Opel Insignia - In the flesh - IMHO

Berty

As it says Opel Insignia in my honest opinion.

I visited Opel Ennis Road Motors in Limerick today to view their limited stock of Insignia's.

They only had S and SC models. The SRi and the SE were on order. There was no mention of the elite model which I can safely say there will probably be little of.

Anyhow here is the Saloon S. The S is obviously the base model and its very base indeed. Like its competitors in the market it has steel wheels and no exterior finishes like chrome and fogs, spoiler etc. It is very much a non runner unless accessories do not come into your requirments. The interior is very similar to the SC. I did not take a picture of the S interior because there is only one minor difference. Where on the SC pictures below you will see a little screen for the climate control, the S has three buttons, 1 - windscreen vent, 2 - Air Vents, 3 - Footwells. There are no other differences on the interior. You may be surprised to know(if you have not researched the car) but the S entry level model has electric lumbar and height adjustable seats. It also has standard halogen lights with no projector lenses. Neither of the cars through the following pictures are suitable for spoilers as they have rather pronounced spoilers built in. The boots on both models are auto open through the key / poppers.



Interior


SC


This picture shows the boot of the S Saloon. When you open the boot, the boot is completely independant of the car through massive struts.



This picture shows the boot of the SC Hatchback. The boot lid was very heavy considering the weight of the glass etc.



This will amaze you or not depending on your mood. These alloys are not alloys. They are actually hubcaps hiding very subtle steel wheels. I had to put my hand through the hubcaps to feel the steel wheels. Quite good, however the dealer said the upgrade to 16" alloys was only €500 or €500 saved, you tell me. These were on the previous 08 Astra model but they were less appealing.



The lower section of the dash was very plasticy and cheap feeling. The upper console was a softer material similar to that of the Ford Focus.

The SRi and above had HID and DRL lights in them but again there were not in stock. These are NOT an option on the S and SC. They are not compatible due to the bolt locations or so Im told.

IMHO If I was to be given one of these cars as a company car for an entry level "REP" position then I would fight for the SC above the S because the S is just soooooo plain and boring. The interior on both being very similar is actually livable. Each car had a brushed silver effect on the interior parts.

The car had bluetooth on the steering wheel which is useless unless you pay for the accessory kit which is €650. They only made one type of steering wheel so tough. The radio controls are also on the wheel.

I took this as well for the petrol heads.



Would I buy one? Not until I saw the SRi. Or until I saw the SC with fogs.

Big improvement on the Vectra.

BTW, sorry for stealing precious minutes of your life should you have gotten this far.

ShadowHearth

it does not look so nice in real life . Those rendered pictures were alot nicer...

Even vectra looks nicer tbh...

Berty

The phatom black paint colour is very nice with a little flick in it. The door panels are much nicer because they have a groove in them. The Vectra simply had a plastic sill the whole length of the car. Ugly and hard to keep clean and black, much like the Passatt. Many bottles of Black in a Flash there. :mad:

The interior is much changed unlike the 98 model controls managing to find their way into the 04+ models this model is completely new all round.

The boot in the Saloon is MAHOOSIVE.

The guy said, enough room for your golf bag, I retorted "enough room for your walking stick or sales rep stuff". "Cheek" was his reply but he did say the new design was expecting to bring in more "new" customers or a different demographic.

Good Luck with that, concentrate on your used cars first.

L-M

That second set of hubcaps isn't a bad idea if they are going to offer hubcaps as standard. At least they make them look some what nicer that the hubcaps on the S model.

Good review, all you need to do now is drive it:D.

Berty

Limerick-man wrote: »

Good review, all you need to do now is drive it:D.

Meh, not bothered.

NiSmO

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L-M

NiSmO wrote: »

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+1

Looks fairly ugly, but looks like it has a bit of grip on the top half. Wouldn't be a dealer breaker TBH.

When they start bringing in these i'll get pissed off.

NiSmO

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L-M

NiSmO wrote: »

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I think it's the same with every car before it come's to Ireland and get's the poverty spec model:o

NiSmO

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L-M

SRI interior shot

bazz26

That base model looks like a Garda special, not long now and we will see it minus the wheel trim and 2 aeriels mounted on the roof. The interior is very plain looking too imo, overall not quite the picture painted over the last couple of months in numerous threads here. Anyone actually drive it yet?

madaboutcars

Amazing how dull the stripped out Paddy specials are.

I always thought the Insignia was a stunner, and I saw the car at Top Gear live it really was, but of course the Insignias at TG Live were the top line SRi and Elite models, not the dull S and SC models

So it's pretty much like every other car then.

Great to look at when done up, but totally different for poverty spec Irish spec cars.

I'm not looking forward to seeing how dull and boring the new Avensis looks like when it is sold here in poverty spec Paddy spec, it is already dull and boring in the press photos and that's the dolled up version with all the gadgets and nice interior.

NiSmO

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L-M

NiSmO wrote: »

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Did you spill your soup?