Vauxhall Zafira Life 2.0DTi 16v

Author's product rating:   

Safety	Good
Comfort	Satisfactory
Road Handling	Satisfactory
Security	Good
Looks	Poor

Advantages:	Economical, does what it sets out to do .
Disadvantages:	Boring .  Poorly Equipped

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Not convinced that this vehicle is available as16v, hence the lack of reviews, but here goes:

This was a 16k three-year-old second-hand purchase very much as a case of head over heart. It is not the most charismatic of vehicles, and is somewhat basic by modern standards. It fulfills the brief, though, in that it has a wheel at each corner and gets three adults and four progeny from A to B in reasonable comfort fairly economically.

I've just done 490 miles of mixed motorway, A-road and queueing on 45 litres of diesel, which compares favourably with my old indirect injection 1.9D Citroen ZX.
This machine has a common rail engine and cat and IIRC pays £165 a year road tax for CO2 emissions. I'm not entirely surprised, as it's basically an Astra estate with a higher roof, and thus a larger frontal area to cause drag, so economy depends even more on keeping a light touch on the accelerator.

While there is decent torque at low speeds, there is a bit of a flat spot before the turbo kicks in, and this is annoyingly at about 67 mph in 5th. With the turbo at full grunt there's still plenty of poke to get 7 people up a hill or overtake on the motorway. A lot more than I expected, anyway. The brakes are ABS, and you're gonna need them.
The engine is chain driven, and reputedly not susceptible to valve crashes, so that's a relief to those who've had a belt snap on them just after buying, (us).

Handling is good and it doesn't "roll about like a drunken pig" as I said about the Previa. It is a bit noisy on the motorway and this is road noise more than engine note. You won't notice it over the kids' whinging.

All Zafiras except the very first few come with air con, and although it's not powerful, it is a most welcome help in a traffic jam with 4 boisterous kids. Climate control only comes higher up the range, so you'll probably be sweating before you turn it on and freezing before you cut it off, (and you can run it with the air set to warm if you're dull enough).

The radio is OK-ish in that it has RDS and EON with an external display, but it has a cassette player, that doesn't work in our case.
Sound quality and power is decent enough with front door tweeters, but there's no separate bass and treble or loudness.

The engine compartment is jam packed, and not ideal for the home maintainer. Some of the interior plastic trim is inclined to break or fall off. The back two seats have enough room for a teenager, unlike many smaller so-called MPVs, like the C4 or the Verso. They're not exactly luxurious, but are less bum-numbing than the Meriva.

The middle bench is, and has to be, movable fore and aft, and comes with a useful berlin wall arm rest to keep warring factions apart. It will move when occupied but try to avoid this by batting off boarding parties until you've converted the back.

The rear compartment cover is a liability and will stay in the garage/spare room., but this is a minor niggle that is corrected in the Mk2 version.

OK, the Mk 1 is looking a bit dated, but it's certainly going to remain a good bread and butter buy.