Vauxhall Vectra 1.8 16v GLS
October 2006
Saying good riddance to the Peugeot was a fantastic feeling until I realised that I was without a car again. This meant I had to rely on lifts from friends to go and view potential next cars. In order to keep my friends, I limited my search criteria to within 10 miles on the University which made things a bit of a challenge. A week or so later and I was the 'proud' owner of a Vauxhall Vectra, the newest car I’d ever owned!
My usual system of going over all my cars and making a job list resulted in a pleasantly short to-do list, top of which was to replace some bulbs in the dash. This is where I discovered the seller had been rather cheeky and removed the bulb for the engine management warning light.
After some enthusiastic driving I returned home to find two hubcaps had parted company from the car, no great loss as they were in terrible condition anyway.
All was well for a few days until one evening the car wouldn’t rev past 4k, otherwise it drove perfectly but in this ‘limp home’ mode. The ecotec engines in these cars suffer from cam sensor and crank sensor failure which can lead to the ECU going into a safe mode. I had a local garage plug their computer into the diagnostic port and five seconds later it was confirmed as being a crank sensor failure. Some eBay searching and £15 later and a new sensor was in my hands which I set about fitting.
As I mentioned earlier, the seller had gone through the rigmarole of removing the dials and warning bulb to hide the problem when the effort and cost involved in fixing it properly was only marginally more.
Also, the results of my 'spirited driving':
All the while I owned the Vectra I was on the lookout for something RWD, ideally a Sierra. One evening while milling through eBay I spotted an e34 BMW 520i; it was a late reg, high mileage but full bmw history and best of all 2 miles away! Even though I’d only owned the Vecta for a couple of months I just had to go and view this BMW…