Archive for March, 2007

Vauxhall vectra has had a bid of a bad period over the last few years with its reputation for dull designs, plastic interiors and not to great to drive. However with bad press comes change and vauxhall have done just that. the vauxhall vectra is still not the best car on the road, but once again can be seen as a contender.

The average vauxhall vectra ships with a nifty 1.8 vauxhall engine and the usual features of ABS, power steering, central locking etc.

The new models have vastly been improved to make it look more stylish, have a better build quality and improve on the already strong engine. there still is room for improvement since the interior like most cars has a plastic feel (not as much as before but still present) and although driving has improved it still does not compare to its competitors such as the ford Mondeo, but a vast improvement from the older models.

As mentioned the vauxhall vectra drives better than its older models, with the major improvement to handling on the road. The car does well on motorways and the powerful vauxhall engines allow for any type of man over or situation. The diesels vauxhall engines are very efficient over the petrol vauxhall engines and give the car extra value.

The engine has been improved to a 1.9 litre vauxhall engine (diesel) and depending on the model it can produce 120bh or 150bhp. The 2.2 petrol versions are efficient also but compared to its competitors the Mondeo on the v6 petrol and the SAAB 2.8 litre turbo diesel it does not really compare.

It does take the edge on its competitors in some areas such as load capacity and a longer wheel base.

Vectras have always had large boots and the estate vectra seems to be the biggest money can offer in this category however this sacrifices headroom for the rear passengers.

The nice thing about the Vauxhall Vectra is the price, it has always been decent and they are cheap to run, especially the diesels which surprisingly little CO2 emissions. Also if they break you can get genuine vauxhall parts for cheap and there always good builds (you can get used vauxhall parts for even cheaper).

So although the vauxhall vectra may not be the best car to own, certain features such as efficiency and price make it a very appealing option.

Remember should you need new or used vauxhall car parts then visit CarSpareFinder to put a free car parts request through

Auto Express have a survey which is like the Oscars, but with a public vote. Each year tens of thousands of drivers are surveyed to determine the best car to own. The survey covers aspects such as driving, which cars let you down (e.g. brake down or need replacement parts), build quality, efficiency, effect on the environment etc and this year the results were not predictable as a black horse comes through to win many of the awards.

The survey is called Driver Power for those interested and was completed by the end of January 2007. Some unusual finding s to come out of the survey is that almost 1 in every 2 drivers has had a brake down in the last 3 years.

The results are across the main categories of car including Super mini / city car, Compact family, family, compact executive, sports, off-road / SUV, compact MPV / MPV and so without further a due here are the results:

Super mini/city car
Class Rank Make and model Rating
1st place - HONDA JAZZ
2nd place - SKODA FABIA

Compact family
1st place - HONDA CIVIC
2nd place - TOYOTA COROLLA

Family
1st place - SKODA OCTAVIA
2nd place - MAZDA 6

Compact Executive
1st place - LEXUS IS
2nd place - BMW 3-SERIES

Sports
1st place - HONDA S2000
2nd place - MG ZT

Off-road/SUV
1st place - LEXUS RX
2nd place - TOYOTA RAV4

Compact MPV/MPV
1st place - VOLKSWAGEN TOURAN
2nd place - FORD C-MAX

Notice the once really bad car make to own (skoda) is not a serious contender and the Skoda Octavia winning the family category.

It goes to show that reputation is not everything and user reviews should be read before making a purchase. wait ago skoda. I am surprised vauxhall did not make an entry, especially with the v8 vauxhall engines and the more popular v6 vauxhall engines. Maybe these cars are just too expensive for the average Joe like me to ever own.

SOURCE AND FACTS FROM AUTOEXPRESS

The car i am about to describe is amazing piece of machinery and this because its a import. I read the review on this car by a great blogger on his blog ‘carblog’ (see bottom of article).This car to us Brits is a vauxhall Monaro, but depending on where you are in the world it could be a Opel Monarco or a Holden Monarco. But one thing remains the same, it is Australian and it is a godly car with amazing car parts, as you will read.

Some people worry that with an import you may not get vauxhall genuine parts, however this is not true. Remember Opel and Holden are vauxhall, they just have different names for different markets, so not matter what it will be a vauxhall genuine parts, should you need to get one fixed.

The outside looks stylish and sleek, however it does not jump out at you, however for me this is a bonus since if it stuck out where i lived it would get stolen, so it works for me. The interior is dark (sexy in my eyes) and the inner trims such as the dashboard don’t have the plastic feel of most cars, it all looks so perfectly finished off.

