5 reasons to love and hate the Opel Mokka

Attitude to the Opel brand has always been ambiguous. On the one hand, it’s still “German”, and the German car industry should be treated with respect. And on the other – “German”, but not that. Neither the thoroughness of Mercedes, nor the driver’s refinement of a BMW or a Porsche … Again, there are enough evil tongues ready to repeat that “at the end of life, every car turns into an Opel”. And yet people bought them. The start of the Opel Mokka compact crossover was also quite successful …The beginning of the second decade of XXI was marked by a rapid growth in the popularity of crossovers, which one by one captured all the new price and size categories. The appearance in 2010 of the subcompact Nissan Juke, which, despite all its outrageousness, quickly began to earn market points, led many European companies to take retaliatory measures. They were not long in coming, and I called my report from the 2013 Geneva Motor Show “Expecting a fight in junior classes”. Indeed, Renault Captur (not ours, but European), Peugeot 2008, the European version of the Ford EcoSport, the world Chevrolet Tracker and the new Suzuki SX4 were on the catwalks of one of the main auto shows of the planet. Still, the first such retaliatory strike was the Opel Mokka, the premiere of which took place all in the same Geneva, but a year earlier. Almost simultaneously, Mokka’s twin brother, Buick Encore, entered the American market, and in England, the car went on sale as Vauxhall Mokka.

History of Technology The company Opel SUVs never complained, although in the production range at various times met models of cross-country. But mostly they were Isuzu clones adapted for European …

In many publications, you can find the statement that the small crossover is based on the Opel Corsa. This is not quite true: the serially produced Corsa D was built on the GM Gamma I platform, and the basis for the Mokka was the GM Gamma II. However, a certain relationship between Corsa and Mokka is still visible. First, the GM Korea (GM Daewoo) division, which was entrusted with all the design work on the compact platform, was engaged in them not from scratch, but pushing from the very Gamma I. Well, and secondly, Mokka and Corsa unites a lot of common design making.

For Europe, GM engineers have prepared a fairly wide range of engines, despite the fact that the Gamma II platform implies the use of exclusively inline-fours. They were three petrol engines – turbocharged A14NET (1.4 liters, 140 hp), atmospheric A16XER (1.6 l, 115 hp) and A18XER (1.8 l., 140 hp) – and diesel A17DTS from the EcoFlex family (1.7 l, 130 hp, 300 Nm). 5- or 6-speed manual boxes or 6-speed automatic HydraMatic 6T40 could work with them as a pair. Drive – front or full, with automatically connected rear axle. In Russia, where sales of new items began almost earlier than in other European countries, initially only 1.8-liter aspirated, 1.4-liter turbo engine and 1.7-liter diesel were supplied.

The fact that the leadership of GM considered the Russian market to be very promising is indicated by the fact that already in 2012 the assembly of Mokka was organized at the Avtotor plant in Kaliningrad. But then the assembly was curtailed (many believed that only for a while), and Russian customers received cars produced in Korea and in Belarus at the Unison plant.

However, the Russian enterprise did not survive the crisis and was closed. Dealers sold the last Opel Mokka, and the model finally went to the secondary market, where they are now being asked for from 540-550 thousand rubles (for front-wheel-drive cars from 2012-2013 in the modest trim levels) to 1,050,000 – 1,150,000 rubles ( for all-wheel drive crossovers of 2014-2015 in the top configuration Cosmo). And, of course, the owners share their experience and their ratings of this car. And what do they write, for which they praise, and for what they criticize?

Let’s just say: Opel Mokka turned out to be a very balanced car, with a lot of advantages, but not without flaws. One of the objects of criticism rightly became visibility. It seems that everything should be fine: the body is high, the landing is more vertical than in the cars … But no.

An overview of the front left decently overlaps with the body pillar and side mirror, so you must be very careful when approaching pedestrian crossings. There is a solid dead zone on the right, so that when rebuilding, you also need to be very careful. But the biggest problems to the owners creates a review back. In the salon mirror, really, almost nothing is visible – headrests and a small rear window cleaning area interfere. In theory, the rear-view camera would have to help out, but parking is not possible only for it, you should definitely look into the side mirrors.