A great drive (Vauxhall Cavalier)

Member Name: Gromit

Product:	Vauxhall Cavalier
Date:	03/12/00 (797 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great to drive, very spacious and comfortable

Disadvantages: Only when the electronics go wrong!

I simply love driving my Cavalier. It is comfortable, spacious, and has good visibility. I guess the Cavalier has something of a Sales Rep’s look and feel about it but once you start driving it, all this is forgotten.

My car is the 1.8i GLS version. It is an M registration car, so it’s getting a bit on the old side now, but it still performs admirably. In fact, mechanically it has been very reliable. We are now starting to have some problems with the electrics, but more on that later.

How we came to buy this car two years ago was amusing for us. It all happened because the car we had at the time, which we were about to sell (in fact, we had an advert in the local paper in anticipation of it passing its MoT!) failed its MoT and the cost to get it to pass was about the same as its road value. The garage, however, were offering a £1000 minimum trade in and extended the offer to our car. This was considerably more than what we had expected to sell the car for so we took them up on the offer. We had about a month before the MoT ran out so we could take our time to buy the replacement.

The Cavalier was one of several cars that fulfilled what we were looking for. What put us off trying it (for several weeks!) was the reputation and its look. You see, whoever owned it prior to us had done several ‘improvements’ to it and this included additional lights at the front. Given that it was red, it looked every inch the boy-racer dream car. We tried several cars but all of them were lacking.

The garage then reduced the price of a number of cars on the forecourt by £500, which included the Cavalier. Given we were running out of options, we decided to give it a go. This was one of the best decisions we have made. When I started driving it, it just felt so good. My wife took over half way through the test drive and she felt exactly the same. We just drove back to the garage and bought it. To this day, I still really enjoy
driving it.

As I mentioned, the car does a range of extra features. This includes a storage compartment for cassettes, a fancy dashboard, and, of course, the front lights. Mind you, these are really useful around some of the country lanes near where we live. The car also has a good immobiliser and this is where are current problems lie. The cpu has just failed and needs to be replaced. However, a number of other electronic features have also gone a bit awry. I find this a major problem with modern cars – they are all so heavily dependent on electronics that when something goes wrong, it causes major problems. Still, we have had no other trouble with the car and will get these things fixed.

As I have said a few times, it is a great car to drive and that is the most important thing. My daughters school is 12 miles away and visits to friends and family require fairly long drives so having a car like this is just perfect.

Another great feature is the size of the boot! To say the least, it is spacious. It is also invaluable when sneaking Christmas presents to relatives (and hiding the daughters) so it is perfect for this time of year. We have been so impressed with this car that my wife recently bought another Vauxhall – this time an Astra.

Summary: