Vauxhall Antara Owner Reviews: MPG, Problems & Reliability

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Buyer Beware... at 40K miles we needed a new throttle body and the repair was quoted at £880! No help from Vauxhall Customer Care.... the mileage is poor as well at approx 30 mpg... I will NOT buy another or even probably consider Vauxhall again...

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No problems at all

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I have only had this vehicle for a few months so it`s a little early to comment, however there has not been any problems with the vehicle through the winter so far.

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No issues.

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Outstanding - Supplied by a very good dealer

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Good

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No isuues so far

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Not had it that long, but good so far.

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within the first 2 months I needed a new pipe on the turbocharger, lost power completely. DPF light comes on quite often.

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The best car I have had in all my yesrs

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awful car to drive,seats are absolutely dreadful.asked dealer to exchange me out of it after the first week of ownership and sheer back agony with every journey but as yet they dont seem to want it back in their car portfolio for some reason,wonder why.Other dealers have offered to take it off me at an £8000 loss in just 3 months of ownership.my advise is think long and hard before purchasing one of these,i have owned many cars and this one is by far the most uncomfortable to drive by far.

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Nice looking car but the fuel consumption is terrible what ever way you drive it

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It's a great car

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Having loved my Antara for 5 years now and having stumbled across this review site, I now understand why Vauxhall have canned the model after not a very long run. The vehicle is so inconsistent - some reviews love it and some hate it but the clear message is that the build quality is poor and too many people have too many problems. Also, the theme with nearly everyone is the poor fuel consumption. For me - the car is just brilliant. Rides well, firm and the power (185 BHP model) has a kick when you need it. Love the high driving position on long journeys. The leather seats are very comfortable - my shoulder has given me trouble for years (especially in my previous Volvo saloon) but these seats provide good lumbar support and the back of the seat goes right up to the top of my back - providing support to the back of my shoulders. Can't understand why others seem to have issues with the seats. The car gave no end of problems in the first year or so, engine and ECU failures, front wheel bearing went, all the alloy wheels began to corrode(!) and one time I was stranded on the side of the M1 in a snowstorm with half hidden lorries thundering past. But the warranty and customer services have been excellent. Everything repaired free under warranty and courtesy car provided during the lengthy periods the car was out of service. Can't recommend the "Lifetime warranty" highly enough; for me it gives great peace of mind. It runs out at 100,000 miles (so not really lifetime) so in a year or so I expect to replace the car and such a warranty will be a major factor in which car to buy. The last three years have been pretty much trouble free. I don't like the appalling fuel consumption. I seem to get more out of it than most reviewers but most of my mileage is M'ways and dual carriageways and I try very hard to drive economically. The DPF seems to double consumption and negates all my hard work. This is one thing they need to fix in their next model - that and and a consistent build quality.

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Really nice to drive. Good miles to the gallon. Faster than most other 4x4. Very quite and comfortable.

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My Antara has been backwards and forwards to Peter Vardy. The electronic handbrake failed, I've had clutch and gearbox problems, the stop/start system sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, and the mpg is quite bad.

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Would not recommend an Antara or even Vauxhall after this experience. Bought the car as an ex-demo a few months old, seemed OK at first but quickly found fuel consumption terrible even by SUV standards. The climate control is rubbish, car constantly steams up unless ac/demist on all the time, servicing is expensive (apparently because the Antara has so many filters!) but the final straw is that both front suspension struts are leaking (as advised at MOT) after only 34,000 miles and the "lifetime warranty" is not worth the paper, according to Vauxhall this is wear & tear!! (£600 repair bill). We now plan to get rid of it asap and won't touch a Vauxhall again.

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The specification of the car is ok, and the ride is fine. The only issue is the lifetime garantee, which is a waste of time as if you have any problems they refer it back to Vauxhall and reject the claim. My advice is to buy any car from Vauxhall, because what it is and what is not under warranty seems unclear.

