General Comments:
I thought the VL was too flawed for my liking. It has some very good points, but some bad points as well.
Its performance is good. The nissan 6 is the best thing about the car - smooth, flexible, and it sounds like a Jag when you give it some welly.
However the rest of the package lets it all down. The handling (unmodified) is terrible. Driving it on a windy road - particularly one with a lot of slow corners - is just plain boring. It suffers from bad plow understeer that eventually gets your teeth grinding in sympathy with the front tyres.
The rear end of the car has a tendency to become a real handful in anything less than perfectly smooth dry bitumen. Dirt roads - no thanks! And then there's the lumpy, over-sensitive steering, and the tendency to wander all over the road at high speeds.
The chassis of this car bends and flexes when you punt it through a high speed corner. You can hear squeaking around the windscreen and door frames.
The automatic gearbox is a bit of a pain as well. On hilly roads it continually changes between 3rd and 4th. Under heavy acceleration there is a strong vibration from somewhere in the driveline.
However there are good points. Its a comfortable, quick car that has good fuel economy in the country. Also it is quite a good looking car, and has loads of interior room.
30th Oct 2001, 05:27
Try using a freeway at midnight for top speed trails!