The Vauxhall Vectra
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start with the good news. The Vectra is
a superb motorway cruiser. It is quiet,
refined and economical at outside lane speeds, with a smooth ride, sufficient
interior space, and a useable dashboard design.
The engines are smooth and powerful.
There
are some weaknesses in the design.
Although the seat design is good, it is not excellent (whereas the Mondeo has excellent seats) and the styling is rather...
staid (the same can be said about
most other cars in the sector). But
the biggest weakness becomes apparent when you leave the motorway and take the
final few miles home on the B-road.
The
Vectra is... dull. Boring. It washes
out wide on corners, especially roundabouts, and struggles to put the power
down unless you’re traveling in a straight line. Later models are much better in the handling
and grip department.
My
first Vectra experience was in the base model, which was powered by a 1·6 litre,
eight valve engine (no longer used in the Vectra). Performance was adequate for what was
essentially an underpowered engine. On a
long haul to
When
I tried the Vectra 2·0, I was initially impressed with the punchy engine, but
soon found it to have pretty much the same chassis and suspension settings (surely
this cannot be true!), which meant it essentially understeered more (judicious
use of the accelerator pedal ensured this!).
Finally,
the Vectra diesels. The 2∙0 and
2∙2 are close relatives of Saab’s 2∙2 TiD. The lower powered 2·0 litre 81 PS version is
solid, if not particularly rapid and the 2·0 litre 99 PS version is much
quicker. The key difference is that the
81 PS version doesn’t have an intercooler whereas the higher powered model
does. Efficiency is similar between the two
engines; in theory the non-intercooled engine will be less efficient. However, given the weaknesses of the chassis,
the lower powered version would probably do.
The larger, 2·2 litre unit is certainly quicker.
I
like the Vectra’s ride, high speed refinement and economy, interior
build, standard ABS and boot space. But
I dislike the stodgy handling and interior design.