30th Mar 2017, 20:45
You're right, the scrappage scheme saw a lot of old (but still good and perfectly useable in my opinion) cars go off the road. The Omega depreciated like hell as you said, after 5 years lost most of its value. Probably the reason Ford, Vauxhall, and some other manufacturers failed to compete in the executive car market after the 90s and dropped most models of this type - the sector was and still is dominated by BMW, Mercedes and Audi.
Still, other manufacturers could make decent executive cars in their own right, and if you get one cheap enough, it's about as close to luxury as you can get for economy car money, relatively speaking.
4th Apr 2017, 12:44
Crony capitalism is what led us to the Global Financial Crisis and yet governments decided to use another dose of crony capitalism to "create demand and keep jobs afloat" by destroying perfectly usable old cars in order to sell new cars. Pretty much robbing Peter (the tax payer) to pay Paul (the car makers, dealers, banks, politicians). But I think this is a matter too deep to discuss in a car review website.
Anyway, the Omega, Scorpio and the Rover 800 for that matter were never very reliable to begin with, and their poor reliability coupled to poor resale value meant that repair bills could easily exceed their already worthless resale value, making them disposable luxury cars. They were already piling-up at the scrap yards way before the scrappage scheme.
However, it's not just the Omega, Scorpio and 800 that had this fate. Other cars too were considered disposable; the Nissan QX was an example. It flopped miserably and became disposable before it even turned ten years old. Toyota thought they could fool Brits into thinking that an appliance on wheels like the Camry could be sold as a luxury car in the UK, but customers didn't buy it and the car flopped even more miserably than the Nissan QX. All the French rivals - Citroen XM, Peugeot 605 and 607, Renault Safrane and Vel Satis too suffered the same fate. No, really when was the last time you saw one of these cars mentioned above? Most likely in a 1990's episode of Silent Witness...
4th Apr 2017, 16:08
Totally agree, and yes to get into the business and politics of it all would be a bit much for a comment section. It would go on forever.
I will say however that I still miss simpler times, and 90s cars are getting rarer by the day, but there are still enough around in good condition to be feasible as an everyday car, especially in the family saloon/executive market that still make a better purchase long term than a more modern car from, say, 2005 onwards with fancy filters, injectors and electronics giving much more trouble in the long run.
No one is denying cars have come a long way in the last 20 years or so, and have improved, but I think I heard the lifetime of a car is still around 11 years old and 120K on the clock before they are scrapped, simply because they are not worth repairing versus the car's value, rather than them being actually broke beyond repair. Modern cars are much the same - get to about 10 years old and then you have dual mass flywheel and injector problems writing off an otherwise OK car, because they cost thousands to replace.
I'd still take a chance with an older car for now and run it for a year or so and move on again, than take a chance with a modern car and risk losing thousands.
24th Nov 2019, 14:35
Yes, not many left, and an even smaller figure for the Carlton and Senator. At least their value is going up, and those ones left are in the hands of enthusiasts - even Cavalier's, especially the sporty ones with low mileage and mint condition, are asking for £4000 and £5000 or more on eBay and other auction sites.
25th Nov 2019, 10:34
How many left in 2019:
92 Vauxhall Senators;
276 Vauxhall Carltons;
3,312 Vauxhall Omegas;
Off topic, but worth mentioning it: 2,255 Vauxhall Cavaliers and 96,128 Vauxhall Vectras.
25th Nov 2019, 22:52
That sound about right. Are you getting the numbers from howmanyleft.co.uk? I used to look at that website a while ago. It's worth noting (I think that site says this also) cars not listed are not necessarily scrapped - some have a "SORN" Statutory Off Road Notice which means there could be a few more just sitting untaxed and not used on people's drive ways or in garages for years.
27th Nov 2019, 10:22
I got these numbers from https://www.carlogbook.co.uk/vauxhall/omega/
Honest John also has a "how many left?" in their classic section: https://classics.honestjohn.co.uk/how-many-survived/vauxhall/omega
30th Mar 2017, 17:23
You could blame the scrappage scheme for the disappearance of the Omega, but the truth is that Omegas were pretty much worthless after just five years and yet they were expensive to run, so that explains why you don't see too many of them anymore.