In all seriousness, a bit of Toilet Duck/Harpic loo cleaner. The chemical ingredients are all but the same.

Didn't the initial Power Red have 2 coats of paint? I remember being the case on the J but wasn't sure if that carried over to the K?

It's normally my wife's sunglasses case that rattles about in the glovebox. Apart from that, at over 4 years old, my K is rattle and squeak free.

Yes, just pull the arm up. Press the little squares in and slide it it off and then slide the new one on. Bosch H253 I think it the usual replacement, but, like a few others on here, I replaced mine with the H311 which is the Astra J rear wiper. Fits exactly the same as the H253 but gives a bigger w...

TBH, it's not that effective - mainly because most of the noise seems to come from the road - and to deal with that you need the inner wing sound deadening (as fitted with the Acoustic Pack!) I'd recommend getting the under bonnet pad, the false floor (make sure you fill it with stuff (to deaden any...

No, it goes under the bonnet - there's a place where it should be before the Acoustic Pack got removed by penny-pinching accountants!

Simply hold the pad in place and push the retaining clips in and job's done.

The official sound deadening pad (and clips) and the false boot you can get from your local dealer or various online vendors. False boot: https://www.astrakforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1093 And the acoustic pad is part number 9034618 for the insulation pad and 13336240 for the clips (you need 8)

Never heard of them so I suspect they're some nasty budget ones? Replace tyres with Michelin (Pilot or CrossClimate) and notice dramatic drop in noise levels.

If you wanted to, also pick up the under bonnet sound-deadening pad and the false floor boot storage thing. Should quieten things down.

The 1.6T seems as rock-solid as the old school ECOTEC units only with even more punch!

I still think there's something to be said for the cast iron block of the 1.6T as to opposed to the all-alloy block found in the 1.4 and 1.0 which seem to have been the problem ones.

To be honest, the early 1.4T units seem to either keep working or explode with a cylinder failure. My 16-plate coughed and clanged on a few occasions -due to putting foot down (not to the floor, mind) just under 2000rpm. In my defence, I came from an un-burstable ECOTEC 1.6 Turbo and also the reason...