Go with russian market of all budget models GM interrupted a very good start of the Astra J. Despite internal competition with a very successful Chevrolet cruze and continued to be produced by the predecessor of the Astra H, the car, as they say, "went". Combination of modern appearance, excellent driving performance, modern turbo engines and a very high-quality interior attracted both brand fans and people who had previously avoided Opel.

The undoubted advantages of the model include a wide model range of rather powerful atmospheric engines. Some people took a bite on the appearance of new six-speed automatic transmissions and excellent fuel efficiency ratings. In general, it was definitely a breakthrough into the world, where the VW concern was firmly entrenched with its cars of this class. Opel has made a relatively cheap, comfortable and advanced car.

In this generation of Astr, a clear advantage was gained by configurations with downsized 1.4 liter turbo engines and automatic boxes gear. This time the conservatism of the brand gave way the latest trends... All these factors, as well as traditionally adequate prices for new cars, a wide selection of bodies and the fame of inexpensive cars in operation, allowed Astra J to make the company's cashier even after the market attacked with B ++ class sedans. But after 2014, sales stopped, and the next generation of the Astra K model was not officially presented here.

On the picture: Opel astra (K) "2015 – present.

In the world, a happy future for the model was practically guaranteed. An almost exact copy of the European Astra was sold in the United States as the Buick Verano, and there it was with a naturally aspirated 2.4 liter engine (182 hp) and a turbocharged two-liter engine with a capacity of 253 hp. And in China, the Buick Excelle XT / GT showed excellent sales with the more familiar European naturally aspirated 1.6 and 1.8 liter engines and a supercharged 1.6. There, he repeatedly ranked first in sales among foreign manufacturers.

In the photo: Opel Astra (J) "2009 – present.

It is more difficult to calculate the total circulation of the model over the years of production, but together with the platform-based Chevrolet Cruze it amounts to millions of cars. So, considering all the clones and "relatives", this model is one of the most common cars in its class. At the very least, this fact suggests that it was well received not only by us. And it will tell those in the know that for Astra J there should be a rich selection of spare parts from various suppliers in different markets and an extensive market of "used" components around the world.

Body

Like most relatively “young” cars, there is no need to fear serious “natural” corrosion. Relatively rare cases flaking paintwork typical for the first installation batches of St. Petersburg-assembled cars and very early cars. To a greater extent, the problem has somehow affected the three-door hatchbacks. Sometimes a defect occurs on later cars in other bodies, but you should not look for some kind of system in this. It is rather a marriage that was eliminated precisely as a marriage. It was lucky that the body is well galvanized and easily endured for a couple of months in a "naked" state.

Front wing

8 874 rubles

As a standard, paint peels off on the front fenders and in the front of the sill due to "sandblasting", and this happens when the mileage is less than a hundred thousand kilometers. In general, the paint on galvanized panels holds worse than on ordinary steel sheet, and a similar defect can be found even on very well-painted cars, like the Audi A6 in the C5-C6 body, which are difficult to suspect of cheapness and poor-quality assembly. Be that as it may, checking the paintwork for thickness and repainting, as well as body seams for originality, is highly recommended, because the paint layer is generally quite thin and easily damaged by "contacts". And touch-ups mask more serious accidents.

The peculiarities of the geography of the car's production at one time provided it with a rich selection of Chinese body parts. Now the situation with the availability of body parts has changed to the opposite, the original is in short supply. Sometimes it is easier to order imported parts for Buick than for Opel. There are almost no non-original spare parts, and for cheap body repair you can not count. Used components are still quite expensive and damaged items will need to be repaired whenever possible.

In the photo: Opel Astra (J) "2012-15

Please note that the anti-corrosion protection of the bottom is weak: the surface is only partially covered with shock-resistant mastic, and therefore paintwork defects are found there. Including with already quite extensive underfilm corrosion and even in places with loose rust. And if on flat surfaces below they are easily removable, then on the rear arches or in the lower part of the doors it will be much more expensive to remove it. Unfortunately, cars with the initial stage of such a disaster are already encountered. So it is recommended to carry out anti-corrosion protection measures and not forget about prevention in the future. Even the most best body does not guarantee that there will be no corrosion problems after five to six years of operation.

