Hired a car for the weekend, £80 for an Astra seemed quite good value, booked through some price comparison website. No thanks, I'm not paying £7 for a satnav. CDW £3 per day, that looks worth it (included in the £80).
Ho hum, it turns out it wasn't a price comparison website at all, but Europcar's "looks like a comparison website" website. Cheap enough anyway... except the CDW is barely worth the paper it's written on. Is it normal to exclude from insurance "negligence" arising from car parking incidents?
Car appears, dropped on double yellow line by cheerful chap; it's dark. He runs away, I call him back to have quick check over car - mark on rear bumper, which we put on the form.
Says Insignia on back of car, not Astra... I've never heard of one of those.
Get in car, start engine, glowplug lights come on... must be a diesel... grab handbrake to move off.... there's no handbrake. Search around in car to no avail - remember car is on double yellow lines - pop back into shop to ask for help, girls look blankly at me, fortunately another customer can help point out the electric handbrake. Honestly, how is it helpful for different cars to be so dissimilar (see my recent thread re 3 series).
Nice motor to drive, cruises effortlessly at 1000rpm per 40mph in sixth. Takes about ten seconds to get used to it and it's as if I've never driven anything else. But I cannot see the corners at all. Driving through width-restriction posts is only possible at 1mph; multistorey carparks almost impossible. Tiny rear-view mirrors and great thick pillars reduce visibility to almost nothing. At this rate, within ten years, cars won't have windows at all.
The seats are very comfortable indeed, but you sit a bit low in the car for my taste. Lots of useful cubbyholes and containers for keeping things in. Definitely feels like my old Vectra, but much grander, smarter and far more comfortable. (Makes the 3-series feel like a bus seat in comparison.)
Oh yes, and it's got more buttons than KITT. Satnav (glad I didn't pay the extra tenner for that!), stereo etc all integrated. It's not an intuitive system, though by the end I have kind of got the hang of it - but to begin with it took me half an hour of driving to get the radio to work...
In the good old days, you could get into a car and just drive it. Nowadays you have to learn a whole new way of driving with each car. Is this really progress?
Last edited by: Mapmaker on Mon 8 Nov 10 at 10:42
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Always said that the Insgnia seemed like a good motor - Car (magazine)'s comment are "Vauxhall wanted a car that looked like an Audi and drove like a BMW and ended up with a car that looks like a BMW and drives like an Audi - which seems complementary.
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A rare typo there from PU.
You have to take your chances when they appear!
John
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Having reach NickinNZ's review of his Astra last week I was looking forward to trying it. I don't think I'd even heard of the Insignia (HJ tells me it's the new Vectra). I never liked my Vectra (which my father had bought at 6 months and 6k), this was a whole different ball game. I'd almost pay the 11k that a 2009 diesel estate would cost. And the 5-6k that it will cost by summer 2012...
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I think the electronic handbrake is enough to put me off any car. Maybe one day I'll have no choice but until then I think I'd look elsewhere.
Can others comment on the low seating position, thick pillars etc? It seems to be (sadly) increasingly common. Safety I suppose.
It's a long time since I've sat in a Vx and it didn't really seem to be a nice place to be. Hard plastics, unfathomable minor controls. I take it the Insignia has left this behind? I wonder what sales are like? It's not the new Signum is it - BOGOF. Yes I know in the model range it's the Vectra replacement. I've only just stopped saying Cavalier :-)
I have to confess to being a Ford man mind if choices were limited to Ford or Vx.
John
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>> It's a long time since I've sat in a Vx and it didn't really seem
>> to be a nice place to be. Hard plastics, unfathomable minor controls. I take it
>> the Insignia has left this behind?
I think you must be thinking of BMW.
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No, I'd notice the extra missing £s. Though the indicators are the same...grrrr.
:-)
John
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Really attractive car - apart from the vast areas of metal around and below the c pillar area, can no designer make something attractive in that area? Loads of other offenders, all recent mercs for starters.
I wish you could buy something with the build quality and engineering of ford, but with an attractive vauxhall skin on top, and the mass Market price tag.
