Vauxhall Insignia Grand Sport (2017 - 2022) SRi VX-Line Nav 1.5 (165PS) Turbo 5d Owner Review

Had the Insignia for 3 weeks as a courtesy car, during which I did 1000 miles including the Peak District and a run to Scotland. Overall it's comfortable, capable and big but boring and the fuel economy of the petrol engine isn't great. I came from an MX-5 daily driver so it was a bit of a culture shock!

EXTERIOR: Looks sharp from most angles with smart LED running lights, a teardrop silhouette and in SXI trim looks a little dynamic too. The silver paint seems hardy too after 40,000 miles of hire abuse it's not looking too bad for stone chips. It's not quite as aesthetically sharp from the rear but acceptable. It does lack the premium look of German saloons though and the Mazda 6 looks prettier too.

INTERIOR, COMFORT and PRACTICALITY: Capacious and very comfortable inside. Ergonomically it's good, things are where you expect them to be and there's physical controls for the ventilation - although notably turning the air con compressor on and off requires going through the touchscreen. There's enough storage and cup holders for rep work, door bins are massive and will take big bottles, there's a host of USB A sockets front and rear. The materials are generally soft touch but they aren't up to the standard of BMW, VW or Merc and can feel plasticky - notably the gearknob is entirely plastic and the piano black trim on the centre console scratches easily. It's very boring and dark in the cabin and the design of the dashboard is a bit bland too, there's really not much to lift the sombre atmosphere in apart from lit accents around the door trim, and the fake carbon fibre in SXI trim is some of the worst I've seen. The dark head liner of my model doesn't help things.

The ride is great and smooths imperfections well but the body roll remains controlled. Reviewers often speak of "expensively damped" and it has that. No rattles in the cabin after 40,000 miles either, although something mysterious is sliding around in the boot when hard cornering than I think is the inflation kit but it seems secured down? There's a bit of wind and tyre noise, it's not as hushed as a Merc E class but it's relatively peaceful (and half the price of the Merc!). You don't hear much of the engine unless you're pushing on.

The SXI's front seats have lots of adjustment including 4 way electric lumbar, electric tilt and extendable under thigh support, they also have pleather trim in the main wear areas on the seat bolster. Lots of legroom front and rear, and bags of headroom in the front too although rear passengers have less as the seat is set high (so they can see over the front seats) and the roofline dives down.

The climate control can be a bit rowdy on occasion but generally does a decent job managing the cabin environment. There's also that most luxurious of touches, a heated steering wheel! Speaking of which, the wheel is a nice size and shape, nice to hold, has sensible controls and bags of adjustment for reach and rake.

Boot has 40/20/40 folding seats that can be dropped electronically with toggles in the boot area, the hatchback has a widen opening and the shape of the space is very usable too. The load height and lip are fine.

TECH: This is a well equipped car, especially in SXI trim, but I do have some niggles with the technology. My car had Android Auto which worked well but was sometimes a bit finicky about the initial connection. There are two USB sockets and a special phone holder but it's all in the front centre armrest so I ended up trailing a cable out to avoid having to open in the armrest everytime I got in or out with my phone. The touchscreen did lag a little occasionally and the system couldn't find all the songs and playlists on my USB stick, truncating them. The only physical buttons are home, volume, skip track and phone.... the lack of a media or nav shortcut is annoying as going through the home screen is an extra step and the icons on it are rather small. The screen itself is a reasonable size, but the icons are all pushed into the top left.

The sound system was decently punchy once I'd fiddled with the equaliser, not the last word in clarity or refinement but certainly enjoyable unless you're a big audiophile.

Lane keep assist I haven't had much experience of until now, and Vauxhall's implementation has some annoying habits. It can give weird steering feel in bends if you're not exactly where it wants you positioned within the lane. if you try to change lanes without indicating (cutting back into lane 1 for instance) it will fight you as expected, but turning the indicator on doesn't immediately stop this and it continues to fight for another half second or so which is disconcerting if you're not expecting it. On normal single carriageways the system is rather intermittent, turning on and off without much rhyme or reasoning but you'll only notice if you're watching the dashboard light for this.

The reversing camera image quality is only okay, it's no retina display for sure and struggles in bright sunlight. The lines showing where the car is supposedly going are not accurate and it always pushed wide of those but the camera remains useful and I wouldn't want to back up this large car with its sloped profile and letterbox rear window without a camera. Front and rear parking sensors are very welcome since the corners of the car are hard to sight from normal driving positions, although the signals from them can be somewhat cryptic and they often scream about obstacles you've already reversed past and are also upset by gentle slopes. The sensors and rear camera often don't agree with each other.

It has pedestrian and vehicle pre-collision sensors and tends not to give many false alarms when turned to lowest sensitivity, I never triggered the autonomous emergency braking. However despite all the sensors, the cruise control isn't radar guided which seems a strange omission, especially on a motorway bus such as this.

DRIVING: Apparently my car is 165 PS but doesn't feel it, the 1.5 turbo petrol tends to bog down when pulling away and it takes the turbos a while to spool up again. It's at its best between 2500-4000 rpm but feels a bit breathless otherwise and strained at higher revs. It's not underpowered and there is usable torque low down, I would say it's adequate power and I expect a diesel will suit the personality of the car a lot better. The gearshift action is reasonable but doesn't like block changes in to 6th where it crunches if you don't double declutch. You are very aware of the car's weight when slowing down or going down hill, you have to brake when cars ahead aren't and generally it seems to have a lot of forward inhertia, the lack of engine braking on the 1.5T exaggerates this sensation.

The steering is responsive and accurate, there's lots of grip and roll is controlled but it's capable rather than fun because there is very little feel; you are pretty clueless if it's near the limits of grip or where the front wheels are really pointing. The steering is on the lighter side at lower speed but weights up okay on the move so the car doesn't feel twitchy, but it remains numb. It's not rewarding to push the car hard, definitely a wafty cruiser although it will go quicker when you ask it. It does give you confidence threading it's bulk through gaps though.

You need to keep in higher gear when not accelerating (5th or 6th) to maximise fuel economy; doing normal motorway work I only saw 38 mpg and around town I got mid-30s although I did get almost 50 mpg once doing a constant 50 mph on Scottish A roads at near idle rpm. Any exuberance with the throttle really hurts fuel economy, during a 33 mile drive one overtake cost over 3 mpg!

The stop/start system is both wonderful and annoying. It will cut the engine when you're still in-gear but on the clutch pedal and rolling to a final stop, which is a great for eeking out a little more mpg. The system also becomes active very quickly, it doesn't make you wait you've driven 15 minutes. The downside is that pressing the clutch and selecting gear doesn't always restart the engine, it waits until you depress the accelerator which might have been okay but the engine isn't that quick to restart so you can catch the system out and suffer a kind of half-stall or a slow get away as the engine bogs down.

Parking is a bit of a pig because the thing is so damn large and visibility isn't the best, especially out the rear window. it's physically longer than quite a few parking spaces I stuck it in. You'll definitely want sensors and camera if you've not parked stuff this size before.

RELIABILITY AND RUNNING COSTS: Can't really comment on this beyond fuel consumption mentioned above (averaged 38 mpg). The tyres are a bigger profile so probably cheaper to buy. I had the orange check engine light flash a few times during one drive but I'm not sure what that was for and it went away. These are very cheap cars to buy with lots of kit, especially on the used market where ex-fleet examples have depreciated massively.