The rest of the body is almost perfect. The locks are strong, even on the back door they function perfectly. The doors even on the three-door GTC do not require adjustment, the seals work perfectly.

In the photo: Opel Astra GTC (J) "2011 – present.

The headlights, however, are overwritten quite easily, it is better to stick a film on them. The headlight washer nozzle caps also fall off and the wipers peel off, but these problems are typical for most cars.

By the way, about optics. For the Astra, front adaptive AFL optics were offered, and they are an order of magnitude better than usual headlights... But it was also marked by both the high price of the headlight itself, and the wear of the lens drives themselves and the failures of the regulation systems. The main consumable is the body level position sensors, but the lens motors also "get tired" over time, often freezing in extreme positions. Repair, of course, is not provided, but the headlight can be disassembled. Craftsmen will be able to sort it out, there is nothing super complicated in it, but there are problems with spare parts.

In the photo: Opel Astra OPC "2013

Windshield

13 047 rubles

Cases of failure of the fuel filler flap drive were noted.

The Pilkington windshield is frankly unsuccessful, it cracks easily and is quickly overwritten. Especially if you rarely change the brushes and remain without the "washer". And it also cracks from temperature extremes - sometimes it doesn't even require blowing from the stove, a bright enough sun.

Replacing or checking the brushes here requires transferring them to the service mode: after turning off the ignition, you need to move the lever down without removing the key, and the wipers will move to the service vertical position. By the way, be careful with the trapezoid, it is not cheap and does not differ in strength.

Salon

The salon will delight you with the excellent work of all systems. But you can also find disadvantages.

The seats are somewhat weak, compared to premium brands, their wear will be more noticeable. By a run of a hundred thousand, the combined seat upholstery is already beginning to give out the age of the car with a small cushion drawdown. But the serious wear of the seats and the steering wheel speaks, rather, of a mileage of more than 200 thousand kilometers, coiled up to a "reasonable" value.

In the photo: Salon Opel Astra J "2009

Scuffs on buttons and decorative elements may appear earlier: plastic does not withstand rough handling. In general, the interior is characterized by small crickets of the panel, roof console and skins. They are random in nature, and in most cases were not eliminated under warranty (GM service was not particularly friendly).

In the photo: Torpedo Opel Astra (J) "2012-15

The resource of the air conditioner fan is well over 200 thousand. The automatic climate control control unit itself is somewhat unsuccessfully implemented: if handled carelessly, the handles may fail.

Windows can only creak, and distortions and their other problems are rare.

Versions with a heated steering wheel have an increased load on the steering wheel and have a slightly shorter coating life, this is quite normal. But in winter, this option significantly improves the perception of the car, even if sometimes there are complaints about accidental failures of the seat heating system.

In the photo: Opel Astra Sedan (J) "2012 – present dashboard.

On cars with manual transmission, over time, the gear lever becomes very loose, usually this indicates a mileage of over 200 thousand, but sometimes the problem occurs noticeably earlier. In general, everything is pretty predictable and boring.

Brakes, suspension and steering

The braking system is far from perfect. Squeaking pads are not so bad, it's a traditional problem in GM cars. But the souring of the rear caliper fingers is already an unpleasant thing. If the handbrake has the AutoHold function, then the probability of failure of the drive after four to five years of operation is quite high. And if you do not use the handbrake at all, then its mechanisms will sour.

Please note that on the GTC and when choosing the optional 17-inch rims a braking system was installed on the sedan and station wagon, which will prevent you from putting 15 and 16-inch discs. So only anything over 16 inches will do. At the same time, the brakes in such cases squeak more and more often than the standard ones. True, they also slow down much better.

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The suspension of the car as a whole is simple and has a good resource, but there are several nuances.