The last couple of astras and the insignia have had me wondering if it's time to forgive GM, but once bitten, twice shy.
Last edited by: Skoda on Mon 8 Nov 10 at 11:13
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Had one in Madrid from Europcar a couple of weeks back. I thought it was OK, but found it a bit gutless for a diesel (no idea what output but had 6 gears). Thought it felt huge which surprised me as the c5 is no shrinking violet in the size stakes. Also couldn't judge where any of the corners were
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I found the (new shape) Astra I hired in the summer similarly difficult to judge when parking. Blame the rounded corners that are invisible with the high window line, common to both models. Its called 'sporty styling'.
Last edited by: Boxsterboy on Mon 8 Nov 10 at 21:16
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It's called safety cells. I just guess it for gaps. If my Missus can get used to them anyone can.
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"Car (magazine)'s comment is "Vauxhall wanted a car that looked like an Audi and drove like a BMW and ended up with a car that looks like a BMW and drives like an Audi - which seems complimentary."
I don't think that was much of a compliment: most road testers are young men in a hurry who invariably prefer a BMW to an Audi without stopping to think that many of the people who can afford either car like a more laid-back style of driving to which Audis are ideally suited.
BMWs are great cars, but most of them need to be driven hard to give of their best. Unusually for a BMW, my old Z3 is more of a cruiser than an out-and-out sports car, which is one reason why I chose one over an MX-5 (the other, main reason being that glorious straight-six engine).
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>> I don't think that was much of a compliment:
I just knew this unusual wave of compliments for a Vauxhall couldn't keep going!
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>> ....many of the people who can afford either car like a more laid-back style of driving to which Audis are ideally suited.
Very good point in a very good post, Avant.
Audi's always come off second-best to BMW (and Mercedes usually) in these group tests that the car magazines are so fond of. But, as you say, real-world people in real-world driving often find them ideal for their needs.
The same has to be said for Vauxhalls and some other makes which get very unfair treatment IMHO.
It seems as if the critics who drive these cars for the magazines are obsessed with Performance and Handling at the expense of everything else. I'm not taken in by their token comments about comfort, value or practicality. When it comes to the summary they just revert to type and waffle on about car "X" being the winner because its "good to drive". (Though to be fair, and contradict myself slightly, I think that "What Car" have improved a lot recently)
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>> It seems as if the critics who drive these cars for the magazines are obsessed
>> with Performance and Handling at the expense of everything else.
Yes, thats exactly what a Top Gear review consists of. Nothing else
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>> It seems as if the critics who drive these cars for the magazines are obsessed
>> with Performance and Handling at the expense of everything else.
To be honest one of the reasons I stopped subscribing to Car magazine after over 20 years was that they seemed less interested in the performance and handling and more interested in the perceived image of the cars they were testing. One of the last issues I can ever remember reading had a group test of medium sized saloons. There were pages and pages of discussion about what image the BMW projected compared to the Volvo and the Audi etc., but little about the driving experience and nothing about anything technical.
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>> BMWs are great cars, but most of them need to be driven hard to give
>> of their best.
>>
I agree. But I don't think if that is a bad point at all - quite the contrary; because IME you never need to drive a BMW anywhere near hard, nor anywhere near best, yet it is very easy for it to beat all the competition hands down! :-)
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I agree so much that I did so this morning. Great roads around here.
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PU: if you agree with JH you must have understood what he wrote. Can you explain it to the rest of us? (Or me, anyway.)
}:---)
Motoring journalists are in an awkward position. They're not pure consumer journalists like the ones who test irons for Good Housekeeping, because part of their job is to sustain the fantasy of the open road that still sells the idea of car as plaything and lifestyle statement. So they have to focus on driving enjoyment, since that's what the people who bother to buy car - sorry, motoring - magazines want to read about.
Those of us who drive to get where we have to - or occasionally, want to - go, and who like to do so in a well-sorted machine that feels like it's looking after us, will rely on trying the things for ourselves.
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Vauxhall Insignia - Test drive - of a hire car - R.P.