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I have read so many negative reviews about this car, so far in my view unfounded. Seats are comfortable, economy as expected from the research I had conducted so was not a surprise. Looks great and doesn't drive badly at all. I bought it is a tow car which it does admirably. So before you dismiss it, give it a go. I have to say the dealership was great as well.

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Car is regularly serviced as to manuf spec

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Car was bought in Aug 2012 therefore no issues.

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No problems at all.

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Diesel consumption Vastly different to published Fan keeps kicking in and smell of burning

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Never failed me yet

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So far the car has been reliable and i'm more that happy with it so far.

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Have had an issue with central locking but garage cannot find any faults

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great pricing/spec etc but this car is dreadful to drive on a day to day basis.if you have any back problems at all then stay well clear of this vehicle.dealership no help whatsoever either despite the seats now being a known issue,telling point is when even they do not want them back in stock,depreciation is great too,£8 grand in 3 month and that is with £3.5k off the new list price.my advise is look elsewhere,i am even after 3 month of ownership and a massive loss looming.never buy a vauxhall again.

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The antara has not ceased to make my opinion of it the highest of any make/type of car i have had. The intelligent 4x4 which cuts in when the road conditions cause it to lose traction in 2 wheel drive. The level of comfort is ideal for the type of car even on a long journey.

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Excellent value for money good build quality inside and out reliable and comfortable all round family hatchback the most reliable car i have ever owned . Thoughll recommended

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Very good car ,good in snow,great tow car and very comfortable on short or long journeys.But Seems very expensive to service at main dealer.

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Not had this car long, but no issues at all yet, it drives well, its smooth & quiet, the auto gearbox is extremely smooth, the car is comfortable, & roomy, it has all the extra goodies that you practically want in a car. To summarise: Our Antara does what we want it to do, effortlessly, it's easy to drive, easy to park, excels in luggage space, with simple folding rear seats. Sure' we would like s few more MPG, but "hey ho" it's a big car that we all feel safe in. So there's always a compromise. I believe the MPG will get better as the engine loosens up, but with steady driving we can achieve 34-35 MPG Ours is the 184 bhp, so there's plenty of torque for overtaking etc. Having never owned a Vauxhall before, I'd be the first to criticise if we wasn't happy, however' we find ours to be far better than we ever imagined.

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The storage is very poor for a large car and the back is high - reducing storage. The basic equipment is disappointing - the mirrors do not fold in, it steams up all the time, there seems to be better equipped cars around, the mph is very poor, there has been a number of recalls. The back axle needed to be replaced. It is the worst car we have had and Vauxhall show no interest in any concerns.

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I collected my car 230 miles from my home town as the dealer I was using was just the best. I have done this a few times because the journey home would always give me a chance to get a feel for the car over the 230 mile trip home. Within 3 months I started to get problems with the car. Electrics mostly & constant failing after fixing. The car was returned to the Manufacturer to investigate & it was with them for 5 weeks. I got the car back in a dirty state & damage to the passenger front seat along with a scratch on the centre console trim. Vauxhall replaced both at a cost of over £1000.00. I got the car back & it failed again for the same reason, CAN bus errors, lost communication to all the dials. Indicators not working, alarm going off, electric mirrors only open one side unless you press the button twice. The car then went back to manufacturer again for another 7 weeks. I was told it was a problem with all the connectors on the car & all the control modules. So they replaced everything & I mean everything. Every dial, display, ECM, relay - the lot, all replaced. I got the car back eventually only for it to fail 3 days later with the same error codes as before. The car is 2 years old and has covered 3500 miles. 1800 miles of this has been acumulated by the dealer & Vauxhall UK. In the first year Vauxhall had the car longer than me, they had covered more miles in the car testing that I had driving it. The front demist is so poor & it takes a very long time to demist the car. Having to use 3 metres of kitchen towel to get the water off the inside of the screen is crazy. When it's below zero the ice is on the inside as well. I still have the car as it's on contract until March 2016 but as soon as I have the chance it's gone. This is the worst car I have ever had in my 30 years as a driver. It's not able to do 500 miles without failing in a huge way. The fuel consumption is nothing like advertised. 17 to 19 mpg at best around town, 45+mpg on cruise. It's nice to drive & has good specification but due to it's many failings I can't say I would buy another one. What I can say is that I definately NOT buy one.