The rear semi-independent suspension features a Watt mechanism for better handling. And in the case of operation in Moscow, it is prone to souring, as a result of which the rods can bend, and the car will become unnecessarily stiff. The beam itself holds up perfectly up to 150-200 thousand run in the city, then inexpensive silent blocks usually do not withstand. She only dislikes overloads and dirt roads, and even more so - their combination in one trip.

The front suspension is almost eternal, but there are also nuances. With frequent movement on unpaved and simply dirty roads and the rare washing of the arches suffers from the support bearing of the strut. The rear arm support does not like shock loads on rails and rubber more than 18 inches. And if you have a GTC with a steering knuckle, then there are more vulnerabilities, and the suspension elements are more expensive.

Front shock absorber

6 120/19 621 (adjustable) rubles

The resource of shock absorbers is not happy either. After 50-60 thousand mileage on most cars, their efficiency is noticeably reduced, but they rarely flow, and complete failure usually occurs after a hundred or more thousand runs. But with full load on uneven roads in older cars, it is frankly unpleasant to drive.

In addition to the same resource characteristics, the adjustable FlexRides are characterized by increased shock sensitivity and a very high price. And repairing the suspension of an unpretentious Astra can be more expensive than repairing the pneumatics of some W220 from the beginning of the century.

The steering is very good. Especially on new motors with which an electric booster is installed. The main thing is not to drive through deep puddles, not force the fords and not neglect the prevention of contacts at least once every few years. Because the price of a new rack with a gearbox is 160 thousand rubles. The drive itself is noticeably cheaper, about 15-30.

In the photo: Opel Astra (J) "2009-12

There are rare cases of damage to the steering shaft bearing, but mostly on the very first cars. EGUR on machines with atmospheric motors, unfortunately, has a not very successful electric pump. The officially non-replaceable fluid in the amplifier after 60-100 thousand runs is an unpleasant black slurry. Unsurprisingly, the pumps fail and the racks leak. Changing the oil at least 50 thousand mileage can significantly extend the resource of this expensive unit, and when buying a used Astra J, it is worth checking the condition of the fluid.

Astra J is a boring car, but in the best sense of the word. He does not present any surprises, everything is predictable and expected. At least for now. Let's see what motors and gearboxes say. But this is in the next part of our review.

The first Opel Astra cars appeared in 1991; during the entire existence of the model, four generations have been produced passenger car class C.

This car has gained considerable popularity in Russia, and there are several reasons for this - the car is reliable and simple, the Opel Astra suspensions are adapted for russian roads, the car is inexpensive, convenient and practical.

Although chassis does not often fail, but still breakdowns occur - there are parts that break with low mileage, some suspension elements last a long time. In this article we will look at how the front and rear suspension of Opel Astra cars is arranged, what characteristic breakdowns are found in the chassis of a German passenger car.

The first generation Astra F was produced by Opel from 1991 to 1998, the letter after the model name means the serial number (index) assigned to the body. If you follow the logic, in the name instead of the letter F of the first release of "Astra" there should be an index A, but the Opel Astra is the successor of the Opel Cadett E model, therefore it was assigned the following letter index F. In the future, cars of the following generations were produced:

Opel Astra: front suspension

The front suspension on all generations of the Opel Astra has a fundamentally the same device (MacPherson type), consists of the following elements:

• Shock absorber struts;
• two suspension arms;
• springs;
• steering knuckles;
• wheel hubs;
• support bearings;
• front beam;
• stabilizer with struts and bushings.

Front suspension Opel Astra without overhaul walks long enough, but its resource largely depends on the condition of the roads on which the car is operated. A knock in the suspension can first of all begin due to worn out stabilizer struts - they begin to fail first, on average, these parts serve about 30-35 thousand km.

When driving over bumps, the stabilizer struts emit a dull sound, it is not difficult to determine the malfunctions of these parts - you can remove them for a while and drive a car on an uneven road. If the knock disappears, then the problem lies with the stabilizer struts. Support bearings on "Astra" they run a little longer, the average service life of parts is 40-50 thousand km. The stabilizer bushings may "run out" earlier, by about 20 thousand km. The front shock absorbers begin to leak closer to the 100,000 km range, but non-original parts may fail earlier.

