JULIO
I had a Holden Astra CDTI 2009 Station Wagon Model and bought new for $28,000, I used it to travel to Sydney a fair bit and tow crap to the waste station, never missed a beat!
Super reliable and mega economic, it got too small for us, it has every safety feature you an hope for, only issue was that the family moved to Melb and no more 'LONG' trips... this resulted on the EGR Valve becoming dirty and the Bloody thing died.... so local short trips are not good. the Diesel 1.9 has a lot of torque and I hauled big heavy crap with it with no issues whatsoever.
Tree
Well we (my family) must have bought the wrong Astra AH for sis because that thing is a slug, 1.8L petrol sucks and kinda underpowered. Torque is ok for a 1.8, really average. Only redeeming quality is the auto transmission which is seamless and even disengages when stationary, and the chassis/suspension firmness which is actually alright.
Angus242164
Was the wagon manual or auto? Diesel wagons seem pretty rare and the couple I did find for sale were auto's which didn't suit me, a manual wagon would have been my ideal variant.
One of my wife's friends now has an auto 1.8 petrol and I thought the power was reasonable, auto behaves well, but it seems quite heavy on fuel, and lacks a bunch of features that the CDTi has, including some of the safety related stuff like curtain airbags.
Tree
I should mention it was an early 2004 model with the 90kw engine. Apparently later they revised the engine giving 103kw and more torque. Gets up to speed fine but no overtaking power. Maybe deep inside I'm a V8 guy who has been deprived all his life...
JULIO
yeah, there is a big difference with the 204 model and the 2009, the 1.9litre diesel 'Turbo' engine has a massive pull... errr well by 2 litre engine standards.. the turbo makes all the difference, Plus every single added safety feature you can imagine...
I have since driven the Holden cruzes 2011 - 2012 models and the petrol engines are just crap on those vehicles... no pull whatsoever!
I used to get a lot of pull from the start from the turbo diesel in 'sport' mode...
The guys that bought my station wagon got a bargain that's for sure.. and he was complaining about a few small scratches... ;o)
Angus242164
I've been playing with the sport button on mine a bit lately, all it does is alter the response of the throttle body relative to pedal input, so rather than say, 50% pedal travel = 50% throttle opening, with the button pressed 50% pedal travel may = ~65% throttle opening, with a pretty big improvement in responsiveness.
I like to call it the torque steer button. :))
Apparently on some European models with electronically controlled struts it also alters the stiffness of the suspension, but I don't think any Australian models had that system.
With a young son who needs to be regularly strapped into a child seat, the lack of a centre interior light is something that has really annoyed me about this car, it only has one between the sunvisors. I found an '08 model in a wreckers last weekend with an updated headliner that has two lights in the centre rear, extra map lights in the front, and better buttons for the lights, so I grabbed it for $60. I'm not looking forward to putting it in though.
Angus242164
I may as well give this thread an update. We're up to 270k on the clock now, and aside from regular maintenance stuff it hasn't needed much work. It's thrown up a few issues from time to time, but nothing too expensive or stressful to deal with. I change the oil and filter every 10k, even though the schedule is every 15k.
The one exception is a common issue with cars using this gearbox, the end case bearings tend to wear and you get a whine in 5th and 6th on decel. It started to do this on longer drives (as the gearbox heats up) and I decided to get in early and replace them, rather than risk any gear damage if a bearing failed. I spent about $150 on the set of three bearings from the UK and $80 on synthetic gear oil, plus $90 on a gear puller, and it was off the road for a few days while I removed the box and pulled it apart. One of the three bearings had visible wear on the races.
We've done 70k since then and it's still silent so I'm calling it a successful job.
We fitted a towbar at the start of the year ($60 for the towbar on Ebay, something like $6 for the trailer harness at the wreckers) and it tows with ease, you don't feel the drag of a trailer at all, it just uses more fuel while towing.
The later headliner/interior lights ended up being easy to fit, and make a big improvement to the car, I don't know why they didn't all come that way standard.
It's still a fun car to drive and still getting close to 6.0L/100km so I'm very satisfied with it.
