Following on from the Rover was this 1997 Vauxhall Astra 2.0 dti Estate in red – no picture this time I’m afraid but I’m sure most of you know what they look like.
Having packed in my work at the office supplies form and deciding to join Trev in doing parcels I needed something more suitable than the Rover. By suitable I mean spacious, economical and reliable and practical, and the Astra fitted the bill.
In fact it did more than just parcels. It spent several weeks up and down the M11, M25 & M23 when we decided to relocate to the south coast carrying our worldly goods. When we settled in and started work down south it resumed it’s duties as a parcel wagon and lasted well over another year’s extremely hard labour before we decided it was time for a change.
It wasn’t without it’s problems in the early days. It became increasingly harder to start and the local garage couldn’t fix it. With the bill increasing and the customer (me) getting more irate, in desperation they turned to the the local Vauxhall dealers who diagnosed and fixed the problem for seventy-five quid. It cost me nearly seven hundred quid altogether then but was fine from then on.
This truly was a great workhorse and with over 120,000 miles on the clock it still managed to return over 53mpg after a sedate run back from Sheffield once. Towards the end of our tenure as it’s owners, the electrics became a little erratic – a little wet weather and you’d lose the indicators and speedo. The start of a low rumble from upfront on acceleration convinced us that her days as a workhorse – in our hands anyway – were over.
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