Cockroach cars - A short story of an Astra H 1.8 16v Auto

[SiC]

How many engines can you boil over this bad and have then survived?

 

Surely not many especially on moderns.

I've never seen a car not only boil over in bursts but actually still have it boiling inside the head when off. This is how Mrs SiC friends Astra H 1.8 was dropped off to me after it had been driven 15 miles doing this (!)

Boiling off so bad under the bonnet, it's managed to fill the headlights with condensation. 🤣

Not only that, it's boiled it's coolant off like this at least 6 times so far the last week. How hot? Not sure as there is no gauge in the Astra H however I know the hot warning light was flashing - I think that is around 120c.

Anyway back story. Mrs SiC friend previously owned a 2011 116i - auto as she only has an auto license. Paid £10.5k during COVID inflation but owed nearly £14k in finance over 5 years and would have been a 18+ year old car by the time she paid it off. Being a Prince engine it naturally shat it's chain less than a year in. She paid £4k for a replacement engine. That shat it's piston rings a year later. 

That was sacked off and she's currently paying her mum off after she paid the finance off. I'm sure she could have had comeback but she wasn't up for the fight. Briefly tried but Close Bros finance naturally pushed back as you might expect.

So around August 2024, I procured this nice Astra H 1.8 auto from @Alan_Green on here. Mechanically sorted - including a cambelt + transmission fluid change. Bodywork wasn't perfect but perfectly decent (I knew it'll get a hard life in Bristol anyway). Price was much better than any other equivalent vehicle on the general market. 

This has been serving her well. It did need an oil cooler change (TADIS) a few months in and I think something else but I forget what. Maybe the water pump? It doesn't look as shiny now, mostly as Bristol streets are hard on cars (including keyed marks 🫤).

All was going swimmingly until about 2 weeks ago now. It kept boiling over and one of her boyfriends mates looked at it, who declared HGF as it was bubbling up the tank. I wasn't convinced. Apart from these being pretty hard to have HGF, I wanted to be really sure it was dead as getting an Auto car nowadays is not easy or cheap. 

So last weekend I popped over for a look. Basically I could see it rapidly getting up to temperature but the radiator return hose to the thermostat stayed cold. I wussed out watching it rise when the diag port was reporting 118c. That radiator return hose was still only 38c when probed it with the IR thermometer. Thermostat opening temperature is supposed to be 105c... No flashing warning light for overheating on the dash, so that must come at higher temps, I think above 120c 😱.

So the diagnosis looked like the thermostat had jammed shut. I know it's plausible to happen but I've never seen it actually happen - I've only ever seen them opening early/stuck open. Which should be a fail-safe failure method. But it stuck shut is what all the information was given me.

The wobble on the water pump pulley made it look a bit suss too. However she had driven it ~15 miles back and forth to cribs causeway. I'd be surprised no coolant flow would allow an engine to go that far without cooking itself.

 

I offered to repair it but I ended up having to bail the day after when I realised I simply wouldn't have time. My life has too much going on with work and other stuff to play with cars. It also only had a month's MOT left. So I suggested she booked it into a garage for a new thermostat and MOT. 

That happened yesterday. Garage did an MOT, replaced a tyre and ... instead of changing the thermostat they replaced the coil pack and plugs. Great. When she asked why not they said "oh we couldn't see any leaks so assumed it was okay". Anyhow it naturally boiled back over on the 2 mile journey home like it has done everytime since. 

I'm pretty sure they didn't really listen to her because she was female. I've seen this before with other friends.

So after all that and being stuck in a bit of a bind, I offered to sort it today. After all it was a lovely day for a bit of car fettling and I haven't done any in a while.

The thermostat was procured from Halfords (of all places) - who buy from ECP and offers it at a better price. It's a 'Verment Colorsat' Thermostat and definitely not my first choice. I'd much rather go genuine on 'stats. However my options are pretty limited to get one same day on a Saturday morning. GSF had a BGA but I'm pretty sure that's what is currently in it and I didn't trust it.

