Vauxhall Corsa Life > Reviews > Corsa Life from hell

Author's product rating:   

Safety	Good
Comfort	Excellent
Road Handling	Good
Security	Poor
Looks	Excellent

Advantages:	Looks great
Disadvantages:	Slow and problematic !

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I bought a brand new (5 door) Corsa Life 1.0v, in September 2002 when the 52 plate came out. I was very excited as it was my first car, and it worked out cost effective with ONLY a 40% deposit of ~£3,200 to pay upfront and 3yrs 0% finance making it a total of ~£9000. It's a nice, small but spacious, ergonomically desgned car, with unique black metalic saphire exterior and brilliant red seats as standard. It's a special edition with alloys, CD player and air conditioning and manual that come as standard, which made the car seem perfect. It's also good on petrol...I can only estimate it does about ~250-300miles on a tank. As much as I like the car, there have been too many problems with it and awful service!:(

I've had it for 5months and it has been into the garage 5 times and there are still unresolved problems. Before I even drove the car away I was asked to bring it in within the week as there was a problem with the locking, only to find after 2days in the garage that the problem was non existent and Vauxhall had cut costs and abandoned one of the security features where only the drivers door opens on first unlocking, followed by the rest on 2nd key click. It makes you lose confidence in your purchase when the people selling you the car don't know what they are selling you.

Here's a list of the problems I've had thus far:

1. Exhaust has been changed but still very noisy
2. Heater has been changed but still problematic
3. Steering column has been changed
4. The pick up and acceleration of the car is poor
5. Intermittent problems with central locking not working from inside car
6. Intermittent problem with central locking- doesn't alway dead lock from key.

I thought I was buying a new car so not to have to worry about it going wrong but most of the problems were from day 1.Vauxhall customer service have been unhelpful and the garage very inefficient in calling back when they say they will and ordering parts takes months!

When you buy a brand new car you don't want to be spending hours in the garage and leaving your new car in there for days on end. It's inconvenient... and unfair. I most definitely haven't got what I paid for. I'm really disappointed with the car overall and I'm sure I would have had less problems if I had bought a second hand car! If you want a trouble Vauxhall may not be the best bet!

I would really appreciate hearing your stories/opinions especially if you have had similar problems with the Corsa Life.