Opel Vectra C with a Mileage: Weaknesses of the Body and Troubled Electrics

The sill below is usually intact and suffers a lot only when the molding mounting holes are depressurized, there is a serious accumulation of dirt or the plug inside the rear arch has fallen out. There is still damage in the car service and tire shop, it mainly affects the lower rib and the sill reinforcement seam. The edge of the rear arch is another traditional headache. It rusts slowly but surely. The edge is not covered with anything: there is neither film, nor plastic liner, so that chipping occurs almost inevitably. The joint with the inner arch is literally a few centimeters on the inner surface, although moisture does not collect in the flap. If you touch up chips in time, there won’t be any problem, but most owners of cars don’t bother and wait until there is corrosion on the outer surface, the inner seam rots, and a layer of zinc “gets off” the entire wing panel. As a result of such “care” sooner or later the edge has to be welded.

The front edge of a roof over a windshield rots badly, there is neither zinc coating, nor big molding. Sandblasting often damages the paintwork, and the owners, again, don’t bother with cosmetic repairs.

From below

On the elevator assess the aforementioned inner seam of the rear arch, and at the same time, all the internal surfaces. The locks here are very conventional, the front wall is not properly protected, and the seams and the sill plug remain a very vulnerable part of the body.

You also need to inspect the shock absorber mount very carefully. Especially if there are signs of leakage of shock absorber itself – in this case the load on the body is greatly increased.

It is desirable to examine the cavity under the sill plates in the rear part – there accumulates dirt, and severe corrosion can develop. The linings are fastened on 12 pistons, it is unreal to take them out on a strange car, but exactly in the rear part you can carefully take off the threshold “toward you” under the back door edge and look into the gap. Quite good if there is a compressor to blow out the cavity to remove the dirt and assess the condition of the metal.

Front fender

In front, under the plastic, you can try to see the condition of the lower part of the front fender, there is also often an inconspicuous outward focus of corrosion.

The age of the car doesn’t influence much on the state of the thresholds, it is more important the presence or absence of anticorrosion and how often and thoroughly the car washed.

The underside of majority of cars is not damaged, but it is necessary to examine closely the area around drain plugs, they are evidently planted without additional treatment, so plugs get rotten all around.

Brake tubes are often all bloated by 10 years old, so brake fluid leaks are just a matter of time. Very rusty subframe brackets and heat shield mounting bolts are another feature of the model. On the last generation, the woes were similar.

Usually there’s a little more rust on the body surfaces in the fuel tank recess and along the edges of the wheel arches, as well as under the trunk panel – not much mastic here, but the rust is shallow, superficial. The oldest cars may have rotted seams of floor spars, especially at places of contact with ground and at undercarriages. But in general, the condition of a car is quite acceptable.

Since VIN here is on the floor panel under a front passenger seat, the interior inspection is obligatory. Wet floors are definitely a reason for serious inspection with carpets lifting. But even if they are dry, you should not relax. VIN itself rots quite often, if it was already cleaned once, and the seams of seats’ brackets and interior’s cross-cut often have corrosion even at cars with normal dry interior. The usual condensation and a little wetness in winter is enough to form the first points of rust, but thanks to the zinc, there is no badly rotten floors.

In the trunk of wagons and hatchbacks for the floors also need control, especially in humid regions – they often get wet after heavy rains, as the drains of the opening are not organized very well.

Body equipment

Disappointment in Opel quality usually comes from various trifles. There is a lot of these troubles, because the big car is actually rather budgetary by solutions. Inexpensive plastic, economy on fastenings and the manufacturer’s aim on simplicity of a design are felt.

Micro-switches in locks fail, motors fail with time (especially the motor drive tailgate and trunk lid), bumper skids are fragile as in the “French”, the wiper blade gets stuck easily and without any difficulty (they put bushes from Hover), gas stops last 10 years and begin to fail. The aluminum base of the mirrors corrodes, causing problems with mechanism jamming and simply losing their appearance.