By late morning the car arrived on my drive in the state of the top video. When I saw it like this, I didn't have much hope of it not being utterly cooked. I really didn't want to chuck parts at it if the engine was knackered. Plus I'm definitely not doing a Head Gasket on a modern OHC engine on my drive. Too old for that shite.

To check for HGF, I tried one of these sniff test kits. Ended up doing it three times and every time it came back green. Blue is fresh, yellow is hydrocarbons and green is inconclusive. Great!

Fresh

After 4mins running it definitely was off colour. Still a blue hue but definitely green tint.

This didn't help my estimation that it might be fucked.

But I didn't have any evidence to say it was actually terminally broken. While the Sniff test failed, it had been driven here over 10 miles in stop+start traffic and it was still running without bubbling if it was run after it had cooled down.

Not much else to do but chuck the thermostat on and see what happens. Nice and easy job on these. Only thing of note is that the top hose has bulged a bit around the thermostat side. Probably could do with a new hose.

I couldn't see anything visually much wrong with the insides. If I get time tomorrow, I'll put a heat gun on it and see if it opens. I did push it open and it felt like it was sticking a bit. But it was getting 15c above opening temperature without opening which I'd thought it would have unstuck by then.

Filled up with water, ran up to temperature and it was opening correctly. Thank goodness. Gave it a few more cycles and it suddenly decided to boil off all it's coolant again 🫤

Having a poke around, I noticed that the cap had fallen apart internally. Damn it, I nearly bought a spare! Shops now shut, there isn't much I can do. Except Amazon has a Febi in stock for tomorrow. Ordered.

Going back to the cap, I managed to push it all back together. This little brass disc popped off. Presumably because it was fed up of being boiled over so many times.

I did briefly wonder if this was the original problem but pretty sure not as that radiator hose wasn't hot when it was driven here. I believe these caps love to break for a laugh anyway. So boiled over one too many times was just enough for it to give up in life.

With that back together, I ran it up to temperature a few more times and took it for a drive. 

After a good 10 miles with no issues I declared it fixed.

Quite remarkable considering it's been through so much abuse. Pretty sure if I did this to any of my BMWs or VAG vehicles, they'd be dead on the first time being boiled off - let alone 6+ times.

Looking underneath I think the radiator might be passed its best though. Seems to be holding for now but I'll advise it'll need changing soon. The air con condenser is proper banana and the whole bottom of it has fallen off 🙃

With that done, I set on repairing the awful oil leak it has. It was running down the front of the engine and cooking off on the cat. I'm not sure if the oil cooler gasket is leaking again (maybe from all the super hot heat cycles it has). However this crack in the rocker cover is not going to be helping the oil burning smoke emanating from under the bonnet.

Again TADIS. I bought a BGA cover with gasket from GSF. Piece of cake to fit. 

It wasn't as tragic under here as I feared. Pretty sure it's not had an oil change in 20k miles but it wasn't all sludged up. 

Also dropped and replaced the engine oil. The oil filter broke in half when pulling it out. Forgot to take a picture but I might do tomorrow. Trying to look at individual pletes had it completely disintegrate further in my hand. 😕🫣

Poor thing.

After buttoning it all back up, I went for another drive. 

I have to say, these things drive really well for what they are. Nothing fancy at all but comfortable suspension, smooth changing boxes and quiet engines. Not my cup of tea as not enough liability but brilliant "A CAR" bargain bangers and everything you need in such a device. Not the best in fuel and hence high road tax but otherwise everything part wise is cheap. Tyres less than 50 quid a pop, filters a fiver each and stuff is stocked everywhere.

I'll probably need to see it again and replace that radiator at some point soon. Just £55 from eBay for the part! Bargain.

Yes it's cost a bit to get it sorted and I know some on here would have said scrap it. But so far the spend to get it back on the road is a third of something of equivalent model + age + mileage. Plus the massive unknown of buying something unknown versus sorting this.

So there we have it, the cockroach lives on. It's off to Cornwall next week and I'm hopeful it'll make it just fine (famous last words!)

