I have the Opel Corsa C, 5 doors, Comfort edition, 1400 c.c. 90 HP. with 4 airbags, air-condition, ABS, front electrical windows and a Blaupunkt cassette player (which I replaced later with an AIWA MP3 Player) (travelled 62500 klm. in 3 years and 10 months).
I bought this car new in January 2001 and I drive it until today in the Greek roads. I have to say that its good comfort, satisfying power, and quiet operation refer to bigger cars standards and combining all these characteristics with its small size, flexibility, fuel economy and all the other advantages that most of the small cars have, theoretically you get the perfect result. And I use the word ’’theoretically’’ because nothing is really perfect. I would describe it as a very good solution for someone who needs a car for small-range (30-50 klm) everyday travels but also being able to travel bigger distances (until 1000 klm - 2-3 times a year) without real thinking and also move easily in the city.
Driving the Opel Corsa is easy and untiring for its driver.. and also kind of enjoyable. It’s a car for the low-profile exigent driver who doesn’t need to impress.
Despite my good opinion about the car I wouldn’t say that my experience with it is unproblematic. The first bad impression came when I observed, after travelling only a few kilometres, a really annoying noise coming from the rear-right side of the car. It was like little stones hitting the area behind the rear-right door and maybe the rear-right wheel chamber. After examining what could possibly make such a noise, I find out that the only difference between the left and the right wheel chamber was that above the damper in the right chamber there was a smaller chamber (a little bigger than the size of a man’s fist) where probably little stones were entering from the turning wheel and while they were rolling down they were making this annoying noise. After 10000-15000 klms when the chamber filled with mud and became sticky the problem disappeared.
Another disadvantage is that the cooling ventilator shuts off when you remove the key from the ignition even when the engine heat is high. This might be good for safety but during summer when the temperature is high you have to wait 5-10 minutes by the car until the heat concentration drops, so you can take your key and leave. The heat concentration damages the engine (says so in the manual too).
Also after 5000 klms of smooth driving between 2000-3500 rpm I pushed it a little bit harder (120-140 klms/h) in some close turns where I observed that while on the turn, there were little rhythmical kicks from the rear side of the car to the outside direction of the turn, something that could scare maybe the inexperienced driver but being far from losing its grip. Probably it’s a problem caused by the bad quality of the dampers.
Despite this I never felt that I was losing control and whenever I might pushed a little harder than I should, the car lost its grip from its front side something that could easily be controlled with a little loosening of the accelerator and little corrections from the steering wheel. Hitting the brake though would be a huge mistake!
It lost its grip only once from the rear side while I was passing over a road-anomaly on a turn and there was also ice on the road (a very thin layer which was not visible). Still I was driving quite slowly (passing through a village) 30-40 klm/h and I was able to gain control after a few acrobatics and 2-3 corrections with the steering-wheel.
After 30000 klms the springs and dampers started making quite annoying noises and now (62500 klms) they still perform satisfactorily. Along with these noises appeared a very slight loosening of the steering-wheel while passing over road anomalies (so slight that the Opel mechanics could not realise the existence of the problem). Now I am thinking about purchasing a KONI suspension kit and get rid of all these annoying problems.
Another problem appeared at 38000 klms when a plastic semi-spherical part of the gears arms (which connect the gears controlling stick with the rest of the gears system) broke when my mother was driving the car. So the second gear got stuck and the gears stick started behaving like a ladle in the cauldron. The funny thing is that none of these problems was admitted from the opel service as an unprovoked failure! So I had to pay 50 euros for this even though the car was in the overall guarantee period!
Of course the horrible Opel service in my area (Alexandroupoli, Greece) is not a creation of my imagination but you could ask my father and my brother?s opinions, who also own other Opel models and had in the past similar problems.
The past summer I had a front-wiper motor failure. The front wipers started to move very slowly and with difficulty they were travelling the whole track. After a few days the problem became worst and they got stuck so I had to force them down with my hand. The result was a wiper-motor failure but the reason was the rust in the left wiper?s rotation-axon which caused this failure.
With no surprise I heard the chief-mechanics saying that the guarantee would not cover this failure because the 2 years overall guarantee expired and I only have now 6 years guarantee for the engine parts and anti-rust guarantee! But of course they don?t recognise the wiper motor as an engine part and neither the problems that rust provoked are under the anti-rust guarantee! They also told me that the wiper motor would cost 171 euros without the installing work! I searched the market and I found it used at 40 euros and new at 75 euros.
I also decided not to visit again my area?s Opel service even though this will cancel my ?guarantees? since it is useless to pay more money and get less. I now visit the citroen service facility for the oil and filters changes (where I pay for synthetic oil ?> for 10000 klms and oil-filter less than 25 euros while at the Opel service I was paying more than 30 euros for regular oil ---> for 5000 klms) and I will probably refer to the near city?s Opel service if I need a more special repair.
The conclusion is that despite its own typical opel problems it is a decent car and it will repay its owner. My favourite part is the engine?s noiseless fuction (it sounds like a sleeping cat). The service on the other hand sucks but this is something that differs in every country. As I read in another guy?s review the service in India is great.. such a shame that in a European union?s country (where opel has the higher sales than any other company, with a big gap from the second) the service sucks! And of course the insufficient inspection of the costumer services that the Opel dealers provide in each country could be a fair reason to criticise General motors.