The front suspension of the Opel Astra tolerates Russian roads well - the car's handling is good, the car drives confidently over bumps. The car has quite "tenacious" ball joints, hub bearings, front suspension springs also break infrequently. Although, in principle, the front suspensions are different generations Opel Astra do not differ, there is no interchangeability between parts, for example, shock absorbers from the Astra F model will not fit the Astra J car - the parts are different. A big advantage of all Opels is that spare parts are relatively cheap, and therefore, repairing the suspension to the Astra car owner will not cost much.

Rear suspension on german car - semi-dependent, torsion bar, with springs and shock absorbers on the axle. Traditionally, a beam is installed on all Astrakhs, although this design is considered somewhat outdated. But the beam has its advantages:

• repairing such a suspension is cheaper;
• the beam system does not need adjustment (on rear axle no need to adjust wheel alignment).

Rear suspension car opel Astra J consists of the following parts:

The rear suspension is quite strong, but the characteristic diseases are still inherent in it:

• springs often break or sag;
• after about 60 tons km, shock absorbers begin to flow;
• on older machines (models F and G) the rear beam will rust over time.

Lever silent blocks serve for a long time, their replacement may be required only closer to 150 thousand km. Broken springs on the rear suspension of the Opel Astra are quite frequent, they break for two main reasons:

• the trunk is constantly overloaded in the car;
• parts of poor quality are installed (non-original parts break more often).

In general, the springs themselves are constructive flawbreakage of these parts is a disease of many Opel, and not only Astra. If the springs sag over time, the ground clearance, the rear axle of the vehicle becomes lower than the front. If the fit of the car, even with new springs, is low, there is a solution - to install rubber spacers (on the Astra-G model) from Chevrolet Lanos.

Steering

On opel models Astra is equipped with a "rack" steering mechanism, the power steering can be either hydraulically or electrically driven. The problematic parts in the steering are the steering tips, for example, on the third generation Astra H, they usually start knocking at a run of 30 thousand km.

It cannot be said that steering rack is the most weak point in a German car, but it often leaks. It is necessary to monitor the condition of the anthers of the rack - if you do not notice the leakage of steering oil in time, the repair of the mechanism cannot be avoided, and it will definitely not be very cheap. When the boot is torn, the “rack-pinion” pair gets moisture and dirt flying off the road, and the rack parts quickly begin to wear out. A sign of wear on the pair is a knock in the steering when driving on uneven road surfaces, an increased play in the steering wheel.

Brake system

All Opel Astra models are equipped with a hydraulic braking system (TC) with separate contours for the front and rear brakes... Vehicle vehicles include:

• master cylinder;
• working cylinders;
• calipers;
• vacuum amplifier;
• pads;
• discs (drums);
• brake force distributor;
• tubes;
• hoses;
• aBS system (control unit and sensors).

Opel rear axle Astra F, G or H, depending on the equipment of the machine, both brake discs and drums can be installed. On the latest generation Astra J models, only discs are used on the rear axle, drums are no longer installed.

Front brake pads on an Opel Astra car, they usually change at a run of 30-40 thousand km, but the pads can last longer - much depends on the driving style and the quality of the parts themselves. The front discs usually change half as often, that is, they are enough for 70-80 thousand km.

The brake system on the Opel Astra can be called reliable, any parts fail prematurely very rarely. On the first generations of Astra with drums, leakage of the rear working cylinders is noted, but changing the cylinders is quite simple and easy, and the parts are also inexpensive. ABS sensors do not last too long - they fail from salt and reagents flying off the road.

• the quality of Russian roads;
• timeliness maintenance (not all car owners undergo maintenance).

Independent front suspension, lever-spring MacPherson type, with telescopic shock-absorber struts, coil coil springs, lower wishbones and stabilizer lateral stability.

