Petrol Insignias
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Discussion

telecat

Original Poster:

8,528 posts

265 months

Sunday 5th February 2012
quotequote all
Poor show from Vauxhall Only Three Petrol engines in the whole range. Two of those are the 140PS 1800 and the 140PS Turbo 1400. Look at the Opel Site and the 180PS 1600 Turbo and the 220PS 2000 are available and with 4 wheel drive if you want it! If Vauxhall have ambitions to sell to Private buyers they need to do better.

Baryonyx

18,226 posts

183 months

Sunday 5th February 2012
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Sadly, I don't think Vauxhall want much to do with private buyers these days. It's all smokey old disels for fleets now.

SD1992

7,278 posts

182 months

Sunday 5th February 2012
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I doubt they sell many petrol ones in this country at all - everyone who buys that sort of car buys a diesel these days.

Look at the depreciation between a 2 year old petrol Mondeo and a diesel one and you will see what I mean!

telecat

Original Poster:

8,528 posts

265 months

Sunday 5th February 2012
quotequote all
Yep you pay over the top to buy a Diesel and still have to pay more despite the fact it has sky high miles when second hand. I know somebody who bought a diesel with six figure mileage when for the same money a low miles petrol was available. And guess why? because his old diesel with "mileage" was costing a fortune to maintain and nobody could find the fault..... I'd rather get a petrol and spend the extra on fuel. It's cheaper.

blearyeyedboy

6,753 posts

203 months

Sunday 5th February 2012
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I hired a diesel Insignia last month in Ireland. A 2010 car with 30,000 miles felt worse than my six year old Octavia in fit and finish.

If anyone from Vauxhall reads this- hire cars could be an advert for private buyers if they look right. If they look like crap and fall apart, you're not doing well at selling it.

matthias73

2,900 posts

174 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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Well, it was a hire car...


icepop

1,177 posts

231 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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blearyeyedboy said:
I hired a diesel Insignia last month in Ireland. A 2010 car with 30,000 miles felt worse than my six year old Octavia in fit and finish.

If anyone from Vauxhall reads this- hire cars could be an advert for private buyers if they look right. If they look like crap and fall apart, you're not doing well at selling it.
And just to balance the equation, I had one as a replacement car, whilst mine was being fettled, and it was superb. Felt tight, responsive, and handled well. The interior was light years ahead of, oh say, a car like a six year old Octavia, come on, have a word with yourself, please.

Toaster Pilot

14,839 posts

182 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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You can get the 2.0T here, I don't know what it's power output is though?

tbc

3,017 posts

199 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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can you not buy an Opel Insignia in Ireland and drive it onto a boat

surely worth the £100 ferry crossing to get the engine you want

and Opel's are definitely a better built machine

davepoth

29,395 posts

223 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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tbc said:
can you not buy an Opel Insignia in Ireland and drive it onto a boat

surely worth the £100 ferry crossing to get the engine you want

and Opel's are definitely a better built machine
Opel Insignias, Vauxhall Insignias, and the Buick Regal are all built in the same factory in Germany...

Dunebasher

68 posts

195 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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Can you still get the VXR 2.8i V6 Turbo?

I had a 2.0Turbo rental from Alamo and it flew!

Baryonyx

18,226 posts

183 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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Toaster Pilot said:
You can get the 2.0T here, I don't know what it's power output is though?
I'd be surprised if it were anywhere near the 180hp the Volvo S60 2.0 Turbo was putting out ten years ago. Now that was how to make an affordable petrol saloon car, complete with 5 cylinder burble!

philmots

4,661 posts

284 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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The 2.0T was circa 210hp when I was looking..

2.8 for me though. Fantastic engine

Liquid Knight

15,754 posts

207 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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I was surprised how heavy the Insignia felt. We tested a few different models for the Police and the four pot versions either didn't have or barely had enough torque to get the cars moving. The VXR was good but had a few serious flaws that meant it wouldn't be used. Shame really because the Omega and Senator were some of the best Police cars I ever driven.

The diesel Insignia is more popular because at least the heavy oil engines are capable of shifting the things.

mnkiboy

4,409 posts

190 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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I drove a 1.8 petrol hire car last year. It was absolutely gutless. Every motorway incline required a down change.

telecat

Original Poster:

8,528 posts

265 months

Monday 6th February 2012
quotequote all
The Petrol Insignia's have 220BHP. It's not available in the UK or Eire, unless you can special order it. The "ECO" 1.6 Petrol Turbo isn't available either.

mk1matt

405 posts

189 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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mnkiboy said:
I drove a 1.8 petrol hire car last year. It was absolutely gutless. Every motorway incline required a down change.
I agree. I hired one for a business meeting about 80 miles away. God knows what my passengers thought - I was redlining every gear just to keep up with traffic! I thought it must have been broken.

Classic Grad 98

26,135 posts

184 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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mk1matt said:
mnkiboy said:
I drove a 1.8 petrol hire car last year. It was absolutely gutless. Every motorway incline required a down change.
I agree. I hired one for a business meeting about 80 miles away. God knows what my passengers thought - I was redlining every gear just to keep up with traffic! I thought it must have been broken.
Enterprise gave me one of those. I thought it'd been 'de-tuned' somehow... struggled to get over 30MPG because the engine was so weak it couldn't pull the higher gears.

SD1992

7,278 posts

182 months

Monday 6th February 2012
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mk1matt said:
mnkiboy said:
I drove a 1.8 petrol hire car last year. It was absolutely gutless. Every motorway incline required a down change.
I agree. I hired one for a business meeting about 80 miles away. God knows what my passengers thought - I was redlining every gear just to keep up with traffic! I thought it must have been broken.
That would be the 1.8 VVT engine, my mate had one in his Astra and that was only just adequate.

Must be something to do with the gearing, I had a 1.8 mk3 Mondeo and it was not fast, but perfectly acceptable for everyday use and making progress on faster roads.

Madmatt74

273 posts

181 months

Monday 6th February 2012
quotequote all
blearyeyedboy said:
I hired a diesel Insignia last month in Ireland. A 2010 car with 30,000 miles felt worse than my six year old Octavia in fit and finish.

If anyone from Vauxhall reads this- hire cars could be an advert for private buyers if they look right. If they look like crap and fall apart, you're not doing well at selling it.
I totally agree.
I've gone from an Octavia to Insignia (Diesel) and will go back to Octavia in a few months.

The build quality is poor. Paint fakes off the bumpers as they dont use primer.
The bumber corner (Near the lights) pops out and cannot be fixed (5 times they've reset the bumper)
in the first year i've had 2 radiators and an intercooler.

The chrome comes off the internal door handles.
Expensive odd size tyres.
Service departments are just poor.
This is the second time ive had a vauxhall and the last.
Previous experience with BMW, Skoda and SAAB was soo much better. You were a valued customer and they went out of thier way to make sure you returned.

The 1800 Petrol is a horrid car and far too under powered for its weight.
The 2000 diesel i have does drive very well and looks nice too (except the squating dog rear) but i feel they dont want you return business.
Its not all bad. It does fly and handle okay for a big car.
I've been to Italy and poland it it without worry or missing a beat but then mine is fairly low mileage for our fleet.
Others in the fleet have had more problems and turbo's get noisy and go after 70K

If it was my money i'd buy a Skoda suberb estate instead.
Better build quality, spec'd, cheaper, and better service.

Infact unless its a company car leave well alone.