Collected a 1.4 Turbo Meriva from Hertz in Spain last week. It had 4,000 km on the clock when collected, 5,100 when dropped off.
It's one of these funny cars that seem to be the fashion that's taller than a normal car. Great for getting stuff into it. Only a small boot (depth-wise) but the height more than makes up for this. So of course I jacked up the driver's seat high - with the inevitable effect of being unable to see the numbers on the top of the Speedometer. A common fault with Vauxhalls IME. I didn't think much of the visibility; I often felt there were huge blind spots behind pillars/head rests - what happened to the head rests that are shaped like ring doughnuts so you can see through the middle; they improve things a little, anyway.
My hatred of the electronic parking brake has already been discussed here.
Otherwise, it was, well, a car. It drove, it stopped. Definitely a Vauxhall though. They have a particularly distinctive notchy feel in their gear boxes. Being a 1.4 it struggled a bit when doing 130km/h on the French autoroute - noisy and a bit tricky to keep going, I thought. You can see why people will pay more for a more luxurious car - and equally, why in fact they won't do so, for this was a nice little car and I was sad to return it to its stable.
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I had a problem with the organ-pedal pedals!
But I thought it was a well-thought-out car, with tons of clever features and lots of stowage.
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Organ-pedal pedals? Not like any organ I've ever played.
Agree about the storage; I'd meant to mention it. Superb array of pockets and holes.
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A friend of my wife had a new diesel one a few months ago and in the end she took it back to the dealer and refused to leave until they exchanged it. It kept cutting out and apparently when they stall they dont like firing up again, sometimes having to wait several minutes before it would fire up.
This happened quite often on a set of mini roundabouts in town and she was sick of sitting in the middle of them waiting for the car to come back to life. I nearly wet myself when my wife told me. She has a Pug 308 now and loves it.
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"You can see why people will pay more for a more luxurious car - and equally, why in fact they won't do so, for this was a nice little car and I was sad to return it to its stable."
We hired a 5 door Corsa 1.4 SE from Europcar last week to go to the Lake District and couldn't believe how good small cars have become and this is from a model due to be changed next year. Cruise control, heated leather seats and steering wheel (!!). Motorway and B roads were covered in great comfort. Apart from the small boot space we were very tempted to trade in our much larger car and use up our soon to expire GM Card points!
Last edited by: Victorbox on Mon 30 Jul 12 at 21:17
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Vauxhall Meriva B - Some thoughts from a drive of a Meriva - Ian (Cape Town)
