Tiny tweaks big up new Astra
ALMOST 20 years ago I worked for a car magazine that had on its long-term test fleet a Volkswagen Golf, a Ford Focus and a Vauxhall Astra.The general consensus was that the Astra was the dud of the pack. Not much fun to drive was the common call. One night I came back from a long flight that included a lot of delays.
At Heathrow was theAstra.The long drive home in the car was a revelation. It was so easy to drive, so relaxing, that my opinion of the car changed on that journey.
Travel forwards almost 20 years and we have a new Vauxhall Astra. Not exactly new because it’s a facelift that uses most of the existing car.
As you know, Vauxhall and its German brother Opel have been bought by the PSA Group. In a couple of years there’ll be a totally new Astra that will share most of its components with Peugeot and Citroen. But for now we have this
upgraded Astra. In fact quite a lot has changed. Visually the car looks very similar to the current car with the usual facelift mild plastic surgery which involves a new front grille, bumper and lights.
What you can’t see is that the changes have lowered the Astra’s coefficient of drag (quoted as Cd) to 0.26.
That’s very slippery and using my nerdy memory I can tell you that that’s the same as the 1960s Lotus Europa which is a sports car so low that it barely comes up to your knees. The Astra estate, called the Sports Tourer, slips through the air even more sleekly with a Cd of 0.25.
The new Astra also features completely new engines.The petrol engines are all three cylinder units in either 1.0-litre or 1.4-litre capacities and the new diesel is a 1.5-litre four-cylinder which produces 122bhp. Average Co2 levels are down 19 percent which is a colossal improvement.
Some of that is down to the improved aerodynamics and the some to do with the engines.As well as the choice of petrol or
diesel, you have a wide selection of transmissions to choose from.
Alongside conventional manual gearboxes there’s a CVT (Constantly Variable Transmission) that comes with the 145bhp 1.4-litre petrol engine and also a nine-speed automatic gearbox that is available with the diesel engine.
We drove Astras with all three engines but we’ll concentrate on the diesel-powered car for a couple of reasons: it’s going to be popular with fleets and secondly, I think it is the best car.
Diesel? Isn’t that the fuel of the past? It is if you believe all media and listen to politicians.The fact of the matter is that a modern advanced diesel engine as fitted to the new Astra is pretty clean.
This engine, for example, is fitted with SCR (Selective Catalyst Reduction) which removes 90 per cent of Nitrogen Oxides.
The diesel engine is available with a six-speed manual gearbox as well as the automatic gearbox. Our test car was fitted with the latter transmission.
It’s a £1,660 option but worth it if you do a big mileage and also drive in town a lot. It’s a smooth and effective gearbox which despite having nine to choose from, is usually in exactly the right ratio.
As soon as I’d gone a mile up the road in this Astra I was reminded of my Heathrow experience all those years ago.
This generation Astra is very similar in character but of course with almost 20 years of development even more sophisticated.
I will be shunned at the bar at the next new car launch that I attend for saying this, but a large number of my colleagues (usually the younger ones) are overly obsessed with how a car handles and how fast it is. What really matters to me and I’m sure to you also, is how comfortable a car is and how relaxing it is to drive.
This new Astra ticks all those boxes. I was particularly impressed with how well it soaked up bumps. Vauxhall’s engineers have made adjustments to the dampers but the suspension is fundamentally the same as the old car.
Perhaps it is the heavier weight of the diesel engine compared to the lighter three-cylinder petrol engine, but the diesel Astra was more comfortable over bumps than the petrol versions we drove. They rode comfortably, too; just not as well as the diesel.
Inside the Astra not much has changed. It’s logically laid out, well put together and the controls are easy to use.
The lower spec cars are the best, whereas the high spec Elite Nav model is an awkward combination of modern digital instruments and old school analogue.
I suspect that the next generation Astra, with its French influence, might have a snazzier and more imaginative interior.
The new Astra might not be as sporty as Ford Focus but that is of no consequence to most drivers.
It’s a better all-rounder and more comfortable with it. I was expecting this mildly tweaked car to be rather mundane. I was wrong – little changes, big improvement.