‘And one for my girl, too’
Two Astras bought for peanuts become part of the family
I first saw my Vauxhall Astra for sale at £1400 in the local car supermarket clearance section but I wasn’t going to pay that, as it looked a bit tired. Some weeks later, the price dropped to £420 as the engine management warning light had apparently lit up. That’s more my kind of price so I took my code reader along and plugged it in.
The fault was cured with 90 minutes of work, mainly cleaning out 95,000 miles of diesel exhaust gas recirculation gunge from the air intake pipes: two squirts of carb cleaner into the MAP sensor and normal running was restored. Other than routine maintenance, nearly three years later everything’s fine and it has never missed a beat.
So fine in fact that I thought I’d buy another with body panels in better condition to treat as a donor. I found one in the same colour and from the same factory, so it should have been a good enough colour match. It had a partial history with evidence of some care including recent belt changes and a service but felt a bit baggy. Going through it told me all it needed was a proper service and replacement of some near worn out consumables. That’s when the penny dropped that it would make a really good first car for my daughter. She’s nearly 14 and that would give me three years to get everything right so it’s totally safe and reliable for her.