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We've been thinking about renewing some vehicles and, looking around, Vauxhall Special Projects said that they had a new one I could borrow for a week to see what I thought and give them some feedback. Not entirely sure they're going to like it: The instructions were to "drive" it, just put it through its paces, obviously this guy has never been in a car with me.... New Antara arrived, brilliant white, all the bells and whistles and just delivery mileage from being driven across the country. My first thought was that it just looked like a standard Vauxhall raised with a foot of plastic covered bodywork added to the bottom, as style goes it was sadly lacking, but surely the interior would be better. The seats were cheap, the electric adjustment clunky, and, as I later found, the back support so "unsupportive" I needed pain killers the next day (to be fair I did damage my back years ago so it's not entirely Vauxhall's fault). In the centre of the dashboard nice and high up, extremely visible, is a display panel. Unfortunately somebody decided that would be the ideal place for a bright orange LCD fuel indicator, which means that the full colour touch screen Sat Nav/Media Centre is tucked so far down you can't possibly see the road if you look at it, which isn't advisable. The Diesel engine has to be one of the noisiest modern units I have ever heard, and boy can you hear it, until the Start/Stop system cuts in, which it does at every single set of lights and junction, which on the positive side means that you can actually hear the Sat Nav then, on the negative it does mean that you have to add a second delay to your pressing on the accelerator until it's running again, otherwise it stalls, restarts itself, stalls again, and then just stops and you have to manually restart the car. The gearbox is a six speed, and apart from that will bring back many memories for the more mature driver, that of sloppy selection and notchy gates last seen on the Triumph Herald, nostalgia points I'm fairly sure they weren't aiming for. For comfort there is a raised centre armrest, just at the right height for you to lay your weary arm as the cruise control eats up the motorway miles, however it's a fixed position rest, not very long, and VERY far back, so unless you're 7'4" and have the drivers seat wayyyyy back (which removes all the leg room for the rear seat passengers) then it's pretty useless. Incorporated into this centre rest though is a set of cup holders, which slide open (thus crushing your cups and spraying hot drink all over the car) to reveal a storage box which tucks right under that fixed arm rest, meaning that unless you have a triple jointed arm (which might be who they designed the arm rest for) you can't get anything that has slid to the back out of it. Looking in the storage area they have hidden the cigarette lighter socket in there, plus the lighter, meaning that you can't fill the storage area with any, well, storage, because if you do and it slides forward (or gets full), you'll push the lighter in and ignite everything in there, yet another safety feature obviously thought up by the same person who put the Sat Nav so far down its almost in the footwell. It does have a USB socket in the storage area, which tries to charge your phone but is VERY low amperage, so instead just leaves it about where it is. It does however connect your phone to the Media Unit (that as you may remember is sat far too low down) and lets you play the music stored on your device. Connectivity is good, pairing your phone is easy, I know this as the delivery driver had sensibly paired his on the way so he could call me to say when he was arriving, this had however downloaded all his contacts to the car which were now stored despite his phone being with him on the way home, I'll definitely be clearing it's memory before I throw it back. As the weather was a bit rough last night (dark, raining, wet leaves etc) I thought I'd give it a go and see how the wonderful 4wd system works, it's a tall vehicle so stability is important. It doesn't like wet leaves, and by that I mean it REALLY doesn't like wet leaves. The car has stability controls, ABS, traction control, obstacle warnings etc etc, and trying to set off, hard, in the rain, on a road covered with wet leaves set every single one of them off (after it had already jolted across the junction because the electronic hand brake hadn't fully released) making the interior light up like an old school disco, ahh the memories. It does have a glove box big enough to fit an iPad in, which would be more useful if there was a USB charging port in there as well, as it won't fit in the centre console, and, even if it did, the socket isn't powerful enough to charge it. In summary, we're probably (read "definitely") not going to be getting any, it's just wrong in every single way that it could be wrong (there's more but after a while it just feels unfair to pick on the car so much). Thank you Vauxhall for the loan, your delivery guys were excellent, although they did have problems with the paperwork as the battery on their tablet went flat, I wonder where he'd tried to charge it ?