[Agila]

I had exact same engine in a Vectra boiling up like that. I'd dropped the cap while topping up by accident and my dog ran off with it (true story), dog was unharmed but the cap was a little bit chewed. New cap sorted it for about £20 from Vauxhall. The expansion tank can have little cracks in it and that has the same symptoms.

[Split_Pin]

Great write up Si. I got tired of telling people that this era of Vauxhalls were in fact not shit and now that I've not owned one for many years I just stopped caring. They really are decent things though. Thats why there's still loads of Astra Hs left, even a few Gs. 

I had a thermostat fail shut on my Corsa B which as you say is very unusual. Although the engine died a few years later from something unrelated, I went out and bought a replacement unit for £50 and it went for many years more.

Hopefully it continues to give good service now and that radiator holds up.

[Dobloseven]

I looked after my late cousins Astra H 1.8 Auto estate for a good few years, eventually selling it to jcr of the parish last year.My cousin would run it with no coolant in it and little oil.A leak was eventually traced to the "snap on" heater hoses where they go into the bulkhead.Parts were unobtainium,but I bought some that were similar and took the seals out of them to use.Not having a temperature gauge isn't good,but they do seem pretty indestructible and the estate is a useful load carrier being longer wheelbase than the hatch.Good TC auto as well.

[SiC]

2 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Vauxhalls were in fact not shit

What annoys me on them is the stupid issues they have. Door harnesses that fail, ECUs mounted on the engine that die from heat+vibration, over complicated 'CIM' indicator stalk modules and other things that fail because of general GM penny pinching. They were however some of the cheapest cars on the road when new and loved by the fleet buyers. 

My biggest gripe with Vauxhall is more of a personal one. For some reason my back hate Vauxhall seats. No idea why but they give me bad back ache after a few hours sat in one. Other vehicles don't do it. I have heard the sports seats that Vauxhall did were more forgiving.

2 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Thats why there's still loads of Astra Hs left, even a few Gs. 

The Astra G definitely was the high point of Vauxhall/Opel toughness. The H went all fancy interiors and electronics which was where the market was going to. But that all broke, unlike many of the tough engines carried over and battled on. Just the interiors of the G looked like the plastic you got in Xmas chocolate boxes and the general styling was very generic. Perfectly fine for an appliances but it could have done with a bit more zazz. 

As you said though, they're surviving on. No doubt still ran on a meager budgets and only die from complete lack of maintenance.

For me the 2000-era car is the high point of the automotive industry. Relatively easy to work on, common diagnostic tools, generally bullet proof mechanicals and have a lot of car crash survivability.

[beko1987]

I rated the 1.8 we had nailed into a zafira B quite highly tbh. 32mpg wether you were grannying along of being an utter hooligan/normal zafira B driver. I'd play with the local yoofs in their golfs and fiestas with it (and get far more of a reaction of of them than when I did/do the same in the xsara or qq 🤔)

It split some vacuum line which I bodged with tape which then outlasted the car but otherwise it was the rest of the car around the engine was was typical Vauxhall.

Hopefully it's hardy enough to not have done the hg 🤞

[Alan_Green]

Impressive write up.  And you certainly seem to know what you're doing.  Well done for helping out.  Once again the real winners are the friends and family of Autoshiters.  When I sold that car I was worried about the dodgy engine note for the first 2 seconds after start-up.  Wiser minds told me ignore it as they all do that sir.  And 20K later it's other stuff causing the problems and not the engine oil "rolling too far back" overnight.  I'll be putting that fact into my memory banks and using it as a buyer negotiating tool the next time someone asks me to source a ULEZ compliant auto (which seems to have been the most popular request of the 2020s).  Vauxhall 1.8 autos will be my "go to" for ULEZ autos.  Good job!

[SiC]

3 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

They really are decent things though

They are my go to choice for people who want a cheap car that is reliable. I know others say the same (iirc @Kiltox)

I don't think I could sensibly own one though. 

As an example looking for a cheap auto that's sub £2k on autotrader near me...

