Astra Merit

[Grandad]

Just bought a M reg Astra Merit 1.4 Petrol 5 door hatchback this afternoon. Never had a Vauxhall before. Unfortunately there is no drivers hand book with it and I'm a bit stumped with the switches under right hand side of steering wheel. Can anyone tell me if there is a source where I can buy this drivers hand book. I bought a Haynes Manual for the car but it doesn't tell you what these various switches do. Any help?
Thanks, Jim.

 

[Kevin B]

The big one with the large red flashing light
is the AWAK radar self destruct button.

Titter Titter..... sorry Grandad couldn't resist.

Kevin B

 

[Grandad]

"Boooooom!" You're right, I just pushed that one.
Jim.

 

[Richard Murphy]

You could trot down to your local dealership and ask if they can get a handbook for you.

or try www.steeles.co.uk

or look out for a response in this newsgroup or uk.rec.cars.maintenance from "Alan", who seems a very helpful chap.

 

[Grandad]

Thanks Richard, I will do just that. Just found a guy in the next street with the same model and he put me right on a few things. He also lent ,me his hand book and I copied some relevant pages. Thanks for responding. Regards.
Jim.

 

[Richard Murphy]

As a matter of interest, what were the switches? - Anything to do with lights?

 

[Grandad]

Hi Richard,
Yes some were the lights. One was the 4 position up & down switch which I now know is for headlight positioning under different loads. One was the knurled wheel under the light switch (panel light dimmer) Horn button (both sides of the air bag on steering wheel) and couldn't fathom tailgate wiper switch. The interior light switch and rear heated window switch were also a problem to find. Now that I know where they all are, my original question seems so naive. Grateful to you for your interest. Regards.
Jim.

 

[Mr Neil]

I used to have a Nova with no handbook, I emailed Vauxhall from their website and they posted me one out free of charge, this was about 5 years ago (when they used to have a UK workforce) so I'm not sure whether they do this anymore.

 

[Alan (archive)]

it is not fair to suggest that Vauxhall do not have a UK workforce. It is true that more cars are made abroad nowadays but they still make a lot of cars & vans in the UK. They also make vans for Renault & Nissan in the UK.

Furthermore, they have a lot of UK staff at head office with a number of European functions run from Luton.

They are even centralising customer care for Europe in England rather than sending it out to India.