It would not be in the car parts store if it did not have the boys toys car parts such as leather interior, heated seats, climate control, cruise control, parking sensors, however some extras are put in such as GPRS, a 10 speaker, six disc CD player, adjustable seats, steering columns etc.

the designers obviously thought about the vehicle when building since it has a good sized glove box and compartments and boot is ample for the family including shopping, pram, mother in law etc.

Another great aspect is its performance and power. It supports the v8 vauxhall engine (the v6 was a amazing achievement but the v8 is godly). It specs you can find out anywhere on the net, this model comes with a 5.7 litre version outputting 3431b/foot torque and 329 BHP, however you can tune the vauxhall engine to almost a extra 100 BHP if you know how or have the cash. This powerful vauxhall engine is controlled with a six speed close ration manual car gearbox with traction control on demand.

So that may look impressive but what can it actually do, well it can do according to ‘Goose’ it can do 180MPH and does 0-60 in around 6 seconds. This is allot compared to my 0-60 in 15 seconds in my vauxhall engine in my 1995 corsa.

Which new car does not have alloys these days, and this car comes with alloy wheels and the tyres are good on a day to day basis, however if your gonna flex the cars muscle you may want to upgrade the standard tyres.

the brakes to accommodate this monster of a vauxhall engine are fantastic using 296mm vented brakes for the front and 286mm for the rear

The McPherson struts front suspension and Control Link Independent rear suspension (with gas dampers, anti-roll bars and coils) provide a nice drive even at high speeds.

The Vauxhall Monaro is surprisingly quite, although with a amazing 10 speaker CD kit you don’t need to worry about the road noise.

So to sum up its an amazing car with some amazing car parts, especially the v8 vauxhall engine.

So thanks Goose for your review and for a more in depth review and some amazing pictures see his article on ‘carblog’.

Hi this post is more of a get your readers involved post. I have this problem with my vauxhall engine on my vauxhall corsa (1995) 1 litre petrol manual 3dr hatchback.

Now i could ask the people at work and find the answer, or visit my garage, but i thought i would asks the readers if they knew or could share similar problems with there vehicles.

Right now for the problem. My vauxhall engine at first thought seems to be flat, however i managed to start the vauxhall engine and drove it for 20 miles (recommended miles to recharge your battery) and left it overnight to find the battery flat again.

I then try to jump start the engine at several points in the day, firstly when its cold in the mornings around 8am, secondly in the afternoon when its warmer and finally at night around 10pm when its cold again. To my surprise the car engine only starts in the afternoons when its warm and not cold and i can drive it as normal once started, however if i leave it overnight it becomes flat again.

It is as if something is constantly draining the battery, however no lights are on, no switches left on or items plugged in (e.g. cigaret lighter).

So i assume it is not the vauxhall engine but in fact something else such as the starter motor or the manual immobilizer.

So readers, what do you think?

Secondly its only worth around 300 i reckon, so is it worth fixing and putting MOT and TAX on it, or should i get a new vauxhall with a fully working car engine?

As mentioned earlier i have a vauxhall corsa. The car is a nice run around, i do around 50 miles to work (100 round trip), 5 days a week and i do travel a bit on the weekend. So i need a reliable car, a nice run around with good fuel efficiency. This plus the fact I am under 25 means a nice low insurance group is also a needed necessity.

Anyway the year of my vauxhall car is 1995, however i do have some new vauxhall parts in there such as a new car gearbox put in last year. I have had it for 4 years and nothing bar the car gearbox has every gone wrong.

Yesterday however it broke. the vauxhall engine decided to become flat or the immobilizer might be doing overtime. I have tried jump starting it, however it only works if it is warm, thus i am leaning towards a flat vauxhall engine. Now either i drained the car battery and can simply recharge it, or it is leaking energy somehow and i need a new car engine battery for the engine.

So my day was thrown off yesterday since i got up at 6.45, got ready for 8 and went to set off to work and to my surprise the vauxhall engine does not kick in. This meant i had to get a bus to Durham from my home, then a train from Durham to Darlington, then another train to Thornaby and finally to Billingham in which my boss picked me up from the train station and i was in my office doing work from 11.

