Back in black: Holden Commodore SSV wagon

4 weeks ago my OH had a minor accident which resulted in her MINI being dropped off for facial reconstruction surgery last week. No outlook on time to repair as yet.

Someone (me) didn’t tick the “hire car after an accident” box so we were down to 3 cars:
- My company car
- A 2002 Holden VY SS Ute (5.7 litre V8)
- A broken 1982 Mercedes S123

The Ute isn’t really practical (noisy, uncomfortable, slightly Bogan) so isn’t suitable for daily use for either of us. That meant we needed a car.

So I did the sensible thing and bought a V8 estate


I picked this up this morning: 2013 Holden VF Commodore SSV Sportswagen. It’s a 6 litre V8 auto with cylinder deactivation so it runs on 4 when cruising.

Plan is my OH will use my company car and I’ll use the SSV 2 or 3 days a week until her car reappears.



150k km, looks like either 1 or 2 owners (they don’t record number of owners here however all but the first service were done at the same place). Appears to be on the original registration number.

There are a few things to sort out.

First, new genuine Holden floor mats. From this:


To this:



Next, get rid of the staggered 20 inch Chinese HSV copy wheels and replace them with VF Series 2 SSV 19 inch wheels:



Still to do:
- RH mirror casing is cracked, used replacement acquired from eBay and to be fitted
- the paint is worn off the start/ stop button (they all do it eventually): genuine GM replacement from eBay to be fitted
- SS door badges are missing: genuine ones from eBay waiting to be fitted but need the panel to be 21 degrees C and for the car to stay at that temp for 24 hours. They’ll wait until the spring.


Other than that just try to keep it clean.

I’ll bear that in mind, thanks. From memory you’re fairly close to me…about 20 mins from the airport?

The wheels were 3 minutes from me - bloke had replaced his SSV Ute’s with Redline wheels.

It already has King Springs - I found that out when I was swapping the wheels - that is despite the dealer selling it telling me the wheels were the only mod. Back on the phone to the insurance company tomorrow

I’m not sure about the brakes: it has slotted rotors but I’ll need to check the callipers for part numbers etc to see if they are standard or not. One thing is for sure, they aren’t as good as I remember, although all the ones I’ve driven were brand new and I only went up to 10,000 km!

The mats should be lovely given the cost! I’ve since found my discount card and figured out how to use it - although I suspect any non-service bits may be NLA from GM now.

I read that you can put VE seats in VY by swapping the rails over. Presumably the reverse is possible. The Just Commodores forums are a good source of info for stuff like that.

I suspect the biggest issue would be the airbags in the seat.

It spent the week away getting looked at - ended up with a new ECM under warranty. I’m assuming that if they put a new brain in it then all the various mechanical pressure tests show everything is fine.

It managed the 40km back from the dealer without chucking a tantrum, although it did that last time too.

Time to start using it and see how it goes.