This is the correct option:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202602029602392?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android-app

 

But scrolling down to the next car is the one I'd go for:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202602139912941?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android-app

One is simple, reliable and cheap to run from a dealer that has good reviews. The other is a complex, needy and £700+ tax bracket car from a dealer with zero reviews.

But that's more my problem than the cars themselves.

[MrGTI6]

I admire your perseverance. It might seem like a lot of hassle for an old car, but the alternative is spending an absolute fortune replacing it with an unknown quantity. 

My uncle had an Astra of the same vintage; a poverty-spec 1.6 estate. He had it from new and took it up to just shy of 200k. I helped him sell it on here a year or two ago and it was still running and driving really well. 

Out of curiosity I just checked the MOT database and it passed just a few days ago, now on 213k!

[SiC]

13 minutes ago, MrGTI6 said:

I admire your perseverance. It might seem like a lot of hassle for an old car, but the alternative is spending an absolute fortune replacing it with an unknown quantity. 

There is something distinctly satisfying about bringing back a car that is at the brink of being scrapped into one that is a usable device again. My current fear is that top hose with a slight bulge in near where it clamps on. Nothing severe but it's definitely broken down a bit. 

However it also all needs to be done on a budget. I'm too used to repairing all the things to make it near perfect again. Just sometimes things need to be done on a budget and costs kept under control to what is only really needed.

If I do the radiator, I will put it on the shopping list though. At £15 for a Gates hose, it's a no brainer. Likewise the expansion tank for £25 FEBI unit as the one on there has gone through a lot of intense heat/cool cycles pushed to max pressure.

[cort16]

Is the old 8v 2.0 Vauxhall engines in cavalier and stuff not one of the great unburstabke engine .

[tooSavvy]

AVAS..... I won't bore everyone 🫠

Remote Auto cooler (Astra J)

EPAS failed (scrap fix = £120)

100k this week.... I think I might get my tame spanner guy to *check Oil Cooler 🫣

Does 4 Me 🚀

🚙💨

[Bren]

My lad has a 59 plate 1.4 H. I chose it because pez, timing chain and no dmf. It had sub 50k when he bought it. It has a few dents but he's not bothered.

It needs brakes up front and the boot won't open - I can't look at it for him if he is in work or with his girlfriend though.

[Bren]

2 hours ago, cort16 said:

Is the old 8v 2.0 Vauxhall engines in cavalier and stuff not one of the great unburstabke engine .

I had the 1.8 in a mk 2 sri. Had over 140 k when it died - still had it's original camshaft- a testament to regular servicing.

[RoverFolkUs]

Crikey, that is impressive

It has to be said I don't think the equivalent era chain driven 1.0/1.2/1.4 would have survived an overheat like that, I've seen them OMGHGF if you sneeze near them. The belt driven 1.6 and 1.8 definitely seem a lot more robust and the engines to go for in these. 

[SiC]

AVAS. At least with door wiring and as common issue as VAG of this era is with door locks. Actually wasn't too bad a job to sort this. A couple wires snapped and a few in the process of doing so. All soldered up and heatshrinked. 

After replacing the fob battery, all doors now lock and unlock on the central locking again. That door had a habit of deadlocking shut and not opening. I managed after a bit of fiddling with a Tech2 to get it open and she left it open when it had its MOT so it didn't fail on it. 

This is the bulge on the top hose. Not ideal but I don't think it's at risk of imminent failure. (Actually looking at it, I think worse than I remember!)

 

Anyway it's all looking much cleaner under the bonnet with it's fresh valve cover. I gave it a wipe down to clean off some of the crud and made it a bit more presentable. Still smells a bit from burning oil but I think that's just where so much was on the front of the engine, the remnants are dripping on it. 

Cap arrived when I was doing the door loom so fitted that. Replaced the pollen filter - albeit the one that came out was in not bad condition. Then gave it a quick hoover and a quick Steve Wonder car wash (did it in the dark). Just to make it feel a bit fresher for her. I always think a clean car makes it feel so much nicer and I don't understand how people can drive around in something filthy.

She came over earlier and we took it for a spin to get it up to temperature again to check the new cap was behaving. It now seems to like to sit at 99c when up to temperature. I presume the correct coolant is helping do that versus straight water when I was testing.

