Advice...Vectra or Mazda 6

BrianBoru00

Hi all, Can anyone give me an insight into either of these.
both Diesel, 2008 - hoping to take advantage of the CO2 based tax for either.

Mazda 6 TS 2 4 door diesel 140 BHP

Vectra 1.9 CDTI 5 door diesel Exclusiv 118 BHP


thanks

MuppetCheck

Dont touch a 2 litre Mazda diesel. Just do a search here on them.

Tea 1000

Don't go near the Vectra either, they're horrible muck.

P.K.M.

Had a 1.8 petrol Mazda 6, fantastic car, but yeah - their diesels are rubbish. As for the Vectra....em, NO!!

Marcusm

MuppetCheck wrote: »

Dont touch a 2 litre Mazda diesel. Just do a search here on them.

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Don't go near the Vectra either, they're horrible muck.

A plague on both your houses type of situation then. I had the 8v version of the 1.9cdti and had no real problems with it; found it reasonably powered and it's fairly common place.

ninty9er

I've got a Vectra CDTI. It's a 150bhp though. It came in 150 and 120. I didn't drive any 120s when I was looking.

The Exclusive is a horrible place to be though. Get at least a Club.

Old diesel

BrianBoru00 wrote: »

Hi all, Can anyone give me an insight into either of these.
both Diesel, 2008 - hoping to take advantage of the CO2 based tax for either.

Mazda 6 TS 2 4 door diesel 140 BHP

Vectra 1.9 CDTI 5 door diesel Exclusiv 118 BHP


thanks

As mentioned - avoid the Mazda, quite how Mazda managed to mess up their 2.0 commonrail diesels so badly is beyond comprehension.

Among the issues they had from what I recall - big end failures/wrecked engines due to oil starvation, serious DPF issues - Mazdas DPF was flawed - and as I understand it - it was possible for fuel to get into the oil - contaminating the oil - leading to engine failure.

Turbos and injectors give trouble on them too :mad:.

Can't think of their other issues right now - but they are a disaster of an engine - imo. All I ever heard about these Mazda diesels is bad news stories.

Consider other options like the Mondeo or Avensis instead.

blindside88

I have a vectra club 120bhp, it's a comfortable car with reasonable power. I would advise to get a reasonable high spec model with cruise control etc

Bpmull

My parents bought a new vectra in 2005 1.9cdti 120 decent spec and they loved it. Very reliable quick for 120bhp and just I nice car in general. They kept it almost 3 years was never in the garage once for anything other than a service.

gallag

I had three veccys, a 1.9 150bhp, a 2.0T tuned to 228bhp and a VXR tuned to 320 bhp, all fantastic cars! Most people who criticise them have never owned one and just roll with what Clarkson says.

bazz26

You'd nearly pick up an Alfa Romeo 159 diesel for Vectra money, has the same diesel engines as the Vectra too.

Old diesel

gallag wrote: »

I had three veccys, a 1.9 150bhp, a 2.0T tuned to 228bhp and a VXR tuned to 320 bhp, all fantastic cars! Most people who criticise them have never owned one and just roll with what Clarkson says.

Based on my experience been a Passenger in a Vectra C - I have to say - that while not perfect (no car ever is) - they are perfectly pleasant cars.

Wasn't keen on the black interiors (don't like black interiors anyway - so not a Vectra issue per se) - but some nice leather etc would quickly fix that.

Most hilarious comment I ever heard was on a Toyota forum - chap said he looked at a high spec Vectra before buying his Avensis Mk 2. But he couldn't live with the Vectra interior.

As if the Avensis interior was a massive improvement lol :rolleyes:.

bazz26

But at least Toyota didn't have that silly indicator switch that the last generation Vectra had.

unkel

Why are you only considering these cars, BrianBoru00? Many other cars around that are much better...

BrianBoru00

budget/ mileage
have also considered others but at the moment I have these two specific cars

Tea 1000

Old diesel wrote: »

As mentioned - avoid the Mazda, quite how Mazda managed to mess up their 2.0 commonrail diesels so badly is beyond comprehension.

Among the issues they had from what I recall - big end failures/wrecked engines due to oil starvation, serious DPF issues - Mazdas DPF was flawed - and as I understand it - it was possible for fuel to get into the oil - contaminating the oil - leading to engine failure.

Turbos and injectors give trouble on them too :mad:.

Can't think of their other issues right now - but they are a disaster of an engine - imo. All I ever heard about these Mazda diesels is bad news stories.

Consider other options like the Mondeo or Avensis instead.

