Test drive Opel Vectra sedan 2002 - 2005 sedan

All photos Opel Vectra Sedan 2002 - 2005

We ourselves are German

What are your associations when you hear the word Germany? German shepherd, German beer, German marches. You say: German autonomous district? It seems we rustled.

And there is such a thing as German cars. These are completely special cars, no one else does such. Similar yes, but exactly the same is not. Italians will certainly overdue the design, Japanese quality, the British in spirit, and the Americans at a price. And, most likely, some little things will lose sight of. The Germans never. And for this they will ask you to overpay a little. Is it not worth the highest quality product? Costs! The consumer answers and dreams of a German.

But there is a special subspecies of German machines, the cost of which does not cause attacks by strangling with a toad. Budget milkmaids unites one Americans. It was they who came up with high -quality and inexpensive cars from the very heart of automobile Europe and devoted them to the average German, Dutchman, Belgian. And when Opel or Ford releases a new model, the public expects that it will be another quality product without visible drawbacks and with a certain set of average advantages. The car on which they drive, and not about which they dream.

The new Opel Vectra, like its predecessor, is highly consistent with the concept of a German car. All the same strict style, designed in the main course of modern automobile design, the smoothness of the lines, as now, does not surprisely combine with sharp, as if roughly cut down, faces. Vectra is perceived more like an original machine than as beautiful, and at the same time absolutely unlike other opening. And another feature of the design of the car is that in different angles it looks different: one in front, in the profile it suddenly turns out to be different, and on top is the third in general.

But inside Vectra really makes a strong impression, and not so much with stylistic solutions as the quality of materials and decoration. Such a salon could decorate the car with a class higher one trim under a tree! And such a part as an electric curtain on the rear window raises the level of the machine to another order. Everything that you touch is caused by an attack of respect for the interiorists, who most responsibly approached the ambitious task assigned to them to create the best salon in their class. And the responsible for the design came very peculiarly, taking the ruler and drawing the car from the inside with straight intersecting lines.

At first glance, the ergonomics does not cause the driver's dreams of the driver in the most direct way: the hands are at ease on the steering wheel of the optimal diameter and cross -section, the gearbox lever with a metal knob in the same place goes perfectly in the hand, and seats with mechanical adjustments allow a person to take a proper pose of any growth and complexion.

But, sitting down, you note that the shape of the front seats’s backs is far from ideal, and even the adjustment of the lumbar backup does not eliminate the slight discomfort that appears some time after the seemingly successful fitting of seats for itself. But the most important causative agent of irritation is detected only in motion, namely, with restructuring from a row to a row. The fact is that the steering wheel switch has no fixation indicators and therefore, being turned on, remains in the ON position. Until the return of the steering wheel to its original position. Of course, with minor angles of rotation of the steering wheel, an independent switch wakes up the moment of the end of the maneuver, and the driver begins to feel like a kettle who forgot to turn off the turn signal. What in this case does a reasonable person do? He tries to turn the lever in the opposite direction, which happens with the only difference being that the rotation signal changes to the opposite, misleading neighbors in the stream. This process can be repeated to infinity.

Only the rear passengers have nothing to complain about. There are plenty of places there, and there are also their own cup holders, a cigarette lighter, a glove compartment, in general, the necessary cost of living for the second -plan actors is provided.

Even in the simplest configuration, the central vector panel will be decorated with a liquid crystal display, which displays the most diverse information, starting from the testimony of the trip and ending with the radio stations settings, and the right-wing steamed switch heads the menu. Naturally, in the movement to study the image of the screen is not recommended for security reasons, since access to various menu items is carried out according to a very time -consuming scheme and greatly distracts from driving. An in -depth study of the image on the display makes sense only when the car is equipped with a navigation system, which was not on our vector.

The driving characteristics would be correctly boring, and the reason for this is the painstaking work of German pendants, which brought the control of the car almost to perfection. Perfection is not from the point of view of the gambling driver, but in terms of security. You can surprise with appearance or interior, or, finally, at a price, but the behavior of the car should not become an unpleasant surprise for the owner. The reliability of reactions is the exact and unquestioning fulfillment of all the wishes of the driver the main advantage of the new vector. Incidentally, the car is equipped with an electro -hydraulic steering amplifier, the performance of which changes depending on the speed of movement.

Nevertheless, Vectra surprised that in any turns, regardless of the state of the road surface, she perfectly writes the trajectory, without getting down from the course either by a millimeter. Behind the line, the car seeks to smoothly slip out of turn, but it does not work out for it: the ESP stabilization system is fundamentally suppressed by such creeps.

At the same time, the smoothness of the course is also at a height, although it is felt that the car is not enthusiastic about the methods of work of Russian road services. Vectra with understanding refers to so many irregularities, but as soon as it comes across a fossa that goes beyond decency, the car immediately protests, trembling with the whole body. And when overcoming a series of gentle waves, a car is not alien to a light vertical buildup.

The storm and onslaught of the 147-horsepower engine, which was equipped with our blue sedan, was restrained by a manual box with stretched gear ratios. Therefore, the acceleration turned out to be even and calm, the blood is by no means hot, and at low speeds a shortage of torque is felt. Who is guilty? Nobody. Just constant tightening of environmental norms has an increasingly strong effect on the design of modern cars.

So, the time has come. The new Vectra is a very big step for Opel: the cars of this brand have never looked so expensive. The new vector can be said that this car is more expensive than the money spent on it. In addition, we should not forget that Opel is always a marriage by calculation, and it is nice that with each new model the dowry is becoming richer and richer.

The car is provided by Laura.
During the test, the car is insured by LLC Nation Center.

Text: Kirill Brevdo
Photo: Roman Ostanin