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About February this year I rang the Vauxhall agent we had the car off informing them that the car was making a terrible whistling noise when you accelerate. They told me to take it for a good run and keep it on high revs for half an hour which we did, It made no difference at all. So then we informed them when we took the car in for its two year service they told us they would look into it for us. We went to pick up the car later that day to be told that the car was ok no problem with the turbo but it needed 2 front shock absorbers we had to wait over a month for the call to take the car back in to have the shock absorbers replaced. Once again we told them about the terrible whistling noise, they said once again that they would check it over. When we went to pick up the car they once again told us that the car was perfectly ok and the whistling noise was normal for an Antara that had done over 15,000 miles ours had done 18,000. When we are out in the car people turn and look at us wondering where this awful noise is coming from. To have the windows open is a no no because of the noise. Vauxhall do you think we came off the last banana boat, never heard anything so daft.

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Got a massive reduction on new some £9k. Have tended to own Fords in the past and this has been a major change. £5k cheaper than the equivalent Kuga. Nice vehicle to drive, very comfortable with loads of gadgets. Not had any issues to date although the regen of the DP filter is happening every 500 miles at present which hammers the average fuel consumption. On the commute run I am getting around 35+ to the gallon but this drops if I do any town driving and if the regen kicks in.

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Yes Green thumbs up

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Yes Green thumbs up

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NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER

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I liked this car when I first had it. I have a severe back problem and I have had to add a small cushion to keep a part of my back away from the seat. I have just notice last week a patch of oil type substance on my drive. I called the RAC who found that the dip stick was down on its lowest line. I took it back to my dealership and they tell me it is nothing for this model to use 1 litre of oil per 1,000 miles. Has anyone else had this problem only I have had other Vauxhall's including one. a Vectra 2litre which I gave my son and it did 150,000 and still didn't use oil!!!! Are engines getting worse?

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Good so far

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Fuse faults which have now been resolved by warranty. New ignition switch.

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No problems yet

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Overall no issues

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Been in for 3 services in the last two months, each time we are told a reset has been done and within weeks issues arise.

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Only had 1 fault a faulty boot open sensor which was replaced quickly

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New car so must assume it's reliable. No problems so far.

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not any issues so far

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The car drives excellent and has never let me down, on the down side the front windscreen is very difficult to demist in wet and cold weather conditions. It requires the booster/demister to be on almost constantly.

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No problems

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I find this car comfortable and solid, especially on long trips to the south of France. But the only draw back is the fuel consumption it is very poor we can only get 27 mpg

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Superb

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The best car i've ever owned & driven by a long way, so comfortable & praticle, not too big for going to town either

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My Antara has just over 100k. Engine now beyond economical repair. Really disappointed. Appears that the car is not at all robust. I wouldn't mind if I was a boy racer but am not. I would expect a decent diesel engine to last much longer. 10k to the scrap yard in three years. Don't buy one.

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Junk. Very comfortable drive however between the prop shaft failing... Wiring loom failing, wheel bearings and the final straw... Air-con pump failing it has been one headache after another.

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No Red thumbs down

Vauxhall Antara owner reviews

"The Vauxhall Antara comes up short next to rivals like the Toyota RAV4, Mazda CX-5, Ford Kuga and Volkswagen Tiguan"

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