Vauxhall Zafira 2.0 Diesel Elegance

We are trying to love the car because the design and use of space is excellent, but the drip-drip costs for replacing parts on our model is tiring, costly and getting worryingly frequent. And now the final straw is that we have discovered that the GM 12 month warranty on its parts is will not be honoured because we didn't get the starter replaced at a GM dealer when it broke down (late at night) ten months from new.

So I'm afraid, our experience of our particular model and the GM support service means that I will never buy GM again. And must mark the Zafira very poorly.

had the Vauxhall Zafira 2.0 Diesel Elegance 2 yrs, nothing went wrong with the engine or sensors, it had done 62,000 when i got it and 73,000 when i exchanged it, fuel econemy good, trim ok, scrathces a bit easy , but there is very little space in the back with rear seats in use. genraly its like a tin of ronseal. does what it says on the tin. not too bad for a mpv in the corners when you have to pushh it, plenty of mid range toruqe too.

This is my 2nd Zafira. I like them but nearly didn't buy the second one after endless problems with the first (a T-reg 1.8 petrol) but the design is a winner.

The car is just 3 years old, done 46000, and (touch wood) has been problem free.

Oil consumption almost nil.

I always achieve around 45mpg - less in town, more on a run. The wife is not as careful so only gets around 38mpg.

The flexibility of 5 or 6 or 7 seats is very useful.

Back seat passengers have a huge amount of knee room. The sliding bench rear seat can be moved forward 10-15cm with no loss of comfort, but giving a lot of room in the boot.

Things to watch-

1. Air-con. When used as per handbook recommendations it does not hold its charge. I've had 2 or 3 costly fixes but in the end stopped repairing it and now just open the window.

2. Key. sitting down with the key in your back pocket is enough to break the tiny spots of solder that hold the key-fob battery in place so that the remote central locking wont work. Expensive to replace.

3. Rear discs seem to wear quickly.

4. Driver's armrest that includes a flip lid storage space rattles constantly and is only silenced with an elastic band to keep the lid firmly closed- what fool thought they were a good idea?

5. At high speed the steering wheel shakes annoyingly. I've had it looked at by four different garages/tyre shops etc but each one has not been able to fix it.

My final word. The Zafira is not the best, but has a lot going for it, I would recommend them but stay well away the early Zafiras- way too many problems with them.

We have had the Vauxhall Zafira 2.0 from new it was bought to replace a Volvo estate. We went for a diesel because we were doing high mileages and it was cheaper than petrol but sadly this is no longer true. It has now done 90,000 miles but it still does around 40mpg mixed driving. Oil consumption was very high for the first 20,000 mile and it was only because I used diesels at work that we stuck with it. Has now settled and rarely needs any between oil changes (6000 mls).

We had the trip computer as an optional extra and it's a great gadget very accurate. We also had Air/con, heated seats,mirrors etc. Well, we were used to Volvos. Is great on the motorway using cruise control in fact we use it almost all the time now even on local road saves speeding tickets. It's so simple to use, much better than that on my Mitsubishi and really takes strain out of driving long distances.

The versatility of the seating is brilliant I have yet to see a better system. You can go from a car full of kids to a van you can put a fridge freezer in in less than a minute with the only niggle being what do you do with the boot cover bar.

While on about niggles the wife hates the sun visor she is 5' 2'' and it's useless for her it's so shallow. We had to modify it in the end. It is quite obvious that the cockpit was designed for a person taller than say 5' 8''. Other things, the front fog lamp switched failed after 2 years this meant changing the complete lighting switch at a cost of over £100 so we left them not working. Glow plugs are very flimsy and have a short life, the battery in the sounder for the alarm failed setting the alarm off at random(see preloved astra website on how to sort that) The car also developed a flat spot with a pronounced lag when pulling away in low gears the local diesel engineer found it in 2 mins flat (see main agent)and we were all sorted and on our way in 10 mins some £250 lighter. there were also other electical niggles.

Our main problem was the main dealer. For the first year we had it serviced as per the book. During the second year a couple of faults developed including the fog lamps. We left the car for a full day to have it serviced and the faults sorted. They didn't have time to look at the lamps etc. They hadn't had time to do most of the service either it seems because days later a noise developed and an independent garage found the brake pads were down to the metal. We complained to Vauxhall garage and got nowhere, they couldn't find the engine lag fault either! So even though it supposedly invalidated our 3 year warranty we used our local independent garage ever since it's much cheaper and conscientious.

We were going to change the car last year but it runs well and apart from a needing new battery (6 years old) at the start of winter has never let us down.

When we do come round to changing we will certainly be looking at another Zafira possibly an LPG conversion.