So although i love my vauxhall car it seems it might be worth getting a new vauxhall with a fully functioning vauxhall engine. I will keep you posted on the status of either my new car or fixing my little vauxhall. PS in the meantime i am insured on my mam’s Ford KA, which in my eyes is a bad drive on a good day, and its a 2000 reg, 5 years on from my vauxhall.

One bonus is that if i should need vauxhall parts i work at CarSpareFinder so it ain’t all bad.

Firstly i would like to apologize for my absence in posting on the blog. Things have been busy here at CarSpareFinder as we are moving up in the world. But i now have some time to write posts again.

While working along side SalvageSpareFinder some of the bonuses is the fact you can test drive some nice cars, all of which are vehicle salvage but done up to road worthy vehicles. One such car was the Mercedes CLK 320 elegance. This for some might be classed as a old mans car, however to me it was luxury. From the nice car parts such as leather interior, the automatic car gearbox, 3.2 litre car engine. It does 0 to 60 in under 5 seconds and handles like a dream. Also i know i will probably never own nice a car as this so i enjoyed it.

It really is a nice car to drive compared to my vauxhall corsa, which does have some nice car parts such as a nice 1.4 vauxhall engine, however a 3.2 Mercedes engine v a 1.4 vauxhall engine, no contest really. For more pictures of this car (which went for £4,800 fully functional) visit SalvageSpareFinder

So every time i drive a nice car / vehicle salvage i will post the information here, however this will be hard to beat.

If your worried about the environment and are worried that we are going to run out of petrol before you die then this article is for you. A company called Telsa have been working on a mass produced electric sports car. yes thats right it works off solar power and you have to charge it up in solar stations, however no petrol needed that means clean fuel and why its included in the ‘car parts store’

I read about the telsa on ‘The racing geek‘ blog by a person who has test driven one of these and this post is based on his post.

Firstly the Telsa is based on the lotus Elise chassis and resembles the vauxhall vx200, however the chassis has been modified to enable 100% electrical powered vehicle by inserting a electrical power train. The power train is a revolutionary piece of equipment. Instead of building the technology from scratch they used existing technology and added onto it, for example it is powered by the popular lithium batteries which are in items such as ipods, xbox 360 controllers etc. Obviously the batteries are more powerful and cooling them is a priority but they are rechargeable.

The impressive thing about the vehicle is that it can produce 248bhp and 200 ft/lbs of torque and remember no fuel is needed. This is nt as much as the v6 vauxhall engine (for more information on the v6 vauxhall engine visit the vauxhall site), but as with new technology will only improve and still enables 0-60MPH in 4 seconds. On one charge you can do around 250 miles and also added in there is very little CO2 emissions and no maintenance (only changing the oil every 3 to4 years). Also impressive is the lack of car parts since its all electric. You have your obvious car parts such as tyres, chassis and seats but you don’t have loads of moving parts in the engine and so forth so less car parts means less maintenance overall.

The car only has 2 forward gears in its car gearbox, first will take you to 70 MPH and second will take you up to 130 MPH, and obviously there is a reverse.

The car has been designed by some of the top people in the industry and thus some of the chassis modification don’t just accommodate the power train but also improve on the car such as lowered sides to increase livability. Other improvements over the Lotus Elise include increased performance.

So with all this in mind what are its drawbacks, well firstly the price is a steep 90,000 GBP, so the average Joe can forget it, its a car for the rich. (we can all dream right?). Obviously the lack of recharging stations means if you run out of energy your in trouble, a second car might be needed to do long runs.

For some impressive images see ‘the racing geek‘ blog

Telsa Roadster - car parts store addition

This impressive beauty will support the latest v8 6 litre vauxhall engine for a stunning 419 horsepower and a acceleration of 0-60 MPH in just 5 seconds and is why it is in the ‘car parts store’ section. It will be popping up at the Geneva Auto Show later this year.

This impressive vauxhall engine will be controlled by six speed vauxhall gearbox either in manual or automatic
This muscle car has features from the Australian holden commodore and Holden HSV Clubsport R8 giving it umph and style.

It is rumored that the car will support a range of upgrades and modified kits to get extra power from the car parts for those who love to have ultimate control and power in their vauxhall.

Of course the car looks amazing with it being a 4dr coupe, however these additional doors mean extra bucks! can your wallet afford them?

So if the answer is yes the car will be on sale later this year if there are no set backs both online and at dealers across the uk.

