I'm thinking of buying an Astra van sportive or sportive se, as it the only estate car derived van available apparently.

Anyone in here had experience of the cdti engines?

1.7...85 &100bhp from Isuzu yes?

1.9...120 & 150 bhp from Fiat, yes?

Which is the better, in terms of driveabilty and reliabilty wise?

Doing a search, I found one main dealer selling a new SE model with a 'power upgrade' alledgedly knocking out 220 bhp!! :eek:

No excuses for late deliveries there then ey? :P

IIRC the VW caddy is derived from the VW touran and can be ordered with the 2.0TDi 140

Iv got an 2008 1.7cdti sportive and i can honestly say they are a great van

IIRC the VW caddy is derived from the VW touran and can be ordered with the 2.0TDi 140

Bit too big and pricey for me tbh. I have looked at it though.

The sportline version looks tasty. :P

We had three Astravans on 52 plates with the lower power 1.7 DTi engines, all of them had something expensive go wrong around the 50-60k miles mark. One had something to do with the turbo go wrong (separate turbo ECU??) and it cost £800 to put right, just out of warranty :(

Apart from that though they are great little vans, fast, brilliant in the snow (the sportive might be less so with the wider wheels) and apart from one fault each they were quite reliable. What will you be carrying in it and I might have some roof bars knocking around if you get one without roof rails if you want them, postage only

We had three Astravans on 52 plates with the lower power 1.7 DTi engines, all of them had something expensive go wrong around the 50-60k miles mark. One had something to do with the turbo go wrong (separate turbo ECU??) and it cost £800 to put right, just out of warranty :(

Apart from that though they are great little vans, fast, brilliant in the snow (the sportive might be less so with the wider wheels) and apart from one fault each they were quite reliable. What will you be carrying in it and I might have some roof bars knocking around if you get one without roof rails if you want them, postage only

That's a bit worrying Dave. Was the engine the same 1.7 that they fit in the current model I wonder?

I'll only be carrying fairly small boxes, a few tools and the occassional car seat.

I'll also be using it to kip in when I go on my travels to spectate on 24 hour races and off walking in the wilderness's.

Thanks for the roof bar offer, but I don't think I'll have any use for them tbh. Nice of you to offer though.

I'm nipping in to my local Vauxhall stealer to give them an invoice shortly, so I'll ask 'the lads' in the workshop for their opinions....no doubt unfavourable as they have to work on them all day long.

It was the lowest power Isuzu unit you mentioned in your first post, think they use 1.3 and 1.9 now don't they??

My Astravan:

I had it from new and did 55 thousand trouble free miles in it, it was passed on to a colleague and the turbo problem I mentioned happened at 65 thousand miles.

The ladders that I have fitted exactly in to it horizontally across the load bay as though we had measured it

The 1.7 is still an option on the current model.

The 1.3 has good Co2 emmisions and road tax/fuel economy, but it' s a bit of a slug in the performance dept.

I'm going to need to find a rear seat fitting specialist for the occassional extra passenger or two, preferably one that folds flat into the floor as this is probably going to be replacing the Fabia unfortunately. :rotz:

Remember the Astramax van? The builders and plumbers first choice!

Didn't Clarkson claim it was the fastest vehicle on the road in one of the original 1990's Top Gear programmes, and race it against a Ferrari or summat.

what were in these astramax vans? i remember them but too young to remember any hype about being fast

what were in these astramax vans? i remember them but too young to remember any hype about being fast

A quad turbo'd V12 disguised as a 1.3 iirc.

0-60 in 2.4, and that was with ladders on the roof, 3cwt of rubble in the back, and 1000+ old copies of the Sun scattered on the floor.

Awesome vehicle.

Getting an Astra??? ....then posting about it on Briskoda???

Won't that get you astracized on here?!

...I'll get my coat!

hee hee. :P

Don't have much to choose from unfortunately. :rotz:

If only Skoda would make an Octy van version of the estate, I'd have one, and before you say black out the back side windows and remove the seats, it wouldn't qualify for a VAT rebate and 100% tax deductabilty.

Citroen tried it with the Xsara estate a few years ago, but HM Customs and Excise were less than happy about it.

They had to stop selling them brcause of all the fuss iirc.

Skoda make Practik van versions of the roomster....but they dont import them here because of some silly vat rules....

Just in case you wander away from the astra remember that some small vans are restricted by law to the lower speed limits the same as transit vans. Such examples would be the Caddy and Transit Connect.

Nothing to do with been "car derived van" but to do with the weight that they can carry added to the weight of the vehicle been over a certain limit.

Astras are not affected though.

Steve

Fastest 'van' you'll drive. Great MPG, and can take a thrashing - erm spirited drive

I so miss my 1.7 sporting Astra van.

Fastest 'van' you'll drive. Great MPG, and can take a thrashing - erm spirited drive

I so miss my 1.7 sporting Astra van.

If that's the case.what's the SE 150 bhp model like then I wonder?

They're lending me their demo for the day shortly.

My old boss got one of the 1.7 jobbies (must have been a higher power one) for his other business and loved it.

Drove it myself a couple of times and a lovely drive for a van really and flew! It was an older style one and had about 60,000 iirc and had no problems... in fact I'm sure I've seen him still with it recently (he first bought it around 2005).

I remember fitting some 6x9" speakers behind the seats on wooden boards along with an amp for him and it sounded awesome! lol

Phil

Drove a variety of vans in my previous job, including a dreadul Mercedes Vito and Ford Transit Connect (Unbearably Slow)

Was given two Astra Vans, a 1.3CDTI and 1.7CDTI and took both of them around some lovely welsh roads. The 1.3 feels more like your average 1.9TDI, I actually thought it was the 1.7 until I noticed the tax disc, cracking motor. Then the 1.7 blew my socks off, on a par with my chipped 1.9TDI if not better at high revs.

Comfortable, well equipped and generally great to use for loading kit in and out, highly reccomend either of them, quite possibly best van I have used

I used one of our Astra vans the other day, I was surprised by the how good the heater was, as it said it was -69.5c outside, yet I still had the heater on a cool setting.

I my daily 5am to 6am thrash / commute between Glasgow and Edinburgh, I am always surpised by the number of these things passing me. All doing warp speed (as most people seem to do on the M8 at that time in the morning).

All presumably sole traders / self employed bods as I've never seen one with signwriting on it...

But they must be good as there are a lot of them around... Quite a few have aesthetic mods on them, too...

Just in case you wander away from the astra remember that some small vans are restricted by law to the lower speed limits the same as transit vans. Such examples would be the Caddy and Transit Connect.

Nothing to do with been "car derived van" but to do with the weight that they can carry added to the weight of the vehicle been over a certain limit.

Astras are not affected though.

Steve

As the Caddy is based on the Touran it is considered to be car-derived but im not sure about the Transit connect.... its such a grey area as to which small vans are considered car derived....

As the Caddy is based on the Touran it is considered to be car-derived but im not sure about the Transit connect.... its such a grey area as to which small vans are considered car derived....

I believe that its anything with a MGW of over 2000kg, its derivation is purely co-incidental...

Well, drove another one of these the other day.

I think I need a dashboard fault light bingo card.

The expression "there's nothing faster than a white Astravan" shouldn't be taken too literally.

It actually just means, that some one else is paying for the fuel, oil & tyres & van drivers want to be somewhere else before they've left!