2016 Vauxhall Astra review – new Astra is best yet, but can it excite? - Interior and tech

The Astra’s interior seems light and airy. The dash is littered with touches of chrome that nicely breaks-up the amount of black. The plastics used do feel luxurious and pleasant to touch. However you do find these plastics where you’d expect to find leather or metal, the gear knob in particular. Overall though, it feels very durable and well built.

The seating position is good, if a little bit too high. Find me a car that doesn’t feel like that, though. The steering wheel has a decent amount of adjustment, so getting comfortable isn’t difficult.

The main satnav screen seems to be angled upwards towards the roof of the car. It’s not difficult to see because of this, but you don’t expect the main source of the infotainment to be pointing in a different direction to the occupants. However, with DAB, satnav, Bluetooth it adds to the Astra’s pleasant environment.