After many years of driving my trusty SEAT Toledo diesel, I decided that it was time for a replacement, and that I felt like having something with a bit more performance.  In the end I decided to go for a Vectra V6 with the 3.2 litre engine.  This model suffers huge depreciation from new, and I picked mine up for £13,000 at 5 months old, and with 7,500 miles on the clock.  My model was the Elite, which was the top of the range model, and came with automatic transmission, leather, climate control, cruise control and CD changer.  In all, I did about 40,000 miles in the Vectra in three years.

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The engine was a 3.2 litre V6 that was clearly tuned for mid-range performance rather than outright power.  The figures are 221 lb-ft of torque and 208 BHP.  This car did its best work between 3000 and 5000 RPM and you didn't really gain much from holding the revs to the 6500 RPM red line.  It did sound good, though, at high revs!  According to the Vauxhall website, the car should be capable of 153 mph flat out and 0-60 mph in 7.5 seconds.  Those figures are probably reasonable - the manual should be able to do 0-60 in 7.0 seconds, and Top Gear magazine got about that figure when they tested the manual V6.

The automatic was a five-speeder, but it could be a bit jerky when changing up through the gears under light acceleration.  This was an extremely comfortable car, and the suspension was clearly set up for cruising rather than caning around country lanes.  That suits me, though.  It's interesting that even with 208 BHP, this car never really felt that quick.  It did seem to pile on the speed easily enough, though!  The engine was very quiet and smooth at all engine speeds (including at the red line), and there was very little road noise when cruising.

In summary, I liked this car.  It had a superb engine, and that was probably the best feature of the car.  It's powerful, quiet and relatively economical (I got around 30 mpg on the average).  The gearbox was a little bit jerky, but that's more of an observation than a complaint.  It cruised superbly, but the car was not at its best when going down country lanes.  Any GTi would quickly lose the Vectra on country lanes, even if the Vectra is quicker in a straight line.  I would say that this car is a superb second-hand buy, because of the fierce depreciation from new.  The new car price was £23,000, but I got mine for £13,000 at five months old.  Sounds like something of a bargain to me!