Headlight mounts are weak (thankfully, there are repair ones). Lens modules on the pre-restyle are dead in literally all cars, on the restyle – in almost all cars. Fortunately, the disassembly of the headlight is not so difficult, and there are new glasses for it too. Headlight adjuster fails mainly because of weak body position sensors – they have zero tightness. Turn signal repeaters are leaky too, repeaters bulbs are fraying, there are problems with contacts and rear switching unit…

The tank mounting straps are rotting and tearing, surprises are possible after 10 years, especially when removing the tank.

It is necessary to change the antenna seals on the roof – through them water gets inside. Also at mileages over 200 (especially if the car is operated in the city) it is better to change not only the door limiters, but also the driver’s door seal.

It is worth to speak separately about a design of window lifters. They are lever here, thorough. But cars with the broken glass guide and its warp are often found. The motor is powerful, and if the guide clears, it simply crushes the levers. The trouble is that the mechanism is riveted to the door, so it is a non-trivial task to disassemble and remove it. Even to change a guide is difficult, it demands skills of proctologist with dremel, as a result the penny problem is solved long and expensive, so check operation of window lifters from the front.

All in all, there will be plenty of problems on the small equipment side. Almost all of them are inexpensive, but may riddles your nerves.

Interior

Interior of the Vectra C is very spacious, especially by the standards of the D-class of the early 00’s. Quality of finishing thus is not bad – with runings up to 200 thousand the interior keeps quite exemplary look, giving out age only by shine of a steering wheel and door handles. The cover of a gearbox lever of machines with manual transmission is still noticeably aged. The floor carpet is almost always greasy, it does not like mud here. On the versions with combined upholstery the sides of a driver’s seat are wiped out strongly. If armchairs are solid fabric, the seams of driver’s seat on the left side and edge of backrest roll start to give up only under the heaviest drivers with mileages over 200.

Unfortunately, again, there are enough small typical breakdowns. For example, a broken armrest lock. CID and GID displays are not distinguished by the longevity of backlighting – surrenders miniature fluorescent tube of very rare (and expensive) size, as well as display plumes and soldering the original magnets on the buttons. Multimedia system firmware regularly flies off, and, inconveniently, all work is tied to the code carpass, which will have to order from the dealer if the last owner does not know it, or pull out of the display / stereo / dashboard with the programmer.

It is also possible to refer the breakdowns of control unit for climate control, both manual and automatic. First of all, it is a failure of the central button, it stops working or responding to rotation. It is cured usually by soldering of a board, for one (or several at once) of 5 contacts of multiswitch-encoder is unsoldered. The switch itself rarely breaks. The left switch also fails quite often, there are also problems with soldering. Similarly often the resonator at 4 MHz fails, and “climate” in this case simply does not work. Interestingly, the climate units on the restyling and prestyling are not compatible, but their problems are quite the same.

In addition to purely electrical problems, the air conditioner tubes corrode to the point of fistulas (it looks like they saved on material). It’s especially common with the lower tube under the condenser. And also a fan motor likes to “call out”. Once in a while the control unit fails, but this is usually a secondary problem, when the motor is already jammed. The problem is eliminated by replacing the transistor in the block.

Breakages of the steering wheel controllers are tied to CIM, and therefore it is more logical to consider them in the next section.

Electrics

Quite a few complaints about the electronics of cars produced before 2004 on later years have been eliminated. But if you get an early car, there may be nuances of block failures with overheated ECU on motors 1.6 / 1.8, the rear REC fuse block – most often the inoperative “lights” and backlight associated with failures in it.

Failures of CIM – block of dashboard and steering wheel switches commutation – are also probable. In this case, car “loses” its keys, won’t start, malfunctions of airbags, steering wheel sensor, related systems malfunctions, dashboard crashes, confusing readings… In short, there are chances of being left in a freezing car in the winter in the woods.

Over the years, CIM-modules became more reliable, at the same time they learned how to bind used ones, not only new ones, which radically reduced the severity of the problem. While for some inexplicable reason on the right-hand English cars (under the brand name Vauxhall) are better blocks, they almost never have problems.

2002-2003 cars with CIM version XR (version of block can be seen on its end, just turn the wheel and look in the slot between the steering wheel and the column, at the upper left) should be avoided, or immediately put in the budget $ 150-300 for a replacement block. Or, if you want reliable solution, $300-500 at once for replacement on the block from restyling with accompanying replacement of steering wheel, radio, screen, climate unit and wiring harness.