Purchased/Looking after a 2012 Insignia - WCPGW

[B'stard Child]

Explaination for early thread posts - Mods kindly moved this from it’s original location in Car buying as it’s kinda morphed into an “ownership” thread

Hi looking for advice on issues, what to look for etc

(Long time old School Vauxhall fan but nothing made since 1994 so not clued up on modern stuff)

A while back "Nightmare Niece" (single working mum with two kids) had an insignia 2.0 CDTI (wrote it off) and since then has had a succession of cheap junk with short life expectancy

She's looking for another Insignia and shes asked "scary uncle" aka "car guy" for help....

My instinct is to say buy petrol 1.8 but her last one was diesel and she liked how it drove so wants another - she does about 10K - 12K miles a year so it's getting close to "diesel v Petrol break even"

However it seems that some of the Insignias (eco flex) are cheap VED and her budget for running a car has to be balanced against the needs of the kids

So PH massive let the hate for Vauxhalls begin and maybe there will be some gems come out that help me steer her to a good result

Everyone likes pics - this one was £1995 and on a 63 plate tax rate was 112 g/km so £30 tax 91 K miles too last change of keeper 2016



Unfortunately I had already sold

So now I have to find similar spec and similar money!!!!

Edited by B'stard Child on Saturday 29th October 08:41

[B'stard Child]

willmagrath said:

Avoid the 1.8. They are known to be very very slow.

Slow could be good in this case

willmagrath said:

My dad had a 2.0cdti 160. Was good to drive, but a bit unreliable.

I had two decades running the best cars Vauxhall have ever produced (Carltons and Senators) I'm under no illusions that the more recent offerings are crap........ But this isn't my choice to make

[B'stard Child]

ZX10R NIN said:

They're good cars they can suffer with the oil pick up pipe (long service intervals are the cause) clogging up so make sure you give it an oil flush when you buy one & cut the services to every 10k & flush every third service.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202103039...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202103019...

But finding an EcoFlex will be the hard part.

what is it with these insignias that they can't hang on to their badges

[B'stard Child]

Well I can say one thing at the £2000 mark there is an awful lot of dross out there - finding a nice clean car is tricky!!!!

Common faults that seem to be present in most cars

Knackered headlights (full of water)
Drivers seats that are cracked (the part leather versions seem really common for this)
Little or no service history
No knowledge of last cambelt/waterpump change
Giffer scrapes on corners
Alloy wheels with chunks missing
I know looking at 9 - 12 year old cars I expect to see a few owners but 5 seems normal

[B'stard Child]

Purchase made so closure for this thread

2.0 Ecoflex (114g/km so £30 VED)
MOT to Jan 2022
111 K Miles
2012 (2 Owners)
Full Service History
Very recent Bill for clutch, flywheel, cambelt and water pump (Old parts were in the boot which was nice)
3 mths warranty on engine and gearbox
Michelin on both the rears in near new condition (Mix of Bridgestone and Uniroyal on the front with 3-4 mm max)
Steel wheels and trims (looking at the pictures I would have said they were alloys but on closer inspection found they weren't - good because her parking skills are suspect)







Dealer quite happy for an unaccompanied test drive so we went for a 40 mile drive - town work - dual carriageways and a short stint on the M25 - brakes in a straight line, ABS works fine - it has a few minor age related marks but at the price point perfection in paint work is a rare thing

Bad news was it was £2490 (Above her budget so I've lent her £500 to get her out of the doldrums of sub £2K cars which was driving me nuts trying to find half decent ones)

Best bit for me was it still has it's badge on the front - should I use sikaflex or superglue?

[B'stard Child]

ZX10R NIN said:

Glad you got her sorted looks tidy.

So am I - hopefully this will last her longer than a year - next step will be educating her on this thing called servicing and maintenance

[B'stard Child]

ZX10R NIN said:

B'stard Child said:

So am I - hopefully this will last her longer than a year - next step will be educating her on this thing called servicing and maintenance

Oh now that will be a coup (que the mission impossible music) of epic proportions if you pull that off

You aren't wrong there - I think we will start with Oil, Oil Filter, Air Filter and Fuel Filter fairly shortly - regardless of the Service history then we know where we stand with a 10K/Yearly service point

Diesel Filter is recommended every 4 years (No idea if that's a good thing or not)
Air Filter every 2 years

[B'stard Child]

Jellybeans2016 said:

That’s a lot of car for the money!

Bet she’s made up with it

She is - she’s been buying very cheap and iffy cars that have been lasting a year at best - this one (with a little preventative maintenance) I think should last her 8-10 years

[B'stard Child]

soad said:

Boot is of a good size - able to swallow larger items with ease.

Yes - not as flexible as a hatch but like I said condition was a higher priority and this one happened to be a saloon rather than a hatch - I did identify a couple of estate versions which were possible candidates but apparently they were too big!!!!

[B'stard Child]

FourGears said:

Looks alright that. Worth doing the dpf regen light thingy for her?

Tell me more please - I'm not clued up on diesels at all - it'll be doing a 45 mile each way dual carriageway commute soon so I'm hoping DPF regen won't be an issue

[B'stard Child]

FourGears said:

B'stard Child said:

Tell me more please - I'm not clued up on diesels at all - it'll be doing a 45 mile each way dual carriageway commute soon so I'm hoping DPF regen won't be an issue

When the car does a dpf regen the heated rear window circuit is activated. Assuming the mirrors de mist to when the heated screen does you can wire in a led or similar to the mirror circuit so you'll know when it is doing a regen. Just helps to prevent switching the car off mid regen.
Just google Insignia dpf light or similar.

