Vauxhall Omega
Danny diagnoses himself silly… then buys the wrong part
Iam the proud owner of a big black Vauxhall Omega. It is a V6 Elite, it looks like it wants a fight and sometimes I pretend it’s a Lotus Carlton – even though it isn’t. At all. Omegas live right at the bottom of the classic car pond at the moment. You can’t give them away and yet they have real presence, the V6s are quick, they are built like a Mercedes and have the comfort to match. I reckon mine looks like a four-door Monaro if you squint a bit (maybe a lot) and, well, I love ’em… because big six Vauxhalls have been a part of my family life for 25 years (my dad loves ’em, too). I’ve had two Royales, a Senator A, two Senator Bs (12v and 24v), a very rusty Viceroy and now an Omega.
They’re cheap. This one, and the work it’s had, stands me at about £500 so far. I’ve already sorted the corrosion issues beneath the radiator, which meant it was Motable, and once ‘with ticket’ I had a go at the misfire.
It’s been doing this ever since it ran hot on its way from Clive’s house to the workshop. Yes, I know, head gasket. I’ve had it running for long periods and there’s no mayo under the oil cap and no oil in the water so, nope, probably not that, I thought. Mass Airflow Sensor was the diagnosis on the plug-in, so I replaced it. Nope, no change there either, it must have been a ‘legacy’.
So, I decided to take everything off the top of the engine, clean it and put it back, along with new plugs (because why not?). Vauxhall/opel, in their wisdom, saw fit to wedge the Ecotech V6 so far into the bulkhead that it is almost impossible to change the rear nearside plug, and everything
else, the myriad vacuum pipes and leads, are all bunched together and head into an unreachable black hole. Still, John Simpson and I managed it.
Back together again. No change. I decided that it might be an injector issue. It initially ran well on choke, from cold and then lost a cylinder as it warmed up. Sometimes, on light throttle, the cylinder would pop back into life. From the look of the plugs that came out, the sluggish tube was the nearside rear. I decided to wait for further investigation before a full diagnosis.
That full diagnosis came along during a visit home. My Omega lived as part of the Vauxhall Heritage Collection for years having served its time as a Vauxhall Senior Management fleet car – ferrying the CEO around when new. I contacted the new team at Luton, lead by Mark Hancock and Dave Lines, who have taken over responsibility for the Heritage Collection from Andy Boddy (enjoy your retirement) and Terry Flinders – both legends who will not be forgotten. I mentioned to them the misfire and they invited me to bring the big black beast for a fettle. They told me to bring a set of plugs, leads and a coil pack, all of which could be the culprit. Preparing for the day plonked a couple of problems up front. First, my V6
was built at a point where two different types of coil pack could have been used. I had to buy both because it is almost impossible to tell which is which without with removing them the top of the engine. Second was driving the car to the Heritage Centre in the first place. On five cylinders this would be a challenge. Light throttle and light traffic made the trip painless.
Heritage home
It was the longest trip I had taken in the car and it reinforced me my admiration for the Rüsselsheim battleship. Silent, comfortable, swift. It was only missing some oomph thanks to a lack of firing tubes. My dad had a 3.2 Elite of his own for five years and I remember it having that lusty, all conquering torque.
At Luton I was greeted by an empty car park. The Heritage Centre nestles in the corner of the former Griffin House site, the former HQ and design centre for Vauxhall. All the buildings are still there, even the design centre, which has been empty for decades, meaning it’s still just as Wayne Cherry would have remembered it.
Soon it will all be houses, sadly. The magnificent purpose-built office block will go first, but the Heritage Centre has a date of September 2021 before they have to vacate their building. Good news, especially with a new team in place, who will now have a chance to get their feet under the table.
Access to all the Vauxhall manuals and personal experience meant that within twenty minutes, Dave and I had removed the scuttle cover and wiper mechanism to expose the back of the engine. A vacuum pipe had popped off, so we replaced it and started the V6 again… no change. We plugged in another Tech 2 reader and found no fault codes. ‘Are you sure it isn’t mechanical?’ said Dave. Worried looks all round.
A sniffer test confirmed it wasn’t the gasket. A look at the manual also confirmed that both coil packs I had ordered were wrong – so we stalled again. Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will be planting the foot with confidence.
The payoff from having to leave the Omega at the centre was the courtesy car they gave me to use over Christmas. A 19,000 miles from new Cavalier CDX V6. Almost the same engine, but with much less weight. Ho Ho Ho!
‘A quick sniffer test confirmed that the head gasket wasn’t at fault’