Fact from sarahmcbride.spaces.live.com and also a nice image is there also

I read this blog the other day on how to change the car oil and i thought its a simple enough procedure in which many people don’t know how to do and end up paying a lot for it to be done, so i decided to summarize the blog here for the benefit of our readers in the ‘how to check car parts’ section

Firstly the original post was from Tashi khoo’s personal blog, along with a nice video and thus i thank him for it

Right firstly to do this yourself you will need several items of equipment:

standard equipment

• jack and jack stands
• 2 wedges
• funnel
• chain wrench
• combination or multi spanner
• large container or several small ones and one seal able container
• plastic bag or seal-able zip bag
• protection e.g. newspapers, gloves, rags, old clothes

Specialist items and car parts

• new engine oil
• new oil filter
• new drain sealing washer

Ok to start you need to heat the oil up to make it thinner and less viscous, thus will flow better out of the engine. to do this simply drive your car around for around 5 minutes until the car engine indicator comes on. NOTE too long and you risk skin burns!

Safety is a major issue as always, so ensure you environment is safe. park your vehicle on a flat surface, turn ignition off and put into correct gear (first for manuals and parking position for automatics) and open the bonnet. Now block the tyres to stop them rolling. Right safe environment done.

You will need to get under the car for a oil change so jack the car up and make sure it is safe (Warning ensure jack is properly on to avoid the car collapsing on top of you) and use several jack stands to ensure the car is safe (don’t just use one jack as safety)

Note oil is messy so lay protection on yourself and the floor. Next locate your drain plug on the lowest part of the car engine with a nut and washer underneath. DO NOT mistake it for the transmission drain plug!). Once located unplug it by loosening the drain plug nut (do not fully remove). Place the waste oil container underneath then remove the nut entirely. NOTE the oil will be hot so get away from it and slide out from underneath the car.

Leave for around a hour for best result .

Now, after the hour, we need access to the car engine from the bonnet to vent the oil system. Now remove the oil filter cap and remove the oil dipstick and clean. We also need to find the oil filter to change it, this can be found by looking for a big cylindrical metal cartridge. (NOTE the oil filter will contain hot oil so take car to avoid burns). Now get your new filter, coat the gasket at the bottom with oil by getting the old filters oily gasket and rub against the new filters dry gasket and this aids connection with the engine block. Now clean the area with a rag where the filter will go and place the new filter into place and screw it in manually. use the chain wrench to tighten until securely connected

Right now take the new sealing washer and place over the drain nut. You now need to thread the nut and washer back into the plug hole (you will need to get under your car again). Now tighten the drain plug and let out a sigh of relief since your done under the car.

Right you now have a car with no oil, so it needs to be replaced using the funnel in the oil filter hole and putting in the new oil. Put the cap on when your done and check the oil level using the cleaned dipstick (between min and max marks). Right now you have to tidy up your mess before your other half returns to see the mess you have made, but will forgive all if you have done it right since you’ve said some cash.

Some tips on cleaning

• get seal able container and place funnel in, this will get rid of excess oil
• Now get all waste oil and funnel into seal able container
• put the container in a plastic bag or zipped bag and seal (along with extra car parts used)
• take oil to a recycling place and dispose safely
• Start car engine and leave for 3 minutes and check for oil leaks and loose drain plug
• dispose of oil filter and sealed waste to a garage or petrol station for recycling

Note you may want to read the full blog article from Tashi khoo’s since this is a summarized version from his article and that concludes this part of the ‘how to check car parts’ entry.

NOTE - if you are unsure of any of these procedures then get it done professionally and CarSpareFinder takes no responsibility for you or your vehicle when performing the procedure.

My friend yesterday bought a new vauxhall corsa 5dr hatchback, 1.3 litre engine. A very nice little car which i am quite envious of with my 1995 nissan micra hollywood.

Never the less it performs like a dream and he could not be happier apart from one thing. He is going crazy over the petrol hub cap since it says ‘Ford’ on it.

I said your nuts, its a hub cap and he replies ‘its not the point, i bought a vauxhall and i want a vauxhall genuine part‘. I can understand his viewpoint and yes all parts should be vauxhall genuine parts, however it is a hub cap which stops petrol from leaking out and you don’t see the ‘ford’ bit until your up close

if my friend would listen to me i said you can just buy a used vauxhall part for cheap using CarSpareFinder, but he says its no the point, i bought a new car and i don’t want a used vauxhall part, i want a new one!

what do you guys think. Is he crazy for going nuts over a non genuine part, or does he have a point and even though its only a small part, it still should be a vauxhall genuine part?

let me know what you think?