Opel Astra J 1.6 turbo 180 hp STAGE 1 & DECAT 3.08.2025 nice summer day

Pulls clearly better with new sports intake air filter, pulling less weird than before, turbo kicking in better (still, the turbo actuator needs to be a little more aggressively tuned, but this way is more reliable).

Any turbo engine older than 10 years should get replaced most (or at least the most important) parts which manage/control the turbo boost, like the Diverter Valve (or Converter Valve), or whatever boost managing system that engine has.

Yeah, I was feeling right all these years that "the boost is not as uniform as possible, varying too much, not being similar enough most of the time".
Maybe all the cars I have driven were having a similar boost managing issue, except the 2018 Dacia Logan 1.5 dCi, heh, the way that car pulls is one of the least limited.

Costed 7000 euros, good deal in 2021.
But, it is a pretentious enough car, some parts are a little more expensive than expected, I had to spend another 1000-2000 euros to avoid major problems with the engine, but especially with the turbo, by deleting the small catalytic converter (being just one single pre-cat, which is pants).

Just one too small too restrictive catalytic converter (in this case quite a pre-cat) is beyond useless, increasing the engine temperature a lot and wearing out the turbo at just 90.000 km or 50-60.000 miles, actually not just in my case also.
I hear more and more people complaining about the 1.4 turbo and 1.6 turbo Euro 5 engines from Opel, which require some inspiration and more patience to sort these problems out.
Thankfully this is a great enough car to make these quite decent enough not too expensive investments worth doing them, at least comparing to others.

Any alternative to this car, with good enough petrol turbo engine.......
There are not many.
Dacia Duster 1.3 tCe or Nissan Quashqai 1.3 tCe might be better, but Opel cars are usually more solid and they perform very well during crashes.
Ford Focus 1.6 Ecoboost Euro 5 or Ford Mondeo 1.5 Ecoboost Euro 6 are good alternatives also, but Ford Focus seems to have significantly worse suspension and the interior is a little worse (especially the plastic parts).
Yet, Ford Mondeo 1.5 or 1.6 turbo petrol engines, both Euro 5 and Euro 6, might be better choice.
But Mondeo 1.5 Ecoboost Euro 6 is at least 10.000 euros, second-hand.
Yet this model seems reliable enough, an uncle has it.

tags: holden, vauxhall, opel, astra, j, astra j, 1.6 turbo, a16let, 180 hp, stage 1, decat, soft, strong acceleration, strong, acceleration, fast, hard, driving, fast driving, hard, pulls, increased, torque, power, reduced, fuel, consumption, pov, driving, pov driving,