Well, I jacked the car to do the oil and filter change, looked underneath and thought oh my, that does not look quite right (well maybe not quite those words). The front suspension, inside of wheel and sub frame were covered in thick black grease. Both the inboard and outboard joints have leaked. No indication of trouble other than a tiny vibration on my coolant test drive last night. So time to fit the Vectra C shaft that's been sitting in the garage. Suspension and hub came apart no problem, I'd done all the hard work when I changed the wheel bearings a couple of months ago. Note that you don't have to disconnect the lower ball joint or steering arm to get the drive shaft out of the hub, just the brake calliper, disk and two hub carrier to strut bolts. However the shaft would still not come out. The problem was that the intermediate support bearing was stuck in the housing. Undoing the housing bolts does not help as there a hollow dowels that stop it moving. I was seriously considering taking an angle grinder to the inner shaft, but clearance was not good with the car on axle stands. In the end heat applied to the bearing housing (alloy housing, steel bearing) and a 4lb lump hammer applied to the tulip housing did the trick. I used a hot air paint stripper to apply the heat. I opened the Vectra shaft bearing housing on the bench and cleaned it up before fitting it to the car. Two of the bolts need to be shorter for the Vectra housing. After that the shaft went in easily. I did try to do the oil change with the shaft out as the filter housing is easier to access with the shaft out. Unfortunately the sump plug was tight and had been rounded off and I really didn't feel like doing battle with it was a very hot day, 27C in the shade and the car was saying 35C, so I'll let the local garage do it on a ramp were it will only take 30 seconds with a big pair of molegrips. I don't like putting a lot of side leverage on when I'm under the car on stands. 6 hours later and it's all back together and working. Robert G8RPI.

Sounds like you have got it sorted.

I learnt yesterday that my Croma (which I p-x'd) for my 500X has recently changed hands again. Not sure where she is now but I hope she is trouble free and benefitting from the TLC that I (and like all Croma owners here) give/gave our Cromas.

i rounded off sump plug on my 2.4 when i mistakenly saw that bolt as torx, so i put on windy, press it once and swarfs started to fly out