Vauxhall Viva (2015 – 2019) Review

The Vauxhall Viva is the brand’s city car contender, designed to compete with popular choices such as the Toyota Aygo, Volkswagen Up, Skoda Citigo and Hyundai i10. Reviving a name that had been long absent from the Vauxhall line up, the Viva shared a great deal with the similarly-discontinued Chevrolet Spark. As with many of its rivals the emphasis is on low running costs, ease of driving in the city and maximising the amount of interior space from a small exterior footprint. It’s certainly cheap but quite short on charm - there are better options in this class.

The original Vauxhall Viva was launched back in 1963 and proved an instant hit due to its good value and practical nature. Now, after more than half a century, GM has renamed its Opel Karl city car as the Vauxhall Viva for the UK, but remains true to its forbearer’s values by focusing on low running costs and practicality. 

The Vauxhall Viva is at its best in an urban environment, with its diminutive size and three-cylinder engine making it easy to drive and park in town. The Viva is offered with just one engine - a 1.0-litre petrol with 75PS - which is economical and competent at low speeds, returning up to 65.7mpg and emitting less than 100g/km of CO2 when specified in ecoFlex trim under the old NEDC measurement.

All models are well-equipped and even basic models get cruise control, heated door mirrors, front fog lights, lane departure warning and hill start assist. However, air conditioning and Bluetooth aren’t included and the interior also feels rather cheap due to a thick layer of scratchy and dull plastics. The range-topping SL models do add automatic air conditioning, a leather covered steering wheel and alloys, but even with these extras, the Viva rarely detracts from its low-cost appearance. 

On the positive side the cabin is practical and makes the most of its small footprint, with decent space for four adults and a light, airy cabin. Admittedly, the boot is on the small size - it's just 200 litres - but it's sufficient for the weekly shop or a couple of small suitcases. You may struggle if you need to carry big loads of people and luggage on a regular basis, but as an urban runaround the Viva should be big enough for your needs.

One area that does let the Vauxhall Viva down is its lack of 'big car' feel at higher speeds. The Viva's 1.0-litre engine isn't bad, but it is painfully slow and will often leave the driver changing down a gear or two to cope with small hills. Both the Hyundai i10 and Skoda Citigo feel more composed above 50mph and are also more fun behind the wheel, with better mid-range acceleration. 

The Viva is more competent in respect of ride quality, with the suspension set up to be sensibly soft resulting in a good ability to soak up urban bumps. The downside is that the Viva isn’t particularly fun through the bends, although it is perfectly safe and secure it is unlikely to get you grinning on the way home.

As well as having a good suspension set-up, which absorbs all of the lumps and bumps in the road, the Viva is a decent car to drive along twisty B roads, with competent handling and minimal body roll in the corners. Admittedly, the steering is a little numb, but there's enough feedback and front-end grip to give the driver confidence to push along twisty country lanes with a little gusto.

The engine is also well hushed, while general road noise is sufficiently supressed to let you cover long distances in relative peace and quiet.

As you might expect from a city car, the Vauxhall Viva is at its best in the urban environment, with its nimble handling and comfortable ride working well with its low-powered three-cylinder petrol engine.

Sadly the Viva lacks the fun and 'big car' feel of other small hatches at higher speeds, which does make it somewhat arduous when it comes to motorway speeds. 

This means the Viva and its five-speed manual gearbox need to be worked hard to maintain momentum above 50mph, with regular downshifts required to tackle hills or slip roads. That said, the Viva will comfortably motor along at 70mph, with cruise control and lane departure warning both fitted as standard, but getting to the cruising speed is a bit of a task.

In base trim, the Viva misses out on VED-exemption, emitting 104g/km of CO2 and returning a claimed 62.8mpg. However, Vauxhall does offer an ecoFlex upgrade, with aerodynamic tweaks and low rolling resistance tyres, which brings emissions down to 99g/km and improves economy to 65.7mpg.

The Viva - or rather it’s European equivalent, the Opel Karl - has been tested twice by Euro NCAP. Once in 2015 when the car was first launched, and again in 2017 - this was because the testing standards had changed significantly in the period, so that many cars on sale were retested.

