Event Cavcraft's Real Life Road Tests: warning: Contains shit van.

[Cavcraft]

Let's kick this one off with a new* Bottom Trumps style thing.

 

 

 

 

What do we have here, then?

 

An ex-Post Office, pigeon shit welded Corsa Combo van with a 1.7 diesel engine.

 

Special features, fixes and results:

 

FEATURE: The driver's seat has less stuffing than a freshly steam-rollered anorexic ant. FIX: shoved a rag into it. RESULT: lumpy arse, but more comfortable than listing to one side

 

FEATURE: Front tyre keeps going flat. FIX: Stirrup type bicycle pump lobbed in the back. RESULT: Saved me a fortune in 50p air pumps at petrol stations.

 

FEATURE: Lost 1st, 3rd and reverse gears in town during rush hour. FIX: Cable tied gear linkage back on when I got home. RESULT: Completely forgotten about 'til now, saved me £18 on some fancy part.

 

FEATURE: Yellow 'golden showers' light comes on on the dashboard after a few miles. FIX: Nothing. RESULT: Pretend it's not there.

 

FEATURE: Two different door mirrors, one possibly off a Leyland Daf lorry. FIX: Ignore. RESULT: Someone else has used self tappers to hold the driver's one in place. Flaps in wind. Pretend it's not happening.

 

FEATURE: Hilarious pigeon shit welding in myriad places. FIX: Ignore. RESULT: Pretend not to see hole in floor behind seats.

 

Special features: Able to swallow most of broken up kitchen from a house. Surprisingly agile off the line. Everybody gives you a very wide berth when you drive it. I took the CD player out to replace it with another one, realised even that was beyond me, now I have no music. Listen to squeaks and rattles not fun.

 

It's actually ok to drive, not setting the world alight ok, but just ok. If you're daft enough to want a van to blezz about it thinking you're cool, then this isn't the one, but it's just not as hateful as it could be. It doesn't quite carry that load area squeaking off in the same way as empty old Tranny would, and the engine (thanks I suspect to stupid emissions things) sounds a bit strangled, but all modern diesels seem that way to me. Not sure anyone would be insane enough to have one as their only wheels, you'd want something less ancient smelly Vauxhall van than this, I'm sure.  

 

 

Would I recommend a shitty diesel Vauxhall that's part of the Corsa family to other people, though? Yes, yes I would. It holds a reasonable cargo, most things seem to work and aside from perhaps a an older Berlingo with an XUD, it's probably one of the better small old vans. Not a hard mantle to have, considering some absolute world class shit like Escorts etc to compare it to.

 

I'm giving it a 7.5/10, a newer, better example would be ideal, but I like the fact it's awful and it 'does the van thing' perfectly well.

 

 

  

 

(Calibra one later)

[Lacquer Peel]

I visited an air machine at a garage recently that charges £1 per vend. GTF!

 

These things are a bit miserable to drive, especially the 1.3 Fiat diesel one.

 

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

[Bren]

I used one many moons ago to shift a fuck load of slabs - the thick ones councils used to use.

 

It moved them but the way the arse end went side to side was most disconcerting.....

[Timewaster]

Bottom trumps. Lol! Blame it on Barbara Cartland dog.

[nacho man]

There is something alluring about blezzing about in a old crock of shit. I often take the 172 thousand mile pez corsa works van home for no reason at all.

[Negative Creep]

So which episode of Police Interceptors was it previously in?

[chaseracer]

The next one...

[beko1987]

Just laughed so hard I woke the baby up, I DEMAND COMPENSASHUN

 

Fucking lol, more of this sort of thing please!

[Dave_Q]

These are deffo APPROVED VANSHITE, I had one of the old Corsa B based ones and it was ace, lots of miles to teh gallon on veg.

 

Mine shared some of the same features, lost all gear changing on my way back from the seaside once so drove from Grantham to Nottingham in 4th only.

It didn't have the pigeonshit welding so I had to install that myself for an MOT.

 

I found myself driving it over other theoretically more worth steeds just cos it was so cheap to run, and I didn't mind leaving it in shady parts of town overnight while I was out.

[beko1987]

Whilst round a friends house drinking beers last night I mentioned the Suzuki Zafira, and he didn;t believe me, so I showed him, but then found these:

 

 

 

Which are utterly fantastic, and I usually hate corsa's! My mate properly didn't get it and is not a shiter at all it seems, but fuck him, their ace

 

Get one of these... South Africa I think. They even do dodgy cab back versions

 

[beko1987]

The Meriva did the loosing gears thing too, I bought a metal linkage bit for £8 from ebay, works much better now! Amy got quite adept at loosing gears, hazards on, bonnet up, popping it back on and carrying on her way for the week it took it to arrive, didn't think of a cable tie at the time!

[Split_Pin]

Canny be bad if the Posties use them, they got rallied 6 days a week there!

[oldcars]

Whilst round a friends house drinking beers last night I mentioned the Suzuki Zafira, and he didn;t believe me, so I showed him, but then found these:

 

opel_c2-1.jpg

 

opel-corsa-pickup_0e071.jpg

 

Which are utterly fantastic, and I usually hate corsa's! My mate properly didn't get it and is not a shiter at all it seems, but fuck him, their ace

 

Get one of these... South Africa I think. They even do dodgy cab back versions

 

2702874103_00c7d5a649.jpg

Loads of these with the step to get into the back in SA.

[lisbon_road]

The Corsa C has a horrible pop on section made from plastic in the gear linkage.  In an Astra F Mk3, the equivalent bit has ball sockets which can be opened up with clips on the side, still simple but a whole lot better.  They are not the same length but I 'adjusted' the length somehow, can't remember but probably used pipe and hose clips or something.  But it worked and was 100% robust.  And free, if you have the bit of course.

[beko1987]

That astra linkage is how the uprated part fits on the meriva, a big c clip either side that clamps over the ball joint

[somewhatfoolish]

If it's the Isuzu 1.7 dizzler they're more or less indestructible when normally aspirated, even the turbo ones last forever provided the oil's topped up. I had a Corsa B and put 40k very dull miles on it before it died of terminal rust at 175k.