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High rev 5th gear?

I have a 5 door XR stick and I've noticed from my previous cars (which were all stick btw) that the Astra seems to be revving high in 5th gear... 3500/4000 RPM's when driving over 100km/h - 60Mph... anyone else notice this?

Almost seems to me that it should have a 6th gear....

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Permalink Reply by Michael Wayland on September 28, 2008 at 3:04pm: Yeah Boudj, as a new owner, you're starting to find the things by reading reviews and forums that have been driving me nuts for nearly a year already. Bob Lutz did rush this car with NO consideration for the American market. When they scrapped plans for a new ION (awesome idea to begin with), they decided on the Opel Astra, but they didn't take any R&D time to prepare it for our market. So..... none of the goodies that make a God Awful car like the Focus sell over 100,000 this year. Just a premium small car that does what it was built to do.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Steve Doman on October 5, 2008 at 12:08pm: This is the way I see it: 6th gear is a relatively recent development for mass produced cars. I've never had one, and it really didn't bother me. My Mini revved pretty high in 5th gear at high speeds, too. I'm sure it would be nice to have a sixth gear, but it's also nice to have some power in that range for hills and avoiding accidents. With my XR-5 door MT, I'm getting around 28/35 mpg, so I can't complain. I've had louder cars.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jeremy foster on November 3, 2009 at 10:18pm: I have had my XR 5 dr 5 spd for about a month, and I have to agree that this is the one thing about the car I am finding it hard to get used to (ie. disappointing): the yammering of the 1.8 turning over at 3,500rpm @ ca. 73mph indicated. Its really frustrating, as it seems like the car has more than enough torque to handle a much higher 5th (and it also means 4th is almost redundant, its so close to 3rd). So much for "autobahn gearing"..... The auto seems to have a much longer legged top gear-- but then you pay for it in more sluggish intermediate response & acceleration. I have been thinking that one remedy might be to go up a tire size when replacing -- this will alter the speedo reading, but it would bring the revs down a bit, and hopefully improve the highway consumption. It worked a treat on my previous car, a '96 Jetta. I am not going to have to do this anytime soon (the car only has 4k miles on it), but has anyone tried this yet?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Pawel Saturn on December 15, 2009 at 4:16pm: I've to the same feeling about 5-gear box. The rpm's would go down a little but, and the noise would decrease, not to mention the fuel economy....

I love my Astra anyways.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Joe Astra 1 day ago: I agree that a 6th gear would be nice...if they just added a 6th gear and left the 5 we have alone. I live in Colorado and love the fact that I can take the mountain highways without downshifting. There are a lot of Honda's and Toyota's that are struggling on the steeper grades. My little Astra takes the grades in stride. I am amazed at how much punch this car has in 5th gear once you hit about 50 mph.

All in all I am very satisfied with my Astra!

Joe; ▶ Reply to This