Opel?

[otobot]

I've seen that opels sell cheap even for more recent models. why is this so? bad after sales? very expensive parts? I'm plannin on buying a car and the opel seems bang for the buck for a low-priced unit that's around year 2k plus already.

any thoughts or things you've heard?

[AG4]

I've seen that opels sell cheap even for more recent models. why is this so? bad after sales? very expensive parts? I'm plannin on buying a car and the opel seems bang for the buck for a low-priced unit that's around year 2k plus already.

Low resale value caused by slightly higher cost of parts/after sales service, another thing was the fact that GM dropped the brand because it was getting too expensive to import (The Thai built Optra easily outsold the Astra before the Opel brand was dropped in GM's RP lineup).
GMPh is still here but some people feel that because the Opel brand is no longer in the country, its as good as dead. In truth GM in the RP still services Opel cars. (image thing?)

Note: As the Opel brand moved upmarket and importing it to other countries became more expensive(specially around Asia), GM decided to introduce Chevrolet as their affordable global brand using GMDAT of Korea(formerly Daewoo Motors).
The Optra, Aveo and Spark are examples of transitional models.
The Captiva SUV is the 1st GMDAT model to be developed on a global GM platform(sister model of the Opel Antara and Saturn Vue).
The upcoming new gen GMDAT Chevys will be further integrated to GM's global lineup.

[otobot]

thanks a lot for the detailed reply, sir. much appreciated!!!

[tylerdude]

i'm an opel astra owner and i'm really impressed with the solid built of this car. it's really a steal if you buy it 2nd hand especially with the very low resale value of this car considering it's a german manufactured car. i guess it's really the consumer's perception why it has a very low resale value here in the philippines brought about by poor after sales and slightly higher maintenance compared to japanese sedans. you can still get parts from GM or in banawe (thunder or fronte) if you want to get a cheaper price.

btw, for more info about opel, you can check the local club site: www.clubopelph.com

[otobot]

how about parts availability? does it take ages to find a part for an opel?

[tylerdude]

parts are readily available from casa and in banawe. of course, there would be some hard to find parts which may require to be ordered from germany so it usually takes 2 weeks before delivery. for typical parts required for preventive maintenance, it is easily obtainable from the said sources.

also, there is a guy selling opel parts in the opel forum which can deliver to you any part in only 3 days and his prices are cheaper than in banawe.

[morocutuda]

I had a Vectra wagon V6 for 3 years. The car felt rock solid, as a German car should feel, and the engine was smooth, torquey and powerful. Generally stable at very high speed - in a straight line, because handling though was quite poor. My problem was with the totally crappy service of GM Phils. The worst! Crap talaga! They made a car that had some problems emerge from normal use even worse, poor car! Once a transmission cable gave, after just two years, and it took three weeks to get a replacement! Another time I sent it to them for a coolant leak, and in the course of fixing it they created an oil leak, for which it had to be towed back and fixed again. For the long hours waiting for a tow truck in the middle of the night, for the missed family vacations that had been previously planned but cancelled because the car had to go in to fix something THEY caused, for the missed meetings, for running without aircon in the rain because they could not fix a simple temperature sensor after three tries, etc, etc, I swore never again to consider a GM car. It was okay when it was working right, but it just had too many problems aggravated by poor service.

However, two years ago I used a Vauxhall Astra (same as the Opel Astra) as a rental car in New Zealand for eight days. It was very nice to drive, good handling, good engine, and just as solidly built as my Vectra. I should add though that it was brand new when I used it.