Hi folks, I just joined so a bit about me and my Omega is in order I guess.
I’ve owned plenty of Vauxhalls in the past, mostly the classic stuff like Viva,Victor, Ventora, VX4/90 and recently owned a Carlton which I’d bought cheaply as a replacement for a Lexus LS400 I was finding a little too expensive to run. Sadly the Carlton died a mysterious death due to engine management issues and I was in need of a car.
A chum in the trade happened to know of something ideal. So I acquired a 2000(V) Omega 2.5 24v automatic CDX Estate in silver. The car has 112K on the clock, and comes from a funeral director. I can thus make all the jokes about having a dead good body and the like. Before I got the car it had new discs and pads, a couple of tyres, new ABS unit, fresh MOT, full service and I got my friend to do the cam belt for me for the price of the parts. It’s very clean and tidy. Wife and (3 year old) daughter like it.
My main requirements were a comfy car with reasonable performance, reasonable fuel consumption and AC. My little girl throws a small fit if you have the windows open on the move. So you either cook or suffer toddler tantrums if you don’t have a cold air supply! The Omega seems quick enough when it’s on the move, if a little slow off the mark and the fuel consumption isn’t as good round town as I would have liked, but other than that it all seems to be happy motoring. The load space is very useful, we just used the car to take a family vacation to Wales and it took 3 adults and child plus a ton of luggage (the sports mode auto was useful to haul that weight over the Welsh hills and valleys). Fuel consumption was a little disappointing at 28.8 mpg for a week of gentle cruising.
I will probably look into an LPG conversion for the car, with a toroidal tank in the spare wheel space and a space saver or can of Tyre Weld I’ll preserve the load space. That’s a thought for another day.
Also thinking wildly I quite fancy the idea of swapping in a 3.2V6 out of an MV6 for a bit more grunt. I’d be interested in anyone’s experiences if they’ve done this swap.
My other cars are a 1988 Pontiac Trans Am with the 5.7 litre V8 (Corvette spec L98 option), a 1966 Buick LeSabre, 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury and a 1976 Ford Capri. The last 3 of which are “project cars”, although with a 3 year old about I don’t get as much time to do projects as I once did. Hence me needing a modern car like the Omega as a daily driver now.
Due to its previous owner some of my chums call it the hearse.
Anyway, that’s my story.
For those who are interested the Trans Am is detailed here:
http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=readersrides&thread=85864And the Sport Fury...
http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=65726