Vauxhall Vectra 3.0 CDTI | Shed of the Week

A manual V6 on the one hand, a diesel Vauxhall Vectra on the other...

By Tony Middlehurst / Friday, 18 April 2025 / Loading comments

Ever since his apprenticeship days building Class 55 Deltic locos at English Electric’s Vulcan foundry in Newton-le-Willows, Shed has been partial to a big diesel. To this day he runs a Mercedes S124 wagon powered (ha!) by an OM606 3.0 straight-six oil burner. He won’t hear a bad word said about it. To be more accurate he won’t be able to hear a bad word said about it, on account of all the clattering.

Diesels have certainly moved on somewhat from the days when they could run away with themselves as a result of accidentally dragging fuel vapours into the intake, causing terminal overspeeding. In typically thoughtful fashion Shed’s Merc has an emergency shutoff knob under the bonnet to provide you with some protection from that eventuality by presumably cutting off the air supply. Even so, only the brave will want to get anywhere near a diesel that’s revving its cods off and refusing point-blank to respond to your frantic efforts to turn it off with the ignition key. In most cases overspeeding diesels will continue to scream on at max revs until they a) run out of whatever it is they’re scoffing or b) blow up. That can be a spectacular event. One day Shed will tell you about his experience in the Deltic test facility which blew not only his hat off but also most of his clothes and a minor body part.

This week’s Shed, a Type C Vauxhall Vectra, has a 3.0-litre diesel engine too, but it’s a slightly more sophisticated one than any of those that have featured in Shed’s life so far. It’s the Isuzu 3.0 V6 DMAX lump that also appeared in the Saab 9-5 and some Renaults like the Vel Satis and Espace. In the Saab and earlier Vectras, it had 175hp, but for 2005-on Vectras like our 2007 example the output went up to 184hp at 4,000rpm.

Of course, when we’re talking about diesel engines we’re more interested in torque than horsepower. 295lb ft might not sound that much from a three-litre turbodiesel, especially when some smart Alec down the pub inconveniently points out that Ford was getting the same amount of thrunge from its 2.2 TDCI four. Still, unlike Shed, the Vauxhall unit was quite refined, and its peak torque came in from just 2,000rpm.

The DMAX did have a bit of a reputation for overheating in both the Saab 9-5 and the Isuzu Trooper but, oddly, not so much in the Vectra. Some said it was because the Saab’s engine bay was too small, inhibiting cooling, but then the Trooper’s wasn’t so that doesn’t compute. Best guess is that either Vauxhall managed to sort the issue out or that it did overheat in the Vectra but nobody complained about it, or noticed it.

This one’s a manual. Some PHers might think that’s always preferable, but in this instance Shed might take issue with you. In his view, the 3.0 Vec with the auto box was a majestic A-road and motorway cruiser. Well, majestic might be over-egging it a bit, but Shed insists that you’ll have little cause for complaint. Top whack for a new 1,600kg CDTi was 143mph, with a 0-62mph time of 8.2 seconds and up to 45mpg in average use. Today, with CO2 emissions of 186g/km it annoyingly misses out on VED band ‘I’ – which would have been £335pa – by just 1g/km. Instead you’re in Band J and that will cost you an extra fifty nicker a year. If anyone knows why these VED rates aren’t on a sliding scale could they please enlighten us.

The pointy side window and rear wiper tell us that this is a hatchback rather than a saloon, so you’ll have plenty of practicality there. The bolster on the driver’s seat looks like an influencer’s bottom lip but the rest of it has a rhino-grain-plastic robustness about it. The mileage is given as 101,000, which is hardly any more miles than it had when it was last tested in November. The existing certificate is advisory-free, but to get to that point the car was apparently given two new rear shocks, two new front coils to replace the broken ones (not unusual with this amount of weight at the front), and two new tyres. One rear hoop was perishing, suggesting infrequent use that’s backed up by the MOT history. The front one was just worn, confirming this FWD car’s appetite for rubber at the power end. Various suspension and steering parts that had been identified as being a bit knackered in both 2023 and 2024 were all cleared up for the current MOT.

Shed was trying to finish off with a clever joke that would somehow tie together Vehicle Identification Numbers with fuel from the black pumps. Unfortunately, after an absolute age fruitlessly racking his brains, he got distracted by a Vin Diesel film so he didn’t manage to come up with anything.

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