2001 Vauxhall Zafira Club review from UK and Ireland

I can forgive the squeaky drivers seat, turn the radio up and it's soon forgotten.

At about 2000 miles I found that the engine management light kept coming on. This caused a real problem when pulling out from a junction as it would slow the car down to about 20mph and infuriate following drivers who think you are doing it on purpose.

I took the car back to the dealers at 3000 miles and complained about this problem, they took a look and told me the oil was low. I asked them if the oil should be this low at this mileage, they said that the Zafira Diesel engine does use a lot. I changed the oil myself at 5000 miles and was surprised to see how little oil drained out. I filled up with Castrol Magnatec diesel oil, no cheap stuff.

Air-con packed up shortly after.

I took the car into another main dealer at 9,600 miles for its first service. I told them about the air-con not working and about the engine management light and performance slow down, they fixed neither of them, telling me that there was no problem.

I booked the car into the same main dealer to look at the same problems, this time they actually managed to fix the air-con and topped the oil up to do a 500 mile oil test.

After the requested 500 miles, I returned. They checked the oil level and found that the car had used ¾ of a litre of oil, now I had their attention.

I booked the car in for the following week for a 4 day strip down and rebuild, I sorted my insurance and took the loan car, 4 hours later I received a phone call to tell me that the car was ready, they had done nothing.

To date the car still isn’t fixed, I wish I’d bought the Chrysler Voyager.

I like the design of the car, a lot of thought has gone into the clever seating arrangement.

This is my 3rd Vauxhall diesel car, the others being second hand purchases and mostly very reliable, but if I'm spending £14,000 of my hard earned money then I expect better than this.