2004 Vauxhall Zafira Elegance from UK and Ireland - Comments

Trim rattles.

I bought this car because I have a disability and I need an auto gearbox and higher seating position.

I have been quite impressed with the initial experience, but shocked by the rate at which it uses fuel.

The gearbox also 'hunts' badly between gears and can't seem to decide what gear it should be in.

It's not the happiest place in which to spend time, it's very gloomy inside and the stereo is very bass heavy.

I'm monitoring the oil consumption in line with other reviews on this site.

What do you get to the gallon as most people think the official 'combined' figure is what they should get.

In reality, take the quoted urban figure- 35.3 mpg in this case add 10% taking it to 38.8 mpg and take about 3 mpg off as it's an auto-you should get about 35-36 mpg.

By the way, the DTi in the Zafira you've got is quite an old engine design, and won't be as economical as one of the newer common rail diesels.

About 35/36 to the gallon I think with a mixture of running, the car is approx 8 months old, but I have no idea about the engine or whether it's the new one or not, thanks for the steer on that one.

It's black as well, this has to be about the worst colour of any car in the world..! I had the car about two weeks now and it's been cleaned 4 times. That's 4 times more than I cleaned my last green car.

Stereo is really annoying me too, I've been trying to listen to a Muse CD on it and it really distorts. Any views on radio reception - MW is dreadful and FM is OK - but could be better, can I get somethng retro fitted to recify this?

Further to my previous comments, I took it to a garage today and found that over the first 1500 miles of use, it's not used a drop of oil.

It has used some coolent though, so as a precaution I had this topped up.

Comfort wise, I took a longer trip out this week and found the seats extremely comfortable and supportive, I've never had a seat which has the use of so many adjustments.

But the stereo is driving me nuts, I want to listen to MW, but the reception is shocking and is characterised by electrical interference from the electric power steering device I think.

Any ideas about this anyone..?

Sorry, I haven't any advice on the stereo as I found my one was very good, radio and CD. I had a brand new 1.8i 16v, you may see my review by tomorrow, but I too found the economy quite uncomfortable, and Vauxhall use less coats of paint, two, so stone chips showed up too often too easily.

No-one so far as mentioned about the external spare wheel. Mine didn't go until the thefts were mentioned on Watchdog and then someone had the gall to do it, while I had had my vehicle for a year without so much as anyone looking at it, much less touching it. Vauxhall's denial of liability didn't fare well with me at all and they aimed to charge me for a spare wheel, tyre and the industrialised K-Lok, something which they failed to mention prior to purchasing.

Finally my rear wiper was damaged and to replace it was something resembling alligator wrestling. The arm wouldn't come off, the parts staff kept mentioning 'do this, do that', someone from sales was meant to get a mechanic, several sales staff ooh-ed and aah-ed, but no one had anything productive to offer! I had to improvise and replace part of the arm with pliers!

Hi I have a zafira elegence auto 1.8 it make a kind of rattle when your sat I reverse??? any ideas on what it could be??? cheers stu.

My '04 Vauxhall Zafira Elegance 2.0 DTI has just had a major gearbox failure at just 66,000 miles, just 6,000 miles out of warranty. The car has been well driven and cared for and no leaks in gearbox oil. I am not happy!

What should I do about this? Gearbox failure at this mileage level is unacceptable these days.

I've had my 04 dti since it was a year old with no real problems until now.

The alarm has started going off for no apparent reason. This started at work (I'm a fireman) so I tried parking it in a different place, thinking the radios on the fire engines might be setting it off. This was fine for awhile until recently when it started again. Looking around I noticed a radio transmiter. I moved to a different parking place,

which seemed to cure it. Until this the only minor faults are the poorly designed wipers which leave a big blind spot on the drivers side and the low towing limit.