All those things (bar injectors) you mentioned are related to the one issue of diesel in the sump. If that doesn't happen your car, it'll be fine, but if it does you're screwed. If you check the oil level regularly though and notice it even slightly increasing, change it. Preventative measure.
As far as injectors going, probably not much more than any other car these days with all the washed diesel around.

gallag wrote: »

I had three veccys, a 1.9 150bhp, a 2.0T tuned to 228bhp and a VXR tuned to 320 bhp, all fantastic cars! Most people who criticise them have never owned one and just roll with what Clarkson says.

Clarkson didn't make the Vectra ugly and dated looking, and understeer like a pig. It just wasn't a good car. The Insignia is so far ahead of it that Opel had to come up with a new name.

Old diesel wrote: »

Based on my experience been a Passenger in a Vectra C - I have to say - that while not perfect (no car ever is) - they are perfectly pleasant cars.

Wasn't keen on the black interiors (don't like black interiors anyway - so not a Vectra issue per se) - but some nice leather etc would quickly fix that.

Most hilarious comment I ever heard was on a Toyota forum - chap said he looked at a high spec Vectra before buying his Avensis Mk 2. But he couldn't live with the Vectra interior.

As if the Avensis interior was a massive improvement lol :rolleyes:.

The Vectra interior is worse than the Avensis one though.

JohnBoy26

Old diesel wrote: »

Based on my experience been a Passenger in a Vectra C - I have to say - that while not perfect (no car ever is) - they are perfectly pleasant cars.

Wasn't keen on the black interiors (don't like black interiors anyway - so not a Vectra issue per se) - but some nice leather etc would quickly fix that.

Most hilarious comment I ever heard was on a Toyota forum - chap said he looked at a high spec Vectra before buying his Avensis Mk 2. But he couldn't live with the Vectra interior.

As if the Avensis interior was a massive improvement lol :rolleyes:.

It was though and it wasn't hard for it to be either. The vectra's interior was not only made up of far poorer quality materials than that of the Avensis, Opel somehow managed to make it even more bland as well!.

Old diesel

Tea 1000 wrote: »

All those things (bar injectors) you mentioned are related to the one issue of diesel in the sump. If that doesn't happen your car, it'll be fine, but if it does you're screwed. If you check the oil level regularly though and notice it even slightly increasing, change it. Preventative measure.
As far as injectors going, probably not much more than any other car these days with all the washed diesel around.

Clarkson didn't make the Vectra ugly and dated looking, and understeer like a pig. It just wasn't a good car. The Insignia is so far ahead of it that Opel had to come up with a new name.

The Vectra interior is worse than the Avensis one though.

Could be wrong - but I thought the diesel in the sump was due to the DPF - yet im under the impression that the oil starvation and the big end and engine failure that happened as a result - happened on the non DPF 6 diesels as well.

From memory - the car would start making a knocking noise (big ends starting to fail) - and what was happening was it was been starved of oil.

Either way OP - avoid the Mazda - the one your looking at - has the DPF - not sure when they started fitting the DPFs - but know that they were fitting them to the previous model 6 (08 is the Mk 2 version of the Mazda 6)

MuppetCheck

You could always remove the dpf in the Mazda (although how long before they make its presence an NCT requirement...) however you will never know it was treated previously, how diluted the oil has been over the years and the damage from it.

gallag

Tea 1000 wrote: »

All those things (bar injectors) you mentioned are related to the one issue of diesel in the sump. If that doesn't happen your car, it'll be fine, but if it does you're screwed. If you check the oil level regularly though and notice it even slightly increasing, change it. Preventative measure.
As far as injectors going, probably not much more than any other car these days with all the washed diesel around.

Clarkson didn't make the Vectra ugly and dated looking, and understeer like a pig. It just wasn't a good car. The Insignia is so far ahead of it that Opel had to come up with a new name.

The Vectra interior is worse than the Avensis one though.

Actually clarkson did make it understeer like a pig, read any other review of the vxr vectra, the evo one is good or even top gear magazines review, but if you want to base your opinion on clarkson taking a pre release model and disabling esp and traction control and then flooring the accelerator of a powerful front wheel drive car to purposely make it look bad then go ahead, anyone who knows anything about driving would have asked clarkson why he was wheelspining the vectra in a corner and not feathering the throttle? Clarkson was payed by ford!
http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/cargrouptests/65185/mitsubishi_evo_v_impreza_v_vectra_vxr_v_bmw_330i.html
as for the interior, the base models were rubish but the higher end models were nice, my vxr had full leather recaros carbon fiber trim and satnav etc but looks are subjective.