Vauxhall Insignia review

The Insignia is not a driver’s car – nor is it even pretending to be one – thanks to its light, feel-free steering and inert chassis. It is, however, a very pleasant cruiser. You’ll feel how soft the car’s ride is from the first moment it dismounts a speed bump and porpoises slightly, but the upshot is the car has a relaxed, flowing gait at higher speeds. The 20-inch wheels of our test car introduce an unwelcome sharpness to the ride, mind. So while they look great, we’d be tempted to go smaller for max comfort.

Wind and tyre noise are notable by their impressive absence, and the 2.0-litre petrol engine we tried is smooth and quiet. Is it as library-like as an Audi A4? No. But the comparison invites being made in the first place, and you’d never have dreamt of holding the last ‘don’t call it a Vectra’ in that regard.

That engine – the only one we’ve tried in the updated car – is a good match for the standard-fit nine-speed auto, which changes gear mostly unobtrusively. There are no paddles on the steering wheel, but you can shift manually by knocking the gear lever to one side and pushing to change up/pulling to go down. That’s the wrong way around. Not that it matters – this isn’t a car for self-shifting.

Kickdown could be quicker, because changing down several gears isn’t the work of but a moment, but when it gets going the four-cylinder turbocharged motor, which can shut-off two cylinders to save fuel, propels the Insignia down the road with a reasonable turn of pace. Vauxhall claims just shy of 200bhp and 0-62mph in a respectable 7.2 seconds. It’s barely any slower than the all-wheel drive 227bhp Insignia GSI, which you can read all about by clicking on these blue words. 

Besides the 2.0-litre petrol, an uprated version of which is also fitted to the GSI, you can have a 1.5-litre three-cylinder or 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel. They make 120 and 172bhp respectively, and can be specified with either a six-speed manual or eight-speed automatic gearbox. There is no plug-in hybrid Insignia at present – company car drivers set on a Vauxhall should therefore look to the Grandland X.

Our main gripe isn’t really with the drive at all. Having a nondescript drive isn’t the worst quality in a car (unfortunstely the GSI is no more memorable), but a poor driving position is more annoying more of the time. Vauxhall is at pains to point out you sit lower in this car, in a subtle effort to make it feel like a premium sports saloon from the cockpit. Thing is, the actually very comfy seat is not actually that low and positioned in front of long-travel, flaccid pedals that are too far up in the footwell. You get used to it, but that’s not the same as the driving position being fundamentally right from the outset.