Recently purchased a 2008 Astra with 49K miles for a decent price. Was the only car in my price range with so few miles, and in such good condition for being a Michigan car. Didn’t hesitate to make the buy, but now I’m having serious regrets.

The car is free of major mechanical issues but has some minor issues like the ABS light on, TPMS, and check engine light. Had my mechanic coworker give it a quick once over, he couldn’t even pull codes off it with his high end scanner. He could pull the engine codes with a global scanner which turns out to be a fuel tank pressure sensor. My issue now is figuring out where I could go in order to get the rest of my codes read. My coworker has a friend that owns a foreign/import auto shop, he said flat out he can’t do anything with the Astra. If I went to a GM dealer, would they have the right dealer specific equipment to pull the codes off the Astra? Had called another foreign/import shop out of town that told me they could probably work on it, but they’d be charging the same labor rates as Jaguar and Land Rover ~$198/hour.

I’m at a real loss now as to whether I’ll have to resell the car, or deal with never being able to have the car repaired and drive it until it has a major breakdown.

Absolutely ANY advice from current or previous Astra owners would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

 

You bought a true orphan with the Astra. I would try a quality tire shop for the TPMS light. The ABS light should be able to be read by an ABS module capable scanner or code reader. Maybe again a dull service tire shop. The fuel tank pressure sensor code is probably rust on the fuel fill system especially in Michigan. There is a lot of information on some European Astra sites.

 

Your advice is much appreciated! I’ve hope yet for this little car that it could make a decent daily for at least several years. Have seen others suggest joining a UK/European forum for the Astra H in order to find more about getting parts, etc…I’ll certainly be doing that considering the car has no support network within NA.

 

I second the suggestion to join a UK forum.

As a 2008 model in the US, it was required to use the CAN protocols.

That being said, I don't know what the problem would be other than the scan tool trying to use Auto detection for the protocol, and for some reason, it errors out. I've had that happen more times than once. Then you have to go through and manually set each protocol on the scanner then try connecting. Then try the next protocol if that doesn't work.

You may also need to have the vehicle running and not just the key in the on position.

You may also need to reboot the ECM by disconnecting the battery for 15 minutes to allow all of the current to drain out of the system.

 

Hey had same problem. Changed my own timing belt. Also had to change rear coil springs and shocks. Could not find new parts, had some made. Could not find a Haynes or Chilton book for repair. Looked on amazon and got one. Is for the opal astra though could find nothing for a Saturn astra, book works same though.