Faults:

Cruise control applied itself.

Hand brake faulty.

It now needs new rear discs, which are badly scored after only 36000 miles. Wonder whether that has anything to do with the handbrake fault? Although I have not had it run away on me like many others (yet).

General Comments:

Car is very good. It's the dealers who sell them that are the problem; they just don't want to know, while it's under warranty. If Vauxhall got that right, there wouldn't be any problems.

Faults:

The air conditioning has been repaired 3 times, and is currently not working again.

An engine sensor has been replaced, and the two front tyres have also been replaced.

General Comments:

I received this car as a company car two years ago when it had covered 18,000 miles. It has now covered 62,000 miles.

Firstly the good points. There's plenty of room in the cabin for 4 adults (5 if necessary), and the boot is a good size.

It is a fine motorway cruiser. I find it just as easy to drive round town as a smaller car.

The seats are firm, but are easy to adjust. I always find the seats comfortable even after a long journey.

The engine (150 bhp CDTi) has plenty of performance, and gives around 50 mpg.

The cruise control is really useful.

Now for the bad points.

The Vauxhall dealers have had 3 attempts to repair the air conditioning, and it still does not work. I think that there is a leak in the system, which they have not been able to trace.

The inbuilt sat nav is useless. It takes 3 minutes to start up when you switch it on, which means that you wait or you try and enter your destination as you drive along. It has a clumsy rotary dial to enter information. It only has a 2D display. The maps are out of date. It has tried to send me up no through roads; along narrow lanes when I was on a fast A road; and it chose an A road route in preference to the shorter motorway route. It does not accept full postcodes. I've bought a TomTom. It's a million times better.

Other niggles are that the interior is drab; the gearbox occasionally doesn't want to get into gear; I hate the self canceling indicators and I think that the radio sound quality is poor.

Faults:

Aside from a puncture repair and a windscreen chip repair, which I class as wear and tear, along with 2 x front tyres and the second year service (190 quid), it hasn't cost me anything (touch wood!!)

General Comments:

I bought this Vectra as a replacement for a 2004 Mondeo 2.0 TDCi 130 Ghia X, which was starting to cost me a lot of money with various issues arising, due to the near 100k mileage on the vehicle.

I paid £5200 for this 2 year old, low mileage 1 owner Vectra from an independent dealer. The vehicle still had 1 year of the manufacturers warranty and was not yet due for an MoT test.

I have now had the car 7 months, and in that time have covered 12,000 miles in it without issue. Primarily it is used for heavy motorway work, to which it is absolutely ideal, however due to the mileage I cover, another diesel would have been more practical, as the 1.8 VVT, although returning a very good MPG figure for this size of car in mid-high 30's, is very expensive for a high mileage user such as myself. Just a shame the 1.9 CDTi engine in the Vectras has been plagued with issues; this 1.8 VVT petrol seems to be quite reliable!

The car has excellent looks, which always return favourable comments from friends and family, however the cabin is very... grey! The dash is slab sided and bland, although it doesn't look ALL that bad, Vauxhall could maybe have put more attention to detail in the design. I have had 2 MK3 Mondeos previous to this Vectra (a 2002 model Zetec and a 2004 model Ghia X) and the interior of the Ford is far superior.

Being the Exclusiv model also, it has the basic suspension setup, which can wallow in bends, and body roll is very apparent on twisty roads; the ride quality over rough surfaces also is not fantastic, offerings from Ford are MUCH better in this area, although higher spec variants such as the SRi with sports suspension may be better in this area. On a flat piece of motorway though, this car absolutely excels. It can become quite sluggish however on hills, especially if it is loaded (i.e with 3 passengers), but it is ideal for me as most of the time it is just me on my own in the car.

Overall it has been thoroughly reliable in the time I have owned it, and I hope it continues to be. These cars are excellent value for money on the used market, and due to the replacement now being on sale, the values have dropped even more. I have considered selling mine to get an Astra diesel, but I just cannot find as good a car of the same age, with the same mileage for the price I paid for this, so I am just going to keep it and run it into the ground.