Figure: 1. Front suspension (left side):

1 - suspension arm bracket; 2 - shock absorber rack; 3 - steering fist; 4 - ball bearing; 5 - front suspension arm; 6 - front suspension subframe

The main element of the front suspension is a telescopic shock absorber strut 2 (Fig. 1), which combines the functions of a telescopic element of the guide mechanism and a damping element for vertical oscillations of the wheel relative to the body.

Figure: 2. Front suspension shock absorber:

1 - the upper support of the shock absorber; 2 - protective cover; 3 - spring; 4 - shock absorber

The following main parts are assembled on the shock absorber strut:

- coil spring 3 (Fig. 2)

- protective cover 2 racks;

- compression buffer (installed under protective cover 2);

- upper support 1.

The load is transferred to the vehicle body through the thrust bearing and the upper support. The shock absorber strut is connected with its lower part to the steering knuckle 3 (see. fig. one) front suspension. The front suspension arm 5 is attached to the rear part of the subframe 6 using a silent block and a bracket 1 with a rubber-metal hinge, and the front part is connected to the lower part through a ball joint 4 steering knuckle 3 front suspension. The subframe, in turn, is attached to the body side members.

Anti-roll bar with installed on it rubber grommets It is connected to the subframe by two brackets, and to the front suspension strut by stabilizer struts.

The front wheel hubs are mounted on double row angular contact ball bearings.

The angles of the lateral (camber) and longitudinal ("caster") inclination of the wheel steering axes are given constructively and are not regulated in operation, and the convergence of the front wheels is regulated by changing the length of the steering rods.

A machine arrived with a complaint about knocking in the rear suspension. The rear suspension in the Astra J is not some kind of multi-link that you get tired of diagnosing, everything is much simpler - a traditional beam plus a Watt mechanism. As far as I understand, here it serves solely for lateral stability - a kind of traditional stabilizer. Actually, we climb under the car and see this picture:

Without walking far, we begin to pull the rods going from the center to the wheels - first in the center, and then near the wheels. And very quickly we find a knock when jerking the right rod near the central rocker arm. Through this we sentence the rocker.

Here's the whole thing up close:

Just the bottom silent and knocks.

The rocker itself has original numbers 0423057 or 0423062. The cheapest analogue at the time of this writing is a spare part from CTR under the number CCG-1. There are also analogues from Lemforder and Febest, but they are twice as expensive. In principle, there are separate silent blocks, but this is a very confused solution.

The replacement procedure is simple, and does not even require removing the wheels / hanging the car.

1) Unscrew the nuts securing the rods to the rocker arm, as well as the nut securing the rocker arm to the cross member. The bolts must be kept from turning with a spanner wrench - it just crawls under the thermal protection. The nuts for fastening the rods - a wrench for 15, the nut for the rocker arm - for 18. For holding, spanners of the same size are needed. A short extension is required to access the top link nut. otherwise the cross member is in the way. Alternatively, you can unscrew these nuts already with the cross member lowered (see below), but on a fixed cross member it is more convenient:

2) Unscrew - they unscrewed, but the heat protection riveted to the crossbar will not give us the pull out of the bolts. And even if it was not there, then a muffler bank would have interfered. So lower the crossbar in any way. Well, okay, it is fastened with two bolts under the head for 18. Only before lowering it, it is necessary to loosen the fastening of the silent-blocks of the rods on the wheels - otherwise, when lowering the cross-member, these silencers can be broken. And we don't need it at all. The silentlets are fastened with bolts under the head of 21. They must be unscrewed literally 1-2 turns.

Silent block fastening:

Here was the cross member bolt:

Lowered cross member with all accompanying:

3) Now you need to remove the thermal protection.
It is secured with three rivets. They can only be drilled out (well, there is also a barbaric way - to tear off the thermal protection, but it is clear that it can only be viewed as a joke):

But it has already been removed:

Actually, it remains to pull out the bolts, pull out the rocker arm, put in a new one, and assemble everything in the reverse order.

As a finishing touch, a photo of the old (original) and new (CTR) rocker arms: