OnStar services ending on Vauxhall cars in December 2020

j4vier

Got an email today from OnStar saying that the services for Vauxhall cars will end in December 2020.

Anyone with an opel got the same email? I presume that it will be for all GM cars

It's unfortunate as I liked the service

JohnBoy26

Opel is no longer part of gm. The psa group acquired it last year.

colm_mcm

Nobody told Opel!
https://www.opel.ie/onstar/get-onstar.html#_expander-tab-onstar-insignia-grand-sport

j4vier

Pity that they couldn't reach an agreement

colm_mcm

This is only the start. PSA got a bit of a bum deal with Opel/Vauxhall,
GM seriously distorted some important emissions figures in the deal to make the future look a lot brighter than it actually is. Opel/Vauxhall is hemmoraging money, so expect future Opels to be little more than badge engineered Peugeot’s, rather than this being some sort of meeting of minds.

Ironically, you’ll probably see PSA do a Saab on Opel,
So - instead of moving the ignition barrel to behind the gearstick and banging on about aircraft heritage, for added Opel-ness -PSA will probably move the interior light switch onto the headlamp switch, and go back to making cars that spontaneously combust.

And pretend they’re German. Not that anyone believed them last time.

Pkiernan

They did the same to me in my Chevy Silverado in 2006 when they shut down the analogue On star service in the States. Shame as it had signal anywhere in the country.

JoeA3

Amazing how Opel's brand image and product line up has gone down the toilet in the last 5-8 years. They were once a huge favourite here, particularly when they were shirt sponsors of the Irish soccer team!

I can't think of a single model in their line up that I'd consider looking at.

The Koreans have blown them out of the water.

What's does it actually do anyways?

Philb76

They are in serious trouble Vauxhall opel name cud disappear the normal uk stronghold even seem to be turning on them never got the German thing astras built in uk corsas in Spain was a time when they wer not bad long ago sadly

Philb76

They are in serious trouble Vauxhall opel name cud disappear the normal uk stronghold even seem to be turning on them never got the German thing astras built in uk corsas in Spain was a time when they wer not bad long ago sadly

colm_mcm

PSA will want to move Opel/Vauxhall away from the unprofitable fleet and hire car market which accounts for a lot of their sales.

I blame the insignia.
The newer ones do look nice.
They should have rebranded it again

colm_mcm

The new Insignia is a lovely car I think. Easily the strongest car in the lineup.

JohnBoy26

JoeA3 wrote: »

Amazing how Opel's brand image and product line up has gone down the toilet in the last 5-8 years. They were once a huge favourite here, particularly when they were shirt sponsors of the Irish soccer team!

I can't think of a single model in their line up that I'd consider looking at.

The Koreans have blown them out of the water.

Their brand image went down the toilet a lot longer than 5-8 years ago. The soccer thing was in the early 90's and even then they had Mediocre cars with poor build quality such as the kadette. The best car they had at the time was the vectra and the newer vectra that followed on from that was a pretty terrible car.

They were never a strong brand here like toyota or vw.

They really only have themselves to blame though. Their cars were built at a cost and didn't excel in any department.

j4vier

BrownFinger wrote:

What's does it actually do anyways?

You can check information of your car remotely such as making sure you have it locked, Tyre pressure, parked location.

You can also ring an operator for assistance if you need it and they can set your Sat nav to point you towards the point of interest.

j4vier

JohnBoy26 wrote:

They really only have themselves to blame though. Their cars were built at a cost and didn't excel in any department.

A lot depends on the spec though.

I tried a Leon fr with alcantara pack which is essentially a VW and then tried the astra, both Sri and elite.

The interiors of the sri weren't the best but the elite ones, I found them better than the Leon

JoeA3

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

Their brand image went down the toilet a lot longer than 5-8 years ago. The soccer thing was in the early 90's and even then they had Mediocre cars with poor build quality such as the kadette. The best car they had at the time was the vectra and the newer vectra that followed on from that was a pretty terrible car.

They were never a strong brand here like toyota or vw.

They really only have themselves to blame though. Their cars were built at a cost and didn't excel in any department.

Yeah, its been longer than I thought then for sure!

Clarkson's "review" of 1995(?) Vectra of course being infamous too...

TheDriver

The 09-14 insignia was an awful load 0f crap. But the way my interactions with their customer service was horrendous. Give me a PSA car any day, much nicer smoother cars

beauf

I thought the kadette was very popular. Used to be everywhere.

Arthur Daley

Opel had a good grip on the Irish market back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Not just the small ones but the Rekord sold fairly well here and then the Omega.

The Vauxhall Corsa is still 5th best selling car in the UK. The Vauxhall Mokka is 9th best selling. Opel Astra is 11th best seller in Germany. So they still have some volume for PSA to work with. Different to what happened to SAAB.

bazz26

I think the new Insignia has aged terribly, the overhangs are too big and the wheel arches look lost. The car looks like it was designed 5 or 6 years ago and left the older model linger on longer than they should have due to being popular with fleet buyers. The dashboard looks like it was originally designed before centre console touchscreen infotainment systems became popular and they decided to stick one in as an afterthought later on.

Hurrache

TheDriver wrote: »

The 09-14 insignia was an awful load 0f crap. But the way my interactions with their customer service was horrendous. Give me a PSA car any day, much nicer smoother cars

As was said, the varying trim levels and specs made a huge difference. Basic cheap model wasn't particularly nice to be in or drive, but as you went up the range they became much better, SRi's being a lovely drive.

JohnBoy26

Hurrache wrote: »

As was said, the varying trim levels and specs made a huge difference. Basic cheap model wasn't particularly nice to be in or drive, but as you went up the range they became much better, SRi's being a lovely drive.

They were still dung though, terrible build and reliability.

Leonard Hofstadter

I really liked the Mk1 Insignia, blew the old Vectra out of the water.

The Vectra B was an appalling car though, Clarkson was dead right to call them out on it. I wouldn't mind but its predecessor was considered a very good and reliable car back in the day.

JohnBoy26

Arthur Daley wrote: »

Opel had a good grip on the Irish market back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Not just the small ones but the Rekord sold fairly well here and then the Omega.

The Vauxhall Corsa is still 5th best selling car in the UK. The Vauxhall Mokka is 9th best selling. Opel Astra is 11th best seller in Germany. So they still have some volume for PSA to work with. Different to what happened to SAAB.

That's not great when you consider how popular the vauxhall brand is/was in the uk.

Leonard Hofstadter

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

That's not great when you consider how popular the vauxhall brand is/was in the uk.

Sales have fallen off a cliff over the past year or so over there. They used to be just behind Ford for volume and had about 12% of the market, now it's more like about 7.5 to 8%.

JohnBoy26

captainspeed wrote: »

I really liked the Mk1 Insignia, blew the old Vectra out of the water.

The Vectra B was an appalling car though, Clarkson was dead right to call them out on it. I wouldn't mind but its predecessor was considered a very good and reliable car back in the day.

The insignia looked good for about a year before it aged terribly and looked like any old cr@ppy opel.

I think the vectra that came before it was a better car in terms of reliability although still nothing to write home about.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

JohnBoy26

JoeA3 wrote: »

Yeah, its been longer than I thought then for sure!

Clarkson's "review" of 1995(?) Vectra of course being infamous too...

I also think they were bottom or very close to the bottom of the jd power customer satisfaction survey in 1996/1997

Leonard Hofstadter

The Vectra B sold by the bucketload in the UK regardless of the motoring reviews and JD Power results. How such rubbish was so popular is one of life's greatest mysteries.

JohnBoy26

captainspeed wrote: »

The Vectra B sold by the bucketload in the UK regardless of the motoring reviews and JD Power results. How such rubbish was so popular is one of life's greatest mysteries.

The early 90's escort was also a very popular car over there even though it was rubbish and wasn't viewed favorably by reviewers.

bazz26

captainspeed wrote: »

The Vectra B sold by the bucketload in the UK regardless of the motoring reviews and JD Power results. How such rubbish was so popular is one of life's greatest mysteries.

Massive fleet discounts helped immensely. Also the Cavalier and Mondeo were the default British rep mobile for donkey years.

Hurrache

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

They were still dung though, terrible build and reliability.

But that's not true. A recent post from the Honest John website when someone asked a question about them

Strangely, we get far fewer complaints of problems with Vauxhalls (especially Corsas) than we do of, for example, Volkswagens and Fords. Nothing wrong with ex-rental. But the old, belt cam 2.0CDTi is still a bit suspect compared to GM Vauxhall Opel's latest range of chain cam, manifold in head engines.

zilog_jones

Honest John seems to be based entirely on hearsay and anecdotal evidence - that information is statistically useless. Of course they get more complaints about VW and Ford - they sell more!

Hurrache

You're dead right. Whereas boards.ie is bar stool driven, and coincidentally full of anecdotes, so how silly of me.

Leonard Hofstadter

We all have our own preferences and our own ideas of what's a reliable car, and what's not.

Even the surveys can be flawed (but they are in some sense objective and based on actual data not on our own anecdotes or man in the pub talk), I mean one type of car could have say a known problem with ball joints, and say 80% cars will suffer from the problem, and it costs say €150.

Another car may have a very rare problem with the timing chain snapping, it only happens 0.5% of cars with that engine but if it went you're talking about a new engine worth €10,000, or else taking a chance on a second-hand one for maybe €2,000.

You could say either car is the 'best' for reliability depending on how much value you place on the cost of repairs versus the chances of a car needing a repair in the first place.

JohnBoy26

Hurrache wrote: »

But that's not true. A recent post from the Honest John website when someone asked a question about them

It's true alrite. They are terrible balls of sh1te. They are one of the worst modern cars out there.

mvl

j4vier wrote: »

Got an email today from OnStar saying that the services for Vauxhall cars will end in December 2020.

Anyone with an opel got the same email? I presume that it will be for all GM cars

It's unfortunate as I liked the service

Wonder if this also means new accounts for Vauxhall cars can't be setup meanwhile (until 2020 ?!?). I just started reading about Onstar today // don't know yet if there is a transfer of ownership available for the 3 year old Opel I would be getting next week.

road_high

JoeA3 wrote: »

Amazing how Opel's brand image and product line up has gone down the toilet in the last 5-8 years. They were once a huge favourite here, particularly when they were shirt sponsors of the Irish soccer team!

I can't think of a single model in their line up that I'd consider looking at.

The Koreans have blown them out of the water.

And that's gotten even worse in the past 4/5 years really. They are a perfectly good example of how to take a once blue chip brand and flush down the toilet- something GM seem to have a particular knack at doing.
American corporations are all the same- forever meddling with quality to save the last cent, at the expense of the bigger picture.

road_high

colm_mcm wrote: »

PSA will want to move Opel/Vauxhall away from the unprofitable fleet and hire car market which accounts for a lot of their sales.

But who else is going to buy them? You need a brand these days and sadly GM have destroyed theirs.

road_high

Hurrache wrote: »

As was said, the varying trim levels and specs made a huge difference. Basic cheap model wasn't particularly nice to be in or drive, but as you went up the range they became much better, SRi's being a lovely drive.

Spec transforms the Insignia. Poverty spec ones are horrific, SRI and above are quite nice.

JohnBoy26

road_high wrote: »

And that's gotten even worse in the past 4/5 years really. They are a perfectly good example of how to take a once blue chip brand and flush down the toilet- something GM seem to have a particular knack at doing.
American corporations are all the same- forever meddling with quality to save the last cent, at the expense of the bigger picture.

Opel were never really a quality brand though and were middling to poor in terms of reliability for the most part.

Gm had owned opel since 1929

SCOOP 64

Doesn't the Insignia have engine seizing problems with diesels up 2011 been some threads on here with the problems and that with the recall for zafiras which was slow coming going on fire.

road_high

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

Opel were never really a quality brand though and were middling to poor in terms of reliability for the most part.

Gm had owned opel since 1929

Aware of that but they had a freer, more independent management up to the early 90s. Thereafter GM started taking a more direct influence and that's when the rot set in. Opel did mean quality back in the 70s/80s- cars like the Rekord were high quality cars for the time and established a good reputation. Things nosed dived in the mid-late 90s in terms of quality and reliability. Well documented issues with engine management, timing chains on Corsa and Astras for example.
The engineering division of Opel is/was still better than GM's and I think they will miss that.

road_high

Said it before but new Insignia styling is disappointing. Cars out 3-5 years before it in the same class such as the Passat and Mazda 6 are far better looking and fresher in my opinion.