Nice ride,nice seats, nice space but what a rubbish engine. The 1.4 is slow setting off and on the motorway I could not reach 70mph and very noisy. Go for the more powerful engines.

Nice ride,nice seats, nice space but what a rubbish engine. The 1.4 is slow setting off and on the motorway I could not reach 70mph and very noisy. Go for the more powerful engines.

Yep, the 1.6 is much better

strange... the 1.2 12v I had on test was fine (albeit noisy) at 85...

Isnt it the 16V? I would have thought it would be okay with 85BHP , my Fabia has only 68 and i think its fine on the motorway/dual carriageways , sits at 80 no probs and sees 3 figures if you give it enough time!! Maybe the engine is still tight? Or maybe the Roomster is heavy?..lol!

It's just that the 1.4 16v has always been crap apart from maybe the 101HP version. You need to rev it too hard to get any performance and the power and torque ain't that high anyway.

The 1.2 12v is better because it delivers lower down and sounds better ragging the nuts off it anyway

Another small problem I find with the car and that is I can not see the bonnet at all when I am sitting in the drivers seat, even with the seat high up. Ok I am only 5ft3 so only taller people can buy it.

I'm 5' 2" and can't see the bonnet either but then I can't see much of it in our old 93 1.6 SE GLS Mk2 Astra saloon. [198K - 180 by us - and would be going better than it is if garages hadn't: 1, decanted petrol into diesel-contaminated container when fitting new tank (for last MOT) - then refilling with that fuel - and 2, allowed it to fall off jack or whatever when having a 2nd go at replacing f/n wheelbearing when they'd previously done the wrong one, thereby putting dents in passenger footwell. I could go on...]

Find so far that I've left more room in front than I'd thought, which is a good thing! Except for larger (and much better) mirrors the dimensions of the Roomster are about the same as our old Chuggaboom so it has always felt "right".

I think the Ford Fusion is the only car I've sat in or driven during our 2-year search for "what-to-drive-when-the-Astra-dies" where I could see anything of the bonnet.

Laura