Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

Just picked this up today to replace the Mitsi. Always fancied a new type Mini myself, and whilst looking for a Car the other week my Missus spotted this and fell in love with it.












Got to admit it is very quiet for a Diesel and surprisingly nippy for 1.6. Going to give it a full service tomorrow.

Never really fancied a BMW Mini...
Wife always wanted an Austin Mini, because her gran had one many decades ago.

There is bugger-all to do on those. Very basic, even the late fuel injected models.
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I hope you are okay with the electronics too.
They have a maddening habit of giving you an endless flow of warning messages if you do not reset all the service indicators.
My colleague at work has a 10 plate Mini, and he is too tight to get it serviced.
He constantly grumbles about the dash whinging at him when he first puts the key in.

The forward-tipping bonnet complete with light units makes the car quite easy to access.

I'm hoping I won't have to delve too deep into the electronic side of things, but over the last couple of years have had plenty of practice with my mk5 Astra van, at times it seems to throw a glitch every week, with lots of Red herrings, which mostly seems to be linked to the turbo blocking up due to just toottling around, something that is unlikely to happen with my wife at the wheel of this mini lol.
I quite like the old Austin Minis having raced one round a field a lot as a kid, however they are always a bit cramped for me and I'm not very tall aswell.
I know what he means about warning messages, my Volvo keeps flashing about 4 messages everytime you touch the starter switch( no keys) i will have to go through it properly over the Christmas shutdown as it is bloody annoying.

I have ordered a few badges and bits of trim to just smarten the car up a bit. While waiting for them to arrive I thought I'd fit a private plate that I've had on retention for a while. Shouldn't be to hard? Right? One thing I wasn't counting on was my insurance company, no matter what I tried I couldn't speak to them online properly, they said you couldn't speak to them on the phone, after a lot of effort I managed to get a number and after a lot of cursing I eventually managed to get it sorted. However the firm (Marmalade) have been told what they can do when the renewal comes round.
After a lot of work it's now fitted.

Looks quite tidy for a 12 year old car.
Doesn't look like there is that much to do.
Which is great, because it keeps the long term costs down.

Our vectra has a standard plate, but the first two letters resemble my name.
And the last three letters are VLL, so I see that as an abbreviation for Vauxhall.
So a pseudo private plate.

Robsey wrote: ↑Sat Oct 14, 2023 7:11 pm Looks quite tidy for a 12 year old car.
Doesn't look like there is that much to do.
Which is great, because it keeps the long term costs down.

Our vectra has a standard plate, but the first two letters resemble my name.
And the last three letters are VLL, so I see that as an abbreviation for Vauxhall.
So a pseudo private plate.

It's mainly silly little things that need sorting, I.e a bit of laqueer peel on the front bumper, the one key either needs an expensive BMW replacement, or preferably i've found a specialist firm that should be able to overhaul it.

One of the biggest jobs is likely to be the replacement of the timing chain on the BMW N47 diesel engine fitted. Having read reviews it can apparently go , with only a very little warning,so will be changed next year as a precaution. Due to the idiotic idea of fitting it on the gearbox end of the engine it's likely to be very expensive. I could do it myself, however I'm not getting any younger so will probably stump up the up to £2k bill next year.

The car itself drives very nice, a little bit of scuttle shake- even my C70 suffers a bit with the roof down, but almost unbelievable power from the 1.6 diesel.

I'm pleased you were lucky enough to get your private plate included with your Vectra, lol. On mine the K is my wife's initial and GPP is mine. The 17 and 18 is numbers that mean something to us.

My wife has been complaining that this car kept cutting out since she got her new job. Fault code reading it came back clear. Reading online it looked likely to be either the fuel filter, injectors or egr valve. Great i thought, huge bill coming. Then I thought id try driving it. Turns out the car is fitted with a stop start system. Ive turned it off and its not cut out since. Up until this job its only really been driven on back roads so i hadn't realised it was fitted.Dont you just love technology.

Just let the battery run low - it will disengage stop start to save un-necessary cranking, which chews up loads of battery capacity.
Our 2020 Citroen Relay works van has stop start, but hasn't engaged for the past three years.

It is useful when you know it is there. Just takes a bit of getting used to.

Same as electronic parking brakes.
A nightmare at first, until you get used to it.