Faults:

Carburetor was replaced for the weber 32/34 DMTL which gave vast improvements to economy and power.

Rear arches starting to rust.

Leaking fuel tank.

General Comments:

The car as standard is quick and will keep up with most cars along back roads, but the power is lacking on the motorway.

The seats are comfortable, but the dash is dull, dated and rattles.

Faults:

Head cam went at 83,000 miles - Calibra 2.0 16v Turbo engine at a hefty price.

Had a fault on indicators.

Cold starting problems.

General Comments:

This car borders on insane.

0-60 in 5.5 seconds is just awesome, people look and think it is just a poor 1300cc boy racer car, but watch those so called Cossies vanish into the distance as you boot the throttle.

The handling is fine thanks to the 17 inch Venoms and the brakes have been upgraded in case you were wondering (although they'd have to be).

Shame the boys in blue don't like it much.

Faults:

Blockage in the heater matrix - heater still worked but an annoying "trickling" noise (water) all the time when on the move. Quite expensive to fix - dashboard has to come out etc.

Head gasket blowing (reason for sale). There wasn't any evidence of water/oil mixing (cream like substance in the engine), but it showed in the performance and the garage confirmed. Again, costly to fix.

Baffles in the standard Vauxhall exhausts - they break up internally and you get a rasp/rattle at certain points in the rev range.

Rust! (speaking from experience with my GTE). The door bottoms rot from the inside out (check), the rear arches do the same (check) and the bottom of the tailgate also (check). Any signs of rot/bubbling here, walk away! If it is okay at these points then the first thing you've gotta do is Waxoyl it, the above points in particular.

General Comments:

Fast enough.

The early GSi's had the more temperamental Bosch Jetronic management (same as the GTE), but the later one's have an Ecotec (?) system which is MUCH better and refined.

There are a few knocking about on L-reg plates. These are very much sought after as there weren't many registered on an L. Also, the Silk Violet metallic colour is VERY rare and are quite sought after.

You must Waxoyl them (see above) or they WILL rot in a spectacular fashion if neglected!

The ride is a bit jolty and unrefined for my liking, but I am a Nova enthusiast so I put up with it.

The gearbox needs TLC. Neglect/abuse it and you WILL have problems. One of the key problems is engaging 1st gear when crawling along. Get the gear linkage adjusted on a regular basis - this will help.

Anyone thinking of buying one (GTE/GSi models in particular) feel free to contact me at no1@ccsleeds.co.uk and I'd be more than happy to answer any queries.

Good luck.

Faults:

Cylinder head gasket went at 60,000 miles which was disappointing. Other than that it was just odd things related to age e.g. a wheel bearing at 75,000 miles.

Also had to have the carb taken off and cleaned at about 60,000 miles as it was very dirty and was causing very lumpy running/bad starting but think this may have been due to my using crap petrol and always running around with the tank near empty.

With age it did tend to take a few attempts to get started on very cold or very wet mornings but it never actually failed to start.

General Comments:

I really liked this car for running around in and for middle distance journeys. The Merit (the one I had) did run out of steam at higher revs and you really missed a fifth gear on the motorway. However it did pull and accelerate very well at lower revs for a 1.2. Apart from the problems outlined above it went very well and I was very pleased with it.

It was involved in two minor collisions (both times with a Ford Fiesta), on both occasions the Ford had bent panels/damage while my Nova was not affected at all!! (That says it all, better than a Fiesta).