5 problems with our new Vectra C

[Rod C]

Hi we bought a Vectra on Saturday, its a 1.8LS petrol on an 03 plate, 4 door hatch back, and as we were about to drive off, the EML came on, so I told the car salesman and he said he had no one there to check it so bring it back during the week, he just said it was the sevice light, and as its just been MOTed and seviced it was nothing to worry about but bring it back during the week to have light sorted.
When I got home I looked in the book and saw it was the EML, then we noticed it had no interior lights working in the front at all (Not even on the switches), and the Temp Guage has stopped working too, and on Sunday Morning the passenger footwell was about 1 inch deep above the carpet of water so we phoned him on Sunday and told him we were not happy and we were bringing it back on Sunday and wanted it sorted, on the way basck to garage I noticed the Cruise Control was not working, he gave us a coutasy car but we are looking forward to getting our Vectra .
Does anyone know what would have caused any of these problems?
Regards
Rod

[soulman]

water in the footwell is a blocked scuttle pan ..easy fix .. but all that water has blown some fuses .Did the heater work ....sometimes that gets fried with all the water .

EML engine management light could be a number of things (certainly not service light)

cruise control is sometimes a sticky connector on the brake pedal ..or at worse a new stalk is required.

[Yugguy]

or you can clean the connections within the stalk - there's a howto on here.

[coldo]

Engine Temp - Need a new engine thermostat (easy fix and there's a how to here)

Foot well water - Blocked drain plug by the pollen filter causing the watter to drain throught he blower motor into the footwell. Clear the drain and dry the carpet out.

Light not working - Blowen fuse due to water most likley. Check the heater is working also

Cruise control - Either a stock needing cleaned, a stickey break / clutch switch of a nakered CIM. The CIM is very expencive to replace.

EML on - There must be a fault logged. You could try the pedel test to get teh fault code (check on here for how to do that) or get a diagnostic system pluged in to read the faults. If you have an early 1.8 2003 it may have an EGR (search the site for this) which can be cleaned or blanked off (and programed out I think).

Most of the fixes above can be done by yourself fairly cheaply... Engine thermostst for example is about £50 to do all in using GM parts etc.

Welcome to the world of the 1.8 vectra by the way... I have two of them and have had all the faults above (with the exception of the EML) and fixed them all myself.

[Rod C]

Hi and Thanx for replies, yes the heater does work but its not very good, I drove it back to car sales on sunday and i could not keep windscreen clear of mist, the temp garge will move to the 80 ish mark then fall back to the default position for ages then might go back to the 80 mark again in about 20-25 mins, the green light for CC comes on but nothing happens, when i told them this at the car sales they said it just keeps the car at the speed that you set it on? (like a speed limiter i suppose)
I dunno how they or we are going to dry the carpets out? Wish us luck

[Ziggy]

Unless you got it very cheap, with that list of faults for him to fix, I would be looking else where. There isnt a shortage of cheap vecs.

The cruise should keep you at a set speed with out touching any pedals. You should also be able to speed up / slow down from the stalk

[Ziggy]

Engine Temp - Need a new engine thermostat (easy fix and there's a how to here)

Foot well water - Blocked drain plug by the pollen filter causing the watter to drain throught he blower motor into the footwell. Clear the drain and dry the carpet out.

Light not working - Blowen fuse due to water most likley. Check the heater is working also

Cruise control - Either a stock needing cleaned, a stickey break / clutch switch of a nakered CIM. The CIM is very expencive to replace.

EML on - There must be a fault logged. You could try the pedel test to get teh fault code (check on here for how to do that) or get a diagnostic system pluged in to read the faults. If you have an early 1.8 2003 it may have an EGR (search the site for this) which can be cleaned or blanked off (and programed out I think).

Most of the fixes above can be done by yourself fairly cheaply... Engine thermostst for example is about £50 to do all in using GM parts etc.

Welcome to the world of the 1.8 vectra by the way... I have two of them and have had all the faults above (with the exception of the EML) and fixed them all myself.

They bought from a dealer, so shouldn't have to fix any of the faults. Thats why you pay extra from a dealer

[Rod C]

Im hoping the car sales is gonna do it all for us FOC because we swapped our 04 Smart car for this and he now has our Smart car on the forcourt for doube what he gave us for it
He told me on Sunday that he was sorry about the trouble we are having and that because all the paperwork supplied with the car was so good they never checked it through their workshop, they just give it a valet and sold it, he did say they would sort it all out for us

[coldo]

Dehumidifyer or heater for the carpet.... Not a hard job to do. the mysting up will be down to the pollen filter being wet and the dam inside the car.

The heating will be affected by the engine thermostat. If they ssay its fine get them to take it a run. It will drop off the scale when driving showing the fault as if it's working properly it should not move when driving. If your car is stationalry and the temp about 80 then turn the blowers on to full heat and full power... The needle will drop off the scale again with this.

Vectra's are great cars... Solid work horses.... but do have some nigles most of which you have happening right now. The good news is they can be fixed in most cases by people with next to no knoweleg of cars etc... The 1.8 z18ex (or x18xe) engine is commonly thought to be the most reliable (queue loads of people saying this is not true ). I have two of them... One is now over 105k miles and still goign strong...!

There are loads of "how to's" on here to help also... Have a read through the index list and you will see loads you can do etc...

[coldo]

They bought from a dealer, so shouldn't have to fix any of the faults. Thats why you pay extra from a dealer

I agree with this. If it's a dealer and they refuse you can force them to take the car back based on the fact it's not fit for purpose.