Ahhh - great idea for me - not so sure it's a good idea for the Niece who will quite easily get confused

BC "Right when this little LED by the mirrors is on keep driving don't stop"
N "The light is on it was frosty this morning - How far have I got to drive?"
BC "turn the HRW off is it still on"
N "No"
BC "Good you are fine"
N "I'm sooooo confused"

[B'stard Child]

Torquey said:

As for the badge on the grill - I read a while ago that they were made originally for Opel. The Vauxhall badge was glued on afterwards and because it's so close to the radiator/engine thre glue melts quite quickly.
It's amazing the amount of insignias without a front badge once you start looking!

If you look at the two pictured earlier in the thread you can see the Opel Blitz exposed

[B'stard Child]

CarltonF said:

Torquey said:

As for the badge on the grill - I read a while ago that they were made originally for Opel. The Vauxhall badge was glued on afterwards and because it's so close to the radiator/engine thre glue melts quite quickly.
It's amazing the amount of insignias without a front badge once you start looking!

Take that badge off now before it falls off!! You can either stick it back on when it’s sold. Or eBay it, there’s probably a demand... thirty quid I reckon. Some of your 500 back.

Joking, but only slightly ;-D

- I agree with take it off before it falls off but my preference is to glue the bloody thing on so it doesn't fall off

CarltonF said:

Thinking about the falling-off badges, do you think Vauxhall benchmarked the Ford Mondeo and decided they needed a clown-car-quirk to match Ford’s gaffer-tape-thirsty brittle bumpers?

I saw a Mondeo the other day with out any gaffa tape on the bumper

[B'stard Child]

OllieJolly said:

I would highly suggest you have the oil pickup o-ring replaced in that, if you can't do it yourself.
It may be fine, but for the price and short amount of pain of having it done, you may save a lot of grief.

Interesting - ZX10R NIN mentions clogged up oil pick up pipe below

ZX10R NIN said:

They're good cars they can suffer with the oil pick up pipe (long service intervals are the cause) clogging up so make sure you give it an oil flush when you buy one & cut the services to every 10k & flush every third service.

looks like the first oil change I give it will be a sump off change

OllieJolly said:

I would have preferred the 1.8, personally. I wouldn't buy a car with the 2.0 CDTI myself, my partner's Astra had the seal start to go and I changed it (took me 2 days) but it was too late. The top end had started rattling and tapping, and then by the time I did the next oil change it started knocking from the bottom end, too.

That's aside from the DMF, EGR and DPF issues that can quite easily occur if you're not careful.

I would have preferred a petrol too - but lower VED and higher mpgees meant it was a "battle" I was going to lose - I will however win the "war" as the added complexity of a diesel and bork potential will win eventually

OllieJolly said:

The suggestion of the 1.8 being slow annoys me. 138bhp in a car the size/weight of the Insignia is absolutely adequate.

Years ago (1989) I had a 1986 Carlton 1.8Li I took that from 80K miles to over 200K with just basic maintenance it had 115 bhp and you had to use the gears but it covered ground quite nicely on my 100 mile a day commute - it was never going to be a performance car but it wasn't glacial either

It stared me off on my 31 year journey with Senators and Carltons and I've never had a bad one (well not a bad one just a bit of a b'stard child in the case of the current one)

[B'stard Child]

OllieJolly said:

Enjoy getting the sump off though, fingers crossed you get lucky with your gearbox and don't have to split it to remove the sump!

Jesus titty christ - what sort of half arsed designer thought that was an essential element of good design - I said Vauxhall haven't built a decent car since 1994 and it looks like I'm right to avoid them!!!!

[B'stard Child]

OllieJolly said:

No. Stop it. I don't want one, it's too much hassle.

My internet research led me to this Belarus teardown of a A20DTH (CDTI) with subtitles

https://youtu.be/VrZRwrENPn4

It's a bloody Italian engine

[B'stard Child]

First issue with the Insipid

Not so much a FTP but a “funny” noise

Only happens when you come off the gas a low rpm - its a cross between a whoosh and a vroom

On the slam panel there is a lump with two small hoses and an electrical connection - it vibrates like heck when you come off the gas at low rpm - looks an easy change so that's one good thing

A quick google for "insignia CDTI funny noise from the engine bay got me this

https://youtu.be/BFilQ1dgIQw

That's the badger

So it seems it's a turbo wastegate solenoid and it's quite common for these engine to have it "flutter"

[B'stard Child]

Rather than start a new thread I'm going to add to this one - Back with me for "preventative maintenance"



It can stay here (unless Mods object) because it's not mine so doesn't really fit in Readers cars

Sump oil seal, service and the turbo "funny noise" valve

Can't be hard surely

[B'stard Child]

ZX10R NIN said:

The noise might be wastegate flutter, which if it turns out to be that you may find the car has been mapped.

It’s not been mapped - it’s too bloody slow

You can feel the solenoid vibrating too - common issue apoarently!!!!

[B'stard Child]

ACCYSTAN said:

Looked long and hard locally for a decent Insignia, gave up after many wasted trips.
My mate had a similar experience recently and ended up going for an Astra estate instead.

A good 10 year plus Insignia is a rarity.

As a long time Opel Fruit (older cars) and with it being a dag dag I’d rather set fire to it but it wasn’t my choice - the best I can do is give it a fighting chance - call it pity if you want my niece really is a car killer