Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

The picture of the top of the head, showing the cam journals, gave me a strange optical illusion, where the journals appeared to me to be convex rather than concave. Once that had happened I couldn't see them correctly without real effort and screwing up my eyes a bit. I guess in real life you'd mov...

Welcome back and I'm very pleased to see a new Cavalier owner and contributor on this forum. I was beginning to fear that numbers of Cavalier owners have dwindled enough recently so that contributions to this forum have become progressively fewer. Certainly there a fewer and fewer Cavaliers on the r...

I've also had this issue of the temp gauge only getting a quarter of the way up while driving - and, as far as I can remember, this has been a "feature" since the car was around 6 months old when I bought it. If the car is stationary with the engine idling the temp does rise steadily until...

Ah yes it does! That's logical because you want to be able to see it as it gets dark and its time to turn on sidelights/headlights. All the rest should only come on when you've turned on the light switch though. I guess it's curious though that, although the HVAC illumination bulb has burned out on ...

For some obscure reason Vauxhall/Opel decided to put the HVAC controls illumination bulb on an entirely different circuit from all the other instrument illumination bulbs, so of course it doesn't respond to the instrument dimmer control. I cannot think of any good (or indeed bad!) reason for them to...

This alternative climate control panel certainly looks good but, because it has buttons instead of levers to control air flow direction and hot-cold air it will of course need an entirely new HVAC unit which has stepper motors to control the flaps in the air ducting. I've experienced a few cars when...

The traction control on my Cav V6 stopped working quite a few years back, but the ABS continues to work just fine. Luckily the traction control light only illuminates when it operates, so the lack of traction control has never been an MOT fail issue. When it did work I found it problematic anyway - ...

There are several companies that claim to be able to repair "any ECU". Just putting "ECU repair" into Google brings up a number of these, and they might be worth a try.

As you have found, it is only the UK that carries the Vauxhall brand. Ireland has always had Opel as their primary GM brand. Same as mainland Europe, the middle east and far east. Oddly though, I could be wrong, but my head tells me that the Cavalier was still called Cavalier in Ireland despite bei...

I'm currently in the Republic of Ireland and have noticed the large numbers of Insignias on the road here - many more than in the UK and more like the number of Cavaliers on UK's roads when they were current. Interesting point though - most of the Insignias are badged Opel rather than Vauxhall, even...

In Cumbria it's so cold I've had to resort to a jumper AND the heating on. Dont recall it ever being this cold in June/July before - must be global warming!

That should be 1993, not 1995.

Yes, it's odd that the ABS badge only appeared on the M and N cavaliers. My 1995 K reg has ABS but no badge, but it has a "catalyst" sticker in the rear quarter window!

It's looking good - and I do like the Jungle Green pearl paint. It's unusual and really suits the Cavalier which, to my mind, still remains a good looking car. It makes my Smoke Grey Cavalier look a bit dull!

"I've bought 'need it now' parts because I can't find the ones I know I have somewhere, and that's in the house"

I've done exactly the same thing! And I thought it was only me that was so disorganised, so I'm glad to hear of someone else who's had to do this.

Quote: "And please don't mention the Snake and Woodhead Passes over't tops to Yorkshire and the M1". I travel the Snake Pass quite often en-route to relatives in Sheffield. It's usually all right once you're on it but to get to it from the M60 means getting through Hyde, Mottram and Glosso...

The two rear brake hoses connect between the metal brake pipes on the car body and the metal brake pipes that run along the rear axle beam to the brake calipers on each side. I think they can be removed by undoing the unions at each end of them. I'm not clear what the lower clip is that you have rem...

I hadn't noticed it was LH drive. Interesting - I wonder if it was imported back to the UK? It certainly has a few extras fitted - wheel arch extensions, ro-style wheels, door mirrors, fabric roll-back roof (I hesitate to call it a sunroof in our climate!), chrome GB sign (now obsolete since the Gov...

Just to add to my previous reply, the picture (which I've only just looked at) I think shows the rear hub with the cap removed. I didn't remove this when I renewed the disks-drum and pads. However, I think it illustrates that the hub can't be dismantled this way as it could be on most earlier car's ...

<t>I've renewed the rear disks-drums on my Cav V6 and these come off separately from the hubs which don't need to be touched. You do have to remove the brake pads, then unbolt the caliper and move this just a little to one side to wiggle the disk-drum unit out. Although the caliper is connected by a...

Yes I agree about the road tax deduction. Trouble is, the Govt doesn't see the large amount you pay in tax to keep the car legally on the road as a contribution to road upkeep & building - as it was when it was first introduced in the 1930s. Instead it's just general taxation - and I fear it's b...

Electrified rail is a good idea, but everytime a new electrification scheme is mooted, the government first supports it enthusiastically and then some months later vetoes it on grounds of cost. The Midland main line to Sheffield is a good example, not to mention the 1960s closure of the Woodhead She...

That's the downside of running a V6 Cav. I only get around 30 to 33mpg. I guess this wasn't so much an issue when it was made in 1993 but it sure is at the moment, and takes some of the shine off its very smooth, quiet and powerful running.

Looks like the radiator had been weak for a while and only survived because the cooling system wasn't pressurised. As soon as you fixed that with a new cap.....

But truck haulage of pretty much everything we need to live on IS totally dependent on fossil fuels. So are the construction and civil engineering industries. All depend on diesel or similar fuels and there is no immediate or even medium term prospect of this changing. So I do get impatient with the...