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Last Thursday I had the Corsa serviced. As it’s still on Opel warranty, I took it to the dealer’s service center in Tel Aviv (that photo above showing the entrance to the garage, is taken from the dash-cam video).
The guy that runs this place used to work for UMI, the importer for all GM brands to Israel. When Opel was taken away from UMI to be given to a new importer in 2011 (I mentioned it here yesterday), he was persuaded to join them and set up his own place. Many of his customers followed him, because as we all know, a good mechanic is worth far more than a good doctor. As a result, although this is indeed a certified Opel service center, many other, old(er) GM cars can be seen inside and around the place. here are few that were there when I came in:
This is the “waiting for parts” corner, for cars that usually have to stay more than a day. Straight away, the Brits among you will recognize the daily-driver-company-car-look of the Vectra. And that Astra is still soldering on (there were actually two of these in the garage that day, see the opening photo again).
Now for a quick Hebrew lesson; To capitalize on the latest Astra, arriving in Israel just now, the importer has set up this BIG sign you can see in the background. In white it says: “The New Opel Astra”, followed underneath by (yellow letters) “Car Of The Year 2016”.
Here’s that Vecra again, which appears to have run out of juice.
No surprise, then, to find a Vectra-based Malibu parked outside the garage, in true CC form.
This one is even worse off than the Opels waiting inside for parts. It’s been banished out of the garage, cats stride all over it. By the way, that’s an official handicapped sign inside the bottom left windshield. Make what you will of this…
Another (older) Vectra derivative was this SAAB 9-5. Again, left outside the garage to wait for… what?
This one looks to be in far better shape than the Malibu, although you can tell from the dust that it too have been sitting outside for more than a few days.
Finally, this big Omega actually arrived on the day. It came by tow truck, its owner not able to start the engine. These have become extremely rare in Israel. Not many have been purchased new in the first place, it was pricey.
So ends the service center tour- I have to service the Astra soon, so maybe there will be a update. (-;
My sister lives in Israel and she has a Honda Odyssey. Apparently Odyssey is not sold in Israel? She has trouble getting it serviced even with many Honda garages.
Yep, the Odyssey was imported to Israel privately, through gray imports. Although actually quite a few were imported (at the time its only competitor was the Mazda MPV so it filled a gap in the local market), the official importer- along with most garages and service centers- was reluctant to service the cars. Now that they’re older, obviously it’s even worse.
If I may presume to advise- best get rid of it and replace it with any of the (now available) other MPVs.
Not that I know Hebrew, but it helps to know that text is read from right to left, like its Semitic cousin Arabic. The Heb. alphabet is Unicode range 0590-05FF.
… and, of course, no true Israeli street scene is complete without a Mazda 3.
Lest you forget what is now an icon of the used small-car market; The Hyundai Getz.Some appear in the photos.
We have the same cars but in Holden flavour with the occasional Vauxhall and Opel thrown in and even Aussie built Omegas/Commodores with Chevrolet Lumina badging,
Odd to see Euro style number plates in the Middle East. Well Israel does compete in the Euro vision Song Contest. If you think some ones been altering the world map, Australia
lead said contest for most of the show!.
LOL a the youngsters would text!.
The Iranians also use the European format plates, with Arabic numbers.
The 9-5 seems to be a Griffin model. Very likely there’s a turbo V6 under that bonnet
What’s the purpose of the dash-cam??
Are Israeli drivers worse than the Russian???;-)
Well, nobody is as bad as Russian drivers…
I’ll admit that the idea came to me while watching Russian dash-cam shenanigans on YouTube, but also because you want to eliminate the all too expected “he said, she said” scenario in case of an accident, not to mention the stray policeman (“you did not stop at the stop sign, did you?”) who might be, shall we say- mistaken.