Vauxhall Tigra 1.4 Exclusive

[Decron]

As the Fabia has been having it's turbo replaced, I have a hire courtesy of the AA (Standard AA cover with a new VRS is Relay plus and it rocks with a passion!)

When we got to the hire place I got the "Well we are a bit short but I think we have had something just come back in..."

It turned out to be one of these;



Having done about 200 miles in the thing I now feel as if I can provide a bit of feedback on the little beast.

Why anyone would throw £15k on this is beyond me. It's appaling in most every way.

Performance is awful, it wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, the engine revs like hell but doesn't have hardly any useable power anywhere. To overtake on a motorway it needs to be dropped to 4th Fuel economy is currently at about 32 mpg I thought there must be something wrong with it but then I look at the specs and see 88bhp driving nearly 1200kgs.

The brakes are not that bad with plenty of feel and bite but while it obviously has a lot to stop it will never be going fast enough to trouble them Handling is probably the best thing about it as it seems to be very sure footed with little body roll, but this is let down by heavy as lead steering. The gear selection is rubbery and stiff

The interior can be sumed up in one word. Plastic. Although it's well laid out and easy to use it looks just cheap and it isn't that well equipped despite being the "Exclusive model". it does have leather interior and heated seats but that about the pinnicle of it as the seats and driving position are very limited with no height adjustment on the seat and no reach adjustment on the wheel. Visability is terrible with big pillars on the windscreen and a high back it's a bit a mare trying to pull out of juctions.

The Bootlid lid is electronic and it's not exactly fast at opening or shutting. The electric roof however is cool as you like. You pop two levers on the roof put the handbrake on, hold the button down and 20 seconds later you have no roof! It's a shame putting it down makes the whole car shake, and rattle. It also really upsets the handling quite a bit

I really couldn't find any redeming features about the car apart from the cool roof. It's pretty poor in every way, which is a real shame. Althought the 1.8 looks a lot nore appealing on paper I suspect that the £16.5k price tag is too much.

Still I suppose it explains why you never see any around.

[Aspman]

My GF has one of these (a 1.4 Sport not the exclusive). She loves it to bits, I reckon it's a rattly bag of ****e.

That's maybe a bit harsh. I don't think it's too bad for a 1.4 and it is lugging a lot of weight, certainly a lot better than her previous 1.2 Clio. She gets 40ish mpg and is not a smooth driver.

The handling is rough, the gear change ok. The interior is pure Vauxhall corsa. Silver look plastics are easily scratched.

The powered boot get very irritating, seems very slow in the rain with armfuls of shopping. Boot is a usable size even with the roof down and is quite big with it up.

The roof is very bling.

Faults...roof has stuck once or twice and I've had to get the special rod from under the seat to pump it down. Bolts in the boot are not galvanised and rust. A very stupid error Vauxhall refuse to fix. It does rattle but there is a fix for this, the GF is just too lazy to take it down to get done.
I refuse to drive it unless in an emergency, to be a man drive these is to join the Blue Oyster club.

[Dave_Fox]

Thats a random hire car!

[Aspman]

Drive a 1.8 yesterday. Leather is nice but the engine is seriously gutless. Barely faster than the 1.4. 36mpg for 120bhp, not good.

[Felicia racer]

I test drove the tigra 1.8 sport.
I loved it it has loads of umph, and uphill in 4th gear it acellerated really rapidly.
The power steering is brilliant, but corning felt really odd!
It also looks like a corsa on the inside its nasty.
Although you can adujst the seat, and the steering wheel it still does'nt feel like a normal convertible.