving me at a set of lights with no power at all, replaced the charging wire with a slightly bigger gauge and runs fine.

After one too many outings with a heavy foot the car vibrates under braking, this is more notable when under more than normal pressure (passengers in car or going down hills) this is from me overheating the brakes and requires a simple pad and rotor replacement and I will have the system flushed just in case.

Right-hand front door speaker cuts out when you half open the door, works fine closed and works fine fully opened, I attribute this to wear on the speaker wire itself.

The interior fan has failed on 1+2 (3 + 4 work) this is also said to be a common fault requiring replacement of a component.

My suspension is worn and as such I have a lot of body-roll and play in the handling, new shocks and bushes all round will firm it up nicely.

Finally once warmed up the engine lately has been feeling somewhat "sloppy" it seems to lose a few horses after about 5minutes on the road, exiting my house it accelerates beautifully, but again I relate this to the transmission simply being worn down.

Some money needs to be spent in patching up over-worn components, but otherwise it's still going nicely and is still a pleasure to gently cruise with.