I have just returned from a business jaunt in south west France. I knew I was going to have quite a lot of driving to do, so booked a "Passat or equivalent". Got to the airport and my steed was in fact an Opel Insignia EcoFlex. Having been very impressed with the car when I first saw it at Excel some years ago, I was quite pleased.
First job when I parked up at my hotel was to change the stereo and computer to English and Imperial, respectively. Once that was done the car was very easy to familiarize with.
When I came out to the car the following morning I noticed a scrape on the rear which I hadn’t spotted before, though by the look of it, it wasn’t new and I had just missed it when inspecting it at dusk the night before. Fortunately when handing it back the guy didn’t look too closely!
The boot was enormous, as one would expect, and the car itself is really very big, especially compared to my fat little Clio. Manoeuvring around car parks was something to be undertaken with caution, but the front and rear parking sensors made this somewhat less stressful than it might have been otherwise.
The car was quite well specified, though much is now expect of cars in this class; part leather seats, 17” alloys, dual climate, front and rear parking, cruise control, illuminated controls on the steering wheel, electric handbrake, etc. etc.
The car has incredibly long gearing. With the cruise set at around 86mph (nav) in 6th gear the engine is turning at little more than 2,000rpm. For the first few miles, while acclimating with the car, sitting on the wrong side, and the road, I noticed "Shift ^" at the bottom of the display, embarrassingly it took me a few miles to realise I was in fact only in 4th! The shift light isn’t perfect though as it will encourage changes that would leave the engine labouring in the next gear.
I later experimented and noticed that 3rd is actually longer than 6th in my 197! The long gearing takes a bit of getting used to; I am used to being able to use second from just a few mph, but in the Opel you really do need to change down to first, otherwise it isn't happy at all. You also need to accept that 6th, and to a lesser extent 5th are useless at anything other than cruising speeds. While there is quite a jump from 4th to 6th, I often found myself bypassing 5th as by the time you were up to around 2,750 in 4th, you were doing over 70mph meaning you might as well just drop it into 6th. Usually when driving a LHD car I have to pay particular attention to my gear changes for the lever to move smoothly, in this car the ‘box was slick enough that this was really easy, making the car much easier to adapt to.
This 6th gear was excellent on the Autoroute, with the inside of the car being extremely quiet and peaceful at over 85mph. I drove the car in a wide range of situations, through city centres, empty motorways, quiet motorways, across two lane single carriageways, and was really impressed. Between Monday evening and Thursday afternoon the car and I covered over 1,700km and spending around €80 on the peage, the car was great, as one would expect, happily taking a 180 mile stint without giving my back ache, and still returning over 47mpg according to the computer.
Cars in this class are expected to deliver so much. I am also a big fan of the Mondeo, which may be a touch sportier than the Insignia, but this car was certainly not lacking and as you will gather I was very impressed with it.
On a slightly different note, I think this was probably the first car I have driven with an electronic handbrake. Once I got used to this, it was fine. I was notably interested as I had heard on a podcast that if you hold on an electronic handbrake the car will do a full on emergency stop, and can confirm with the Insignia that this is very much the case, all four wheels brake really hard, quite impressive!
Thanks for reading!
First job when I parked up at my hotel was to change the stereo and computer to English and Imperial, respectively. Once that was done the car was very easy to familiarize with.
When I came out to the car the following morning I noticed a scrape on the rear which I hadn’t spotted before, though by the look of it, it wasn’t new and I had just missed it when inspecting it at dusk the night before. Fortunately when handing it back the guy didn’t look too closely!
The boot was enormous, as one would expect, and the car itself is really very big, especially compared to my fat little Clio. Manoeuvring around car parks was something to be undertaken with caution, but the front and rear parking sensors made this somewhat less stressful than it might have been otherwise.
The car was quite well specified, though much is now expect of cars in this class; part leather seats, 17” alloys, dual climate, front and rear parking, cruise control, illuminated controls on the steering wheel, electric handbrake, etc. etc.
The car has incredibly long gearing. With the cruise set at around 86mph (nav) in 6th gear the engine is turning at little more than 2,000rpm. For the first few miles, while acclimating with the car, sitting on the wrong side, and the road, I noticed "Shift ^" at the bottom of the display, embarrassingly it took me a few miles to realise I was in fact only in 4th! The shift light isn’t perfect though as it will encourage changes that would leave the engine labouring in the next gear.
I later experimented and noticed that 3rd is actually longer than 6th in my 197! The long gearing takes a bit of getting used to; I am used to being able to use second from just a few mph, but in the Opel you really do need to change down to first, otherwise it isn't happy at all. You also need to accept that 6th, and to a lesser extent 5th are useless at anything other than cruising speeds. While there is quite a jump from 4th to 6th, I often found myself bypassing 5th as by the time you were up to around 2,750 in 4th, you were doing over 70mph meaning you might as well just drop it into 6th. Usually when driving a LHD car I have to pay particular attention to my gear changes for the lever to move smoothly, in this car the ‘box was slick enough that this was really easy, making the car much easier to adapt to.
This 6th gear was excellent on the Autoroute, with the inside of the car being extremely quiet and peaceful at over 85mph. I drove the car in a wide range of situations, through city centres, empty motorways, quiet motorways, across two lane single carriageways, and was really impressed. Between Monday evening and Thursday afternoon the car and I covered over 1,700km and spending around €80 on the peage, the car was great, as one would expect, happily taking a 180 mile stint without giving my back ache, and still returning over 47mpg according to the computer.
Cars in this class are expected to deliver so much. I am also a big fan of the Mondeo, which may be a touch sportier than the Insignia, but this car was certainly not lacking and as you will gather I was very impressed with it.
On a slightly different note, I think this was probably the first car I have driven with an electronic handbrake. Once I got used to this, it was fine. I was notably interested as I had heard on a podcast that if you hold on an electronic handbrake the car will do a full on emergency stop, and can confirm with the Insignia that this is very much the case, all four wheels brake really hard, quite impressive!
Thanks for reading!
