Opel Easytronic

Opel's automated manual — in the Corsa, Astra, Agila, Meriva and Zafira.

It is a manual gearbox with a robot on it, not an automatic, and that explains everything owners find odd about it: there is no torque converter, so it does not creep; there is a real clutch, which wears like a manual's; and the pause on the change is the actuator doing what a left foot would.

Its dominant failure is the actuator unit, and it is very often replaced as a clutch. The electro-hydraulic module that works the clutch and selector loses pressure or its position sensor drifts, and the car refuses to select a gear, shows a warning and will not move — frequently after standing overnight, and intermittently before it becomes permanent. A clutch fitted to fix that returns the same symptom within days.

A genuine clutch replacement is not finished when the clutch is in. The system must be re-taught its bite point with a diagnostic tool; without it the car judders from rest and hesitates on every change, which is the complaint the new clutch was meant to cure.

Fiat's Dualogic is the same idea by another maker, and much of what is written about one applies to the other — which is worth knowing, because far more has been written about the Fiat.