Opel Insignia Grand Sport | Video Review | CarsIreland.ie

Published on 29 November, 2017

If you can restrain yourself on the options list, the Opel Insignia remains a good value, comfortable family cruiser

Overview

Overview

Opel have just launched their all-new Insignia. Only it’s not just the plain old Insignia anymore, it’s the 'Insignia Grand Sport', which should give you a good idea of where they want to go with this.

Upmarket it seems is the answer, and the new Insignia has been tweaked and improved in just about every way it can be to help it take on the Mondeos and Passats of this world, not to mention some more premium rivals.

Interior Gallery

The first big improvement has been in the cabin. The centre console has been completely redesigned, and it really needed to be. The last one was overly fussy and more buttons than there needed to be. Now, most things can be controlled by the touchscreen, making it a much neater, nicer place to be. The materials feel high quality, there’s plenty of handy storage areas, and for front seat passengers, it feels as comfortable and spacious as ever.

Equally, there’s acres of legroom in the back. Headroom is not quite as generous due to the sloping roofline, and the middle seat passenger will have to contend with a sizeable hump in the floor. But on the family-friendly side, it does have two sets of Isofix anchors for childseats and wide-opening rear doors to get them in with minimum struggle.

The boot can hold up to 490 litres, which might seem like plenty but is still smaller than most rivals including the Passat(586l), Mondeo (550l) and even the the previous Insignia (530l). One benefit it does have though is the hatchback opening – which makes it much more practical to load, yet it retains that sleek saloon silhouette.

Opel trim levels can be complicated business. As well as the list of trims, there’s also a long list of options which can be a good thing for the consumer because it means you can pick and pay for only the features that you really want.

The entry level model is called the SC and highlights include a seven inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Air-Conditioning, keyless go, and automatic lighting.

You can also upgrade to the SE or SRi trims which add things like SatNav, Dualzone climate control and Opel Onstar.

OnStar is one of the most impressive features of this car. Essentially, it's an on-call subscription service which acts like your guardian angel behind the wheel. You can use it to call for help if you're in an accident, or should you find yourself unable to do so, it will automatically call emergency services. And on top of that it will be able to provide full details of your location, and vehicle diagnostics, so that whoever comes to help, can come equipped. While its main strength is as a safety feature, you can also use it for some really convenient stuff like asking the help team to find your nearest fuel stations, the co-ordinates of which will then be automatically downloaded into the SatNav.

There has also been a vast improvement in how it drives. While it’s always been a very comfortable motorway cruiser, it now offers premium levels of refinement on the road. Our test car was the 1.6l Diesel, a 6 speed manual with 136PS which should be a strong seller because of the nice balance between performance and economy. It costs just €280 to tax and Opel claim it uses just 4.3 litres of fuel per 100km, which will be music to the ears of anyone who spends a lot of time on the road.

The Insignia has traditionally always been a very popular fleet car, and we have no doubt the Insignia Grand Sport will be too. If you’re someone who spends a lot of time driving for work, there are much worse places to spend it than behind the wheel of this car , especially if you go for the ergonomic comfort seats which are specifically designed to promote good back health. The optional winter pack will also allow you to heat them up in cold weather, and help take the chill out of those early morning starts.

The suspension does a great job of ironing out any not so great road surfaces and good feedback from the steering, along with a drive selector which adjusts the feel of that suspension can make it quite an engaging car to drive on a windy road, although it does still feel most at home on the motorway.

One concern would be how expensive it can get when you start ticking options boxes, as in our test car, which had them to the tune of €8,000.

However, if you can restrain yourself there and just go for the things that you really need, then the Insignia Grand Sport remains a good value, comfortable family cruiser

Facts & Figures

Sinead McCann

Sinéad is our resident car tester who has the unenviable (-ok, slightly enviable) task of reviewing all the latest new cars to hit the market. You can follow her on Twitter @smcani and on Instagram @whatshedrives