I thought the thermostat had a coolant temperature sensor connected to it but I'm not actually sure that is the case? I need to look at the one that came off but I'm wondering if it's one of these electronically controlled thermostats like BMWs have? Basically they have a little heater to heat up the wax in the thermostat to allow it opening earlier. Thus can control more accurately the operation of it.

Then she chucked a bit of petrol in, dropped me back home and she went on her way. Mrs SiC said she got home safe and it "drove like a dream" in the 15 miles back. At least it's not filling the cabin with steam now. I forgot to say that when it arrived yesterday, her sun was curled up in the front seat with a hoody on as he was getting blasted through the air vents from the coolant steam. 😳

Probably helped it driving nicely than when she last did when I pumped up the rear tyre from 10 psi back to 30psi and reduced the (just fitted) front tyres from 40psi to the correct 33psi !

I also asked when it last had an oil change. "Err that was when whoever had it before me...". I gave the advice to have it done every year with the MOT.

Also passed on the details of the local garage that I usually use in Bristol. They're sound as a pound and won't screw her over. She'll get booked in to do the radiator. Only issue is that it can be at least a 3 week wait till you can get a slot nowadays. I probably should stop recommending them so much as they then get those people recommending to others and even more busy. 😂 

Let's hope it gets back and forth from Cornwall tomorrow and this week. She does have breakdown cover at least. I dare not ask if she's checked the T&C that it doesn't have age limit clauses in it...

[IronStar]

14 hours ago, SiC said:

The Astra G definitely was the high point

I’m always confused when people talk about Astra Gs as anything but grim. Brother Star has a LPG converted 1.6 16v Astra G estate, and it’s one of the most dreadful cars I’ve ever driven. The interior is depressing, electrics have mind of its own, it’s a car that had more FTPs than my entire fleet, combined, since I got my drivers license, every time it was serviced parts were dodgy, engine failed spectacularly, steering wheel is loosely connected to the wheels. Utter misery on wheels. Not helped by him never washing the thing so it’s always filthy inside.
On top of my head, it’s only beaten by 1.0 Corsa B on the worst car I’ve ever driven chart. 

EDIT: Skoda Rapid is worse as well. Only car that reliably managed to make my back hurt in 20 minutes or less. Those can get in the sea.

[beko1987]

I've done that door loom a few times now! The fun part is getting the deadlocked back door open. Luckily zafira B door cards bend very well and I ripped it off the closed door but for the passenger side I went in through the speaker hole and twisted the snapped wires together enough for the central locking to fire and the door opened.

Had to do it on my Xsara too though, both front doors have had it done. I checked on my qq and it's bodge free (for now).

When my initial repair on the first door failed a year later I spent half an hour and pulled the B pillar trim out, pulled the entire loom back through and replaced the cable runs right down so the spider joints were nowhere near the bendage. It all outlasted the car.

Had to change the rocker cover gasket on the 1.6 meriva mostly because it leaked down onto the exhaust manifold and the ex didn't like the smoke and smell that produced 🙄 

[horriblemercedes]

My brother drastically overheated his Corsa repeatedly. Sorted the issue (no coolant in it as a hose had failed) and carried on. No problems.

 

I've done it myself once, in a Jaguar XJ6, and that was fine too. Only overheated once, but it was very, very hot.

[Lonestar]

My Astra J 1.6 was seemingly cooked at some point, as I had to get the head gasket changed and the head skimmed, as it was leaking coolant out onto the exhaust. Very small amounts, but enough that it stank and steamed until it burned off.

Mechanic found traces of radweld in the coolant system, so I'm assuming that eventually lost effectiveness as the leak didn't initially show up until after I owned the car for about a year.

[SiC]

15 hours ago, IronStar said:

Utter misery on wheels

They certainly are! Especially the Astra G

I think Vauxhall's and GM vehicles of this era seem to either be solid dependable things or absolute nightmares. They also are like many Western cars that like to "Nickel and Dime" you as the Americans say. As in it's a constant drip feed of smaller/cheaper issues rather than big bangs that suddenly catastrophically kill a car. Of course many of these sort of issues get ignored by owners until they mount up to being too many. Then are scrapped.

15 hours ago, IronStar said:

1.6 16v Astra G

Another Astra cockroach story, this time that engine and model. 

One of Mrs SiC other friends many years ago was breaking up from a pretty toxic relationship. Massively in debt (her partner put all the loans in her name) and still a lot of finance on a Smart fortwo left to pay, she was in a pickle. The Smart went back to the dealer but her credit rating meant no chance of buying anything new.

Her uncle found her a nice Astra G 1.6 16v Auto. Again she had an auto only licence from a dodgy left leg making it hard to use a clutch. This started playing up and misfiring all the time. A few different garages looked at it but couldn't figure out what was wrong. Countless coil packs, plugs and even timing checked. Everything was coming out okay. Problem was that the misfiring was knocking it into limp mode and giving no power. Even worse for someone skint, it meant it was running in Open Loop mode and burning huge amounts of fuel. Mid teens for the most part on motorway runs. 

As she was doing a 30 miles daily commute, it was hurting her finances hard. Double edge sword of needing to go to work for money but no money to pay for a replacement car due to the Astra burning so much fuel.

So I offered to take a look at it. Had a good poke around and found that the retaining clip for the injector wiring harness was missing. I didn't have any clips but I had plenty of zip ties. So I strapped down that wiring harness that connected to all the injectors off a long plastic bar with zip ties. 

We took it for a test drive and it ran perfectly! I advised her to take it to a garage for them to fix it properly.

Naturally that was never done...

Anyway about a year later it started misfiring again. Those zip ties had stretched and were no longer keeping it all electrically together.

This time she was at her uncles. Her resourceful uncle found a block of wood that fitted perfectly between the bonnet and injector harness to push the lot together perfectly.

 

That's not the whole story of that little Astra G.

It hadn't had an oil change for quite a long while and it was rattling. Even worse the oil light was coming on during some drives and on occasion the 'service warning' light. Taking a look I found zero oil on the dipstick. After putting in over 3.5 litres (4.5l total from memory) I got the level back on the dipstick. I advised an oil change would be a good idea.

Which she did.

On the drive back from the garage the engine light and service light came on. Thinking it was the block of wood had moved and needed reseating, she popped the bonnet to sort it.

Except the block of wood was in place.

No, it turned out that the garage doing the service didn't refit the oil cap. The engine bay was covered in oil where it was flinging it out from the cams. 

Naturally she was fuming. She put the cap on and drove the 5 miles back to the garage for them to sort.

She thought the engine light was a warning that the oil cap was off. Actually it seems if one of these engines is abused enough and have so little oil, that it'll rattle enough to trigger warning lights as it thinks the knock sensor is giving false readings...! The engine light was on for the massive air leak from no cap. The 'service light' as those that really know Vauxhalls/Opel is not that it needs an engine service but that it has a fault code stored (and saying that it needs to see a garage) which was the knock sensor warning.

 

That Astra G continued to run with it's block of wood under the bonnet and rattly engine that had been oil starved a good number of times for a good few more years when the gearbox shat itself and it was scrapped. In total she put on a good 50k miles in those few years and allowed her to start getting out of her financial pickle. Any time I ever mention the car, it gives her fond memories of the grubby looking white turd that allowed her to get around while she got her ship in life back on course.

 

One more Astra G story. This was Mrs SiC grandads car.

We sold Mrs SiC beloved Mazda MX5 NC to fund the legal fees on our first house. First car we bought was a cheap Scenic II 2.0. Broke down on the drive home from Gloucester and the dealer didn't want to know. I eventually diagnosed it as a fuel pump - probably because the dealer ran it so low that it sucked air. We no trust in it (it FTP 4 times in 2 weeks) we shifted it on cheap.

Replaced that with a 2004 Golf Mk5 1.6 FSI. Mrs SiC liked that car a lot. However these early FSI engines would only run on super unleaded - annoying on a run-of-the-mill 115bhp car. EML kept coming on for an O2 sensor - except it was a NOX sensor that cost £500 for the part alone. Final straw was the chain rattling badly on startup at times. So we flogged that on.

With two vehicles being absolutely nightmares, she needed a reliable car.

Her grandad was giving up driving and needed the Astra selling. So we bought it off him.

Problem was that it was a low mileage car that we pushed into much higher distances quickly. Ended up needing rear shocks, cambelt (never been done), EGR valve and radiator replacing before we had something resembling reliability. To be fair it was pretty solid for the most part. I even replaced the thermal fuse in the Aircon clutch and got it working again.

Apart from the seats buggering my back, it's bigger issue was that everyone hated you in it. I've never driven a car then or since where I had so many people cutting me up and express absolute furious road rage at me when driving. From not letting you merge to tailgating because you're doing the speed limit and trying to overtake at every opportunity. Absolutely no idea why so many others hated it so much on the road.

[SiC]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

I've done that door loom a few times now! The fun part is getting the deadlocked back door open.

I have found repeatedly opening/closing it while operating both the handles can catch it mid mechanism change that you can open it again. That's what I managed to do on this. 

You can just about get the rear door plug disconnected with the front door open. That was the backup plan. Front doors you're a bit more stuck on that and likely end up with cutting door cards as you say.

[SiC]

16 hours ago, SiC said:

Let's hope it gets back and forth from Cornwall tomorrow and this week.

Mrs SiC has just said that she got to Cornwall okay 👌. Hopefully it'll hold up just fine and get her back okay 🤞.

I'm not super optimistic about that top hose!

[IronStar]

5 minutes ago, SiC said:

Absolutely no idea why so many others hated it so much on the road.

Because they're usually driven by the type that shouldn't be anywhere close to driving their own car, as they are absolute liabilities to everyone on the road? I don't think I've ever met a half-competent driver who owned one of these IRL. Brother Star should take a bus. A mate that had one of these couldn't park to save his life, and was scared of driving. Guy I knew that waxed lyrical about them was the type driving 110 in the overtaking lane of a 130 limit motorway and would get aggravated because people are flashing him, tailgating, and wanting him to get the fuck out of their way.  

As a cheap automotive misery, these attract a certain type. Stereotypes about cars (and people driving them) exist for a reason. The stories you told back this up - people who shouldn't be owning a car, as they have no idea what to do with them, consider MOT as a service, and ignore them until the engine falls out. You and Mrs SIC are exception obviously, but the vast majority.... 

[MrBig]

On 14/02/2026 at 23:03, SiC said:

The thermostat was procured from Halfords (of all places) - who buy from ECP and offers it at a better price. It's a 'Verment Colorsat' Thermostat and definitely not my first choice. 

I know exactly who you mean. I've dealt with them in my day job for decades. I would have no concerns about fitting one to my own car.

[SiC]

2 minutes ago, MrBig said:

I know exactly who you mean. I've dealt with them in my day job for decades. I would have no concerns about fitting one to my own car.

It was this:

https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/vernet-thermostat-209720015

(Paid £52 from Halfords and it came delivered to them by ECP!)

Reckon I don't need to worry and they're decent?

[MrBig]

I obviously cant guarantee it, but I wouldn't worry about it at all.  It would be one of my chosen brands if I was looking for one to fit to my car.

If you want some proper reassurance, google who invented the wax thermostat!

[stuboy]

i always like these astra's

[angle]

22 hours ago, SiC said:

Also passed on the details of the local garage that I usually use in Bristol. They're sound as a pound and won't screw her over. She'll get booked in to do the radiator. Only issue is that it can be at least a 3 week wait till you can get a slot nowadays.

I've got my MOT on Thursday, that was five weeks notice - most of my family and friends use them now as well though. 

Anyway, these have definitely taken over from the MK2 Mondeo as the FWD banger of choice. My local track won't let them in the B2B races because they're too hard...

[Kiltox]

I’m impressed that this survived all that. The key to them generally being tough as old boots is carrying out some fucking maintenance