Hi

Great forum!

Well after owning a 1998 Vectra 1.8 Arctic 2 I swore I'd never buy another Vauxhall again. As the soggy rattlemobile became more aged I decided I needed a new car. Again, swearing never to purchase another Vauxhall I tried a 3 series BMW which was too old for the money, a C180 Kompressor which was expensive and bland, a Mondeo which felt slow and quite stodgy and an Alfa 156 which was great but I couldn't fit in it, and it didn't even start for the test drive so I thought I'd try a new Vectra after seeing the SRi 2.0 T had 175bhp.

And well, I'm glad I did! What a different car to the old one! No rattles (well the parcel shelf maybe!), great seats, crisp steering, excellent brakes, a genuine quality feel and great performance!

As I've seen a lot of people on here say, the 6 speed gearbox is a bit hit and miss when cold. I actually got a new gearbox and clutch fitted under Network Q warranty when I complained about the gearchange and it's better when it's warm than the old one, but I can report that when cold 1st & 2nd is still a bit gnarly! Even when warm, you've really got to press the clutch fully in and be quick and slick, otherwise it's a bit lumpy.

Well I'm looking forward to enjoying and contributing to the forum as best I can. I've never really modded anything before, but this BSR option certainly sounds very interesting! I also quite like the idea of getting some sort of MP3 capability on the current setup, if that's even vaguely doable.

Oh and I don't know if anyone here had a Vectra B, but am I going to have to clean my idle air control valve on this new one every month?

Look forward to getting involved.

Best regards

Phil