You'd not buy the cheapest car in a manufacturers ranga again?
You'd not buy the cheapest car in a manufacturers ranga again?
Ouch - the V6s are ace, and don't forget, the diseasel is German.
I spent 24k on my 75, I would have said it was good value but in 80k miles it broke down leaving me stranded (or worse, in a Rover courtesy car) three times, and took ages to get parts for. But it was probably the best specced, quietest, most comfy car 24k could buy at the time.
So - would you spend double to get a BMW badge on it, especially if so much is German anyway? How much extra do you pay for BMW than an equivalent specced Rover; and more importantly, is it worth that extra? I suspect not.
Darren
The key is that you don't buy brand new. £27k buys a hell of a lot of year old executive car.
IMHO, the spec. of a car is less important than how well it will with a few tens of thousand miles under it's belt. The Rover will lose out on that count every time.
It's quality, not quantity that counts.
Having said that, I probably wouldn't buy anything made by BMW, and certainly wouldn't touch any Merc. less than a 6 pot E-class.
No. The 'equivalent' BMW or Merc is nothing like twice the price - and probably cheaper overall after a few years worth of depreciation.
Your choice. I was merely pointing out the rubbish RacingFan was spouting.
FWIW, I nearly bought a 75. But the lack of a modern petrol engine put me off. The V-6 auto is simply too slow for its class.
Not ace enough. Distinctly weedy when coupled to the auto. For this class of car. It's what put me off buying one...
Yes. ;-)
Yes - I was sorely tempted too. But better than a BMW or Merc at *twice* the price? Puleese...
Steve, you weren't suggsting the Mk1 Vectra was well made are you? Cos, frankly, they're not, at all :)
The lower weight and low cdA of the 75 benefit it. My 2.0 melted the bumper around the exhaust when crossing Germany at an indicated 150 (GPS reading
140). Not fast 0-60 but lots of high-RPM action and a nice engine note to go with it. 2.5 manuals were good too (although I lunched two clutches in my 2.0 so I dread to think what the extra pull of the bigger one would have done to it) and the Autos are OK but again slow off the line.I want another, but can't be convinced that the reliability is improved after my last one.
48 grand would have bought me what I really wanted at the time - a 530i manual with leather, M suspension and Alpina rims But I had a 25 grand spend limit which wouldn't have bought a 520i with steelies...Of course, the 75 met it's end on a wet leafy night when a tree jumped out in front of it. The 530 would have gone in sideways....
Nothing really falls off, engines need love and care though.
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 23:44:27 -0000, Tim S Kemp assembled some one and zeroes in mesage id :
Nothing fals off a Vectra? This heap was not a car more like a collection of bits travelling in the same direction.
My new company car was a Vectra. It followed a Mondeo. In 75K miles, the gearbox oil seals were replaced twice, gearbox replaced once, faulty electrics, usually water ingress into connectors fixed at every service. Rear suspension bushes, fixed twice. Front bushes fixed once. Interior trim did fall off from day one. It was never secure, piss poor design. Recalls for seat belt mountings to be modified, handbrake cables rerouting and replacing.
Every service revealed extra jobs to do, mostly replacing small silly items that were missing. Bits of body trim and plugs, bolts and the like.
Mind you the 2litre Ecotec lump never missed a beat.
The Vectra was quite possibly the worst car ever built by Vauxhall, and they have built some stinkers.
In news: snipped-for-privacy@40tude.net, M.Pitt decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows
Agreed, I used to run a fleet of Mondeos, Focuses, Primeras and Vectras.
Other than the engines in the Vectras, which seemed utterly bombproof (obviously not including the management system, which is utter crap), the Vectra was by far and away the worst european car we ever used. Even the crap Hyundais and Daewoos we had were better made.
Problems we regularly had with Vectras included bits of trim falling off at random, an immense appetite for headlamp bulbs, windscreens cracking with monotonous regularity - the heater if on full defrost on a winter night would often crack the screens, aircon faults, engine management faults, dodgy shock absorbers, central locking problems, windows that fell off their runners, seat fabric that often wouldn't last 40k without looking really shabby, cupholders that always broke, crap gearchanges, the reverse collar on the gearlevers breaking / detaching, glovebox handles that fell off, airbag lights coming on at random, leaking boots, cv joints, weak synchomesh on 3rd, seat runners, suspension bushes, warping brake discs, failing starter motors, radio display and dash lights failing, heater motors going noisy. Virtually nothing on them would last a couple of years as a hire car.
Mondeos suffered from the occasional dead starter motor and the plastic trim inside would scratch easily - although not as easily as in the Vectra
Primeras suffered from aircon pipes breaking
Focuses had the occasional dodgy rear shock absorber on 3drs, and the door latches failing on very early ones. We only had one mechanical failure in three years on a Focus, and that was a gearbox on a diesel.
The same fleet now has no Vauxhalls bar a couple of Zafiras, which aren't that good to be honest.
Not my experience - had two, one I kept at lease end and ran around to 160k miles (1.8 hatch), other a 1.8 estate that we ran ragged (was "engineers pool car" and treated as such...)
As I said, 100K miles, still get 30mpg, engine performs as well as it did at new, no rattles, cheap servicing costs at my dealer, still happy with it after 5 years.
Quite. My 75 is as good as any BMW or Merc in that department. It cruises effortlessly and accelerates very aggressively when required - nobody needs the extravagent performance claimed by BMW apart from as penile extensions to make up for its lack in other areas.
Lack of a modern engine? The Rover K-series may date from 1989 but its still a few years ahead of the 'competition' in terms of technology.
Ah - so you've got a problem with BMW and Merc?
Why not just say that instead of all the extravagant claims about the performance of your 75 and its costs?
Because you're making a fool of yourself.
Only in 260 V8 form.
We are the keepers of the sacred words: Ni, Pang, and Ni-wom!
BMW never used V6s full stop, did they? They had a small straight six in the 2 litre M50 engine.
I know everybody here will probably slate me for saying it, but I would get a late (99) Volvo V70 T5 for that money/mileage - Loads more power and lots of toys, very nice smooth auto (not as good as BMW auto)... But not to be sniffed at.
Andy
Good posting, but to be truly Clarksonesque it has to have EMPHASIS placed on certain words or sylLAbles IN a fairly random ORDER. Wearing a jacket, and jeans that are TOO SMALL, also helps. :o)
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