As standard, all versions of the Viva are fitted with six airbags, including side and curtain airbags for both driver and passenger, seatbelt pre-tensioners and load-limiters, Isofix mounting points for the outer rear seats plus an airbag de-activation switch for the front passenger seat.

A further plus is that all Vivas are fitted with lane assist as well as cruise control and a speed limiter as standard, but there are no further safety systems on the options list.

Vauxhall do not quote an official towing capacity for the Viva, largely because the idea of towing with one is laughable. With just 75PS dragging it along it is not suitable for towing - Vauxhall do not offer a tow bar suitable for the Viva and we would not recommend trying to get one fitted.

Despite its compact dimensions, the Viva is a comfortable fit for four adults, with good amounts of head and leg room in front and back. Squeezing a fifth adult in is not really an option, but for occasional journeys four-up the Viva is on a par with the competition. All models get five-doors as standard which is a useful bonus.

At 206 litres, the boot isn't the biggest in the city car class either - both the Hyundai i10 and Skoda Citigo get around 50 litres more - but the Viva does have enough space to store the weekly shop and a small cabin suitcase.

The rear seats can be easily folded forward to provide a useful 1,013 litres in total, but if you frequently need to stuff the rear of your city car with chattels then an alternative to the Viva might be a better option - the Hyundai i10 sets the standard here.

The dashboard layout is easy to understand too and all of the dials are displayed clearly, while the steering wheel gets useful controls for the audio and cruise control. However, there's no CD player or air conditioning and you have to pay extra for Bluetooth which is unusual. 

The basic infotainment provision in the Viva is far from fancy, with SE models getting a simple FM/AM radio with an AUX input and nothing more. Go for an SE Nav or the SL model and this improves significantly, with the addition of a 7-inch touchscreen, navigation, Bluetooth for phonecalls and audio streaming, a USB input and six speakers.

The higher-specification system is a bit of a no-brainer, as it gives the whole car a lift and stops it feeling like a bargain-basement device. The screen itself is clear enough and responds with accuracy to inputs, although the colour scheme offers less contrast than is ideal to see in all conditions.

Vauxhall stopped selling the Viva (and the spin-off Viva Rocks) in 2019, so you won’t find one on the official price lists.

However, a quick search of the classified ads turned up a handful of examples with just dealer mileage on the clock, so you’d be effectively buying a new car - just without the facility to make any choices on colour or specification. We found several 2019 cars in a variety of trims and less than 100 miles for around £7500 - that’s a significant saving over the original list price of £10,000.

As for older examples, they are still relatively young in comparative terms and are down around the £5000 mark. We found an early 2015 car in SE trim with air con and 65,000 miles on the clock for £,500, and even the highest mileage examples are still the right side of the 100,000 mile mark.

The standard SE model offers 62.8mpg combined under the old NEDC measurement, with the EcoFLEX version increasing that to a claimed 65.7mpg combined. That should mean 50mpg is well within reach, possibly even 60mpg if you have an EcoFLEX and go carefully. If you’re eco-minded you may want to consider the Easytronic model, which is more economical than the equivalent manual.

The good news for drivers is that all versions of the Viva fit into low insurance groups, so costs should be pretty low.

The basic SE model is the cheapest, dropping into group 3 or 4 depending on its age, while the SE Nav and SL models are either in group 4 or 5. Because there’s so little between the top and bottom of the range in respect of insurance grouping, you shouldn’t have to choose the spec of your car based on the insurance costs.

There’s no engine options to think about here, with just the single 1.0-litre unit available. The Viva comes with a five-speed manual gearbox as standard, but is also available with an automated manual shift, but the manual is the better of the two if you have the choice.

Choosing the basic SE model is not the dumb move it might be with some of the competition. The standard specification is generous, including tyre pressure monitoring, lane departure warning, electrically heated and adjustable door mirrors, cruise control and speed limiter, steering wheel audio controls and fog lights with cornering function. A key omission from that list is air conditioning however, but there is an SE a/c model that adds it in.

However, we’d recommend going for the SE Nav or SL models, as they include the 7-inch infotainment system with navigation, climate control, Bluetooth and additional speakers.