Car: Vauxhall Meriva range
Prices: £13,125-£18,060 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 3E-12E
Emissions: 135-187g/km
Performance: [1.8] Max Speed 118mph / 0-60mph 10.9s
Fuel Consumption: [1.6] (urban) 32.1mpg / (extra urban) 51.4mpg / (combined) 42.2mpg
Safety: Twin front airbags
Dimensions: Length/Width/Height mm 4042/1694/1624
MERI MELODIES
Our Rating: 6.4 / 10
Vauxhall’s big selling Meriva range has been given a thorough going over in recent times. Andy Enright assesses the work in progress…
Some manufacturers make a great deal of fuss about cars that few of us really deign to purchase. They’ll issue tonnes of press releases, myriad tiny revisions and attempt futile publicity stunts in a desperate bid to get their mediocre product noticed. Others will bring a very good car to market and leave it to the public to figure out how good it is. Such is the case with the Vauxhall Meriva, a supermini MPV that’s quietly gone about racking up some very respectable sales. Introduced in Spring 2003, the Meriva has in recent times been treated to a facelift and a few tweaks across the model line up to keep it at the top of its game.
The first change is rather predictable. Take a look at any modern Vauxhall and they’ll all wear a very prominent V-shaped front grille and this frontal treatment works its way onto the Meriva along with a reprofiled bumper. Move to the rear end and the Meriva gets dark rear lamp lenses and a chromed strip across the tailgate. Drivers following you with their main beam lights on will get a nasty surprise! Vauxhall have widened the colour palette for exterior paint finishes and have also unveiled some interesting alloy wheel designs for the latest car. The interior has had a mild makeover too with additional chrome detailing lifting the rather sombre cabin. Revised fabrics are both more attractive and harder wearing.
Four petrol engines are offered along with a pair of CDTi oil-burners. The first diesel engine and the one likely to prove most popular is the 1.3-litre CDTi, already found in the Corsa and the Tigra. The key figure to bear in mind here is 57mpg, the figure this Meriva can achieve on the combined cycle. On a longer run it will nudge closer to 66mpg. Even in stop start city traffic, the figure will rarely dip much below 42mpg. Vauxhall reckon that when compared to a petrol version, a motorist covering 12,000 miles a year will save around £420 if they opt for the CDTi diesel car.
If you want more power, you can upgrade to the 1.7-litre CDTi. It’s not particularly rapid, but this car’s raison d’etre is offering family practicality and not costing the earth while doing so. Suffice to say that the diesel engines have enough low down pull to make zipping onto a roundabout or out of a side street hassle free.
If you’re not sold on the prospect of a diesel supermini MPV, Vauxhall also have a petrol model that’s well worthy of consideration. The 1.6-litre 104bhp Twinport petrol engine features 5bhp more than the outgoing Meriva 1.6-litre unit and is both zippier and more frugal, having a top speed of 112mph and a combined economy figure of 42.2mpg. Vauxhall claim this represents a six per cent improvement over the old car. Sitting below this is a 1.4-litre Twinport offering which acts as the entry-level point in the range.
In case you were wondering, Twinport technology builds on the standard four-valve technology of Vauxhall’s ECOTEC engines. Fuel savings are achieved by a special intake manifold in combination with a high rate of exhaust gas recirculation. The advantages of twinport technology are achieved through a combination of fuel injection and exhaust emission control by a three-way catalytic converter. This reduces technical complexity and consequently the cost to the customer, making the Twinport solution particularly attractive for inexpensive cars like this, as power output and efficient fuel consumption are maintained. The Meriva’s 125bhp 1.8-litre engine is less advanced than the Twinport contingent but it’s pretty quick and suitable for buyers who can’t stretch to the range-topper.
The last model in the updated Meriva line up is one that is unconventional to say the least. The Meriva VXR features a 179bhp turbocharged 1.6-litre engine that’s also been developed for the Corsa VXR. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this sort of power in a car this small equals serious fireworks. Whether there’s a market for a m
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