Thirsty Little Go Kart- Corsa SRI 1.8 (Vauxhall Corsa SRi 1.8i 16v 3-door)

Member Name: Lools_24

Product:	Vauxhall Corsa SRi 1.8i 16v 3-door
Date:	27/02/09 (584 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nippy and good value

Disadvantages: Drinks petrol- Makes you a boy racer magnet!

When my boyfriend suggested getting a corsa a few years ago I think the first thing I said was "ergh no thanks" . I just didn't fancy having the same car as everyone else on the road. However after looking around the garage and him being a bit of a speed demon at the time he introduced me to the SRI 1.8. I really liked the look of the car and it seemed so much sportier than the other models in the range. A little more expensive but you would expect that as you get a little bit more!

The SRI is less common than the 1.2 SXI model and in my opinion looks a lot better. The 1.8 SRI is quite rare and when I used to drive one of these I rarely used to see the same model of car driving around. I had the twinport model which included side skirts and a front grill. The body shape of the SRI is a little smoother and sleeker than the other corsa's in the range and has a small but nice little spoiler on the back. There is lowered suspension (lowered but not on the ground style!! ), the wing mirrors are a sporty design and 16" 5 spoke alloy wheels. I love the wing mirrors . However some stupid bint who lives in my street decided to some how knock my wing mirror off when it was parked outside my house, and because the wing mirrors are fixed and you cant fold them in they aren't too flexible. (I seen her driving away after I heard the crunch and when she tried to deny it I pointed out my paint on her wing mirror and she suddenly apologised) . It cost £100 to get replaced so if you have to park on a narrow street this might not be the car for you and could cost you a fortune.

The inside of the car has sports seats (mine were leather which were optional), aluminium sports medals, sports gear knob, sports white dials and generally made to have a sportier look than the average Corsa. But being a Vauxhall and a Corsa the car was just slightly plastic looking and felt it once inside. My Corsa was fitted with a 6 CD changer (also optional) which could be controlled by the radio controls on the steering wheel. The CD player in the car is quite basic. Also if a song has a heavy bass line it makes the speakers tremble and as a result the sound quality is poor. The same happens in my friends SXI so it's a general Corsa fault and its not even just if you have the sound up high it happens even when the sound is low.

Space wise there is a lot of leg room in the front of the car. The back as you can imagine is small being a small car. You can fit 5 medium sized people in the car would it wouldn't be comfortable for more than 4 on a long journey.

The back window of the car is large which makes the car easy to park and to judge what is behind you. The boot of the car is really small but the seats in the back fold down easy if you did need to carry anything large.

Colour
These are available in the usual Corsa colours both non metallic and metallic. I had one of these in metallic black which I loved but the star silver colour is also very nice and a little bit more practical as it shows less dirt and scratches on the car.

The car drives really well and pull away fast. It has 123bhp and can do 0-60 in under 8 seconds. Max speed is apparently 126mph. I didn't try that fast but I imagine it makes that speed no problem. The car is extremely light and is very very nippy driving around town. Boys you may understand this if you wear thick soled shoes but girls you have to be very careful it you drive in heels and cant feel the peddles to well. The pedals are very responsive so if you put your foot down too hard on the gas........woosh the car propels forward and lightening speed. Sometimes in first gear because of this the car feels jerky as does changings from 2nd to 3rd gear. The car being light isn't always a good thing. If you are driving at speed on a windy day it does feel noisy and the car feels a bit unstable hence why I used to call my Corsa my go kart.

Reliability
I never broke down in this car and the Corsa's I have had have been really reliable. One issue though is the handbreaks and the handbreak cable does need tightening quite a lot in a Corsa. Beware of this if you have to park on a bank regularly as you will need to visit a garage quite a lot if this is the case

Cost

I got one of these about 4 years ago it was just under a year old and a 54 reg plate for £7200 which I thought was very reasonable. You can pick up a 55 reg one of these (when they stopped making this shape) for around £4,000 with average mileage these days.

This is in insurance group 9 so for a small car quite high , but not as high as some of the other sports models of small cars (i.e. Clio Sport and Fiesta)

Now why you ask if I loved the car did I get rid of it. My boyfriend got a company car which meant the Corsa became mine to drive on a daily basis. The car isn't the most economical. I used to get about 200 miles to a full tank and I used to be always filling the car up. Because I do a lot of town driving I used to be filling up all of the time and it wasn't rare to be spending over £60 a week on petrol, when really the distance I cover isn't the greatest. Well there was also the fact that I often used to get boy racers eying up my car and at the lights revving and trying to race me (which wasn't really a challenge as it can kick the butt of any citreon saxo VTR/ VTS any day!)

It's a good little car though for the money!

Summary: A good little sporty car

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