Considering this is quite a good size people carrier, I thought the performance was really very good. It had a decent run to 60 and when you weren't packed out with a full compliment, you could certainly push on at a decent rate with the 1.8. What we really liked about the Zafira, is it's capable of being a long distance cruiser as well as being more than comfortable to potter around town in.
The party trick has to be the Flex 7 seating arrangement. The genius behind these was that if you needed extra luggage space in the boot, the two rearmost seats imply fold into the floor, there is no trying to find space in the garage to keep them, they simply fold away and they do so very easily indeed. The middle bench is equally clever folding in all manner of directions in order to maximise legroom for your rear occupants.
We like the genius of the seats and there is plenty of room throughout for all of the passengers although the rearmost seats are probably best left for children. The one thing that we think really lets this car down is the interior design which is bland to say the least and we eventually got bored of looking at it and now run the new Mervia.
Running costs on the Zafira were reasonable from what I can remember, the mpg was to be expected for this class and the insurance and road tax never broke the bank.
I bought the Zafira Elegance Auto to replace the Vauxhall Zafira Comfort as it was time to upgrade. It's more stylish and comfortable and has an arm rest in the front.
Rear passenger seats recline which is great for sleeping children! It drives and handles smoothly. I would recommend this as its a spacious, comfortable and affordable family car.
This is a great vehicle and has served us well for 3 years. We bought it 2nd hand in wonderful condition and can honestly sell it on in the same way.
It has been reliable and comfortably fits our 4 children in. When there are only 2 children to transport there is ample boot space and therefore is great for a smaller family who like to camp or buy things from IKEA!
When our fourth one was on the way we decided to get a people carrier. The Zafira has a couple of dinky seats that open out in the boot (they're actually ok for adults), and the smaller engine and better fuel economy swung us towards this one and away from a Grand Voyager, which we were also looking at. I suppose we're not quite getting the MPG that it's suppose to get mind, perhaps because we so often have it fully loaded.
Basically the car has certainly done us proud but has been a little, hmmm, well.... DULL. I know I'm getting to be an old man now, but even I like a bit of pazazz here and there, but the Zafira hasn't really got any of that. The more important thing for us really was the safety though, and that is excellent. It is highly rated, and has always felt extremely safe and secure with everyone tucked up in it. It takes a while to get everyone strapped in, but that's probably more to do with my little tearaway kids than anything to do with the car itself.
It's not overwhelmingly exciting to drive then, but it's good at what it does. Overtaking it's pretty good at, and it's not too noisy either at speed, which is important. Ah, but... as with other Vauxhalls I've driven, they do seem to be unable to make the front pillars a reasonable size. They just enormously thick, and it exactly the wrong position. Quite why they feel the need to have a sort of triangle pillar instead of just one single pillar connecting along the sides of the windscreen I have no idea. It just makes it very difficult at times to see what's coming round the corner.
The seven seats are fairly easy to open out, although you've got to be quite precise about moving the second row forward fully before the third row opens out. That can be a paid when you've got kids flying about the place. The boot is really big when those seats aren't up. Warning though: obviously enough, the boot more or less disappears when that third row of seats is up. We ended up getting a small trailer, which it has towed along with all seven of us just fine really.
The space around the cabin is great too, lots of little spaces especially round the front of the cabin. I'm a little critical of the cabin spaces in the roof though. They go all the way along to the back of the car, and although it's tempting to use them, the kids can't really reach them so you sometimes need to pull over to get things out of them for the little darlings.
It has been reliable for us, I mean in terms of not breaking down unexpectedly, but there have been a fair few little things go wrong, which has probably added up quite a bit over the years. Let's see, the EGR valve has failed a few times. It needed a new radiator at 30k miles, and new tensioner and belt at around 60k miles, which both seemed a little premature. I'll be selling it quite soon (74k) as I get the feeling something really major might happen soon.
Hmm... I've had my Vauxhall Zafira for a few years now and I must say it's not really pulling its weight any more. It's roomy (but come on... what do you expect from an MPV?) but I didn't actually realise that you can't do much with the seats as some of them are joined together, so it's not very adaptable. Also it just feels a bit... slow.
I've had a couple of problems with the Zafira, at one point the digital display started going crazy and had to be replaced, another time I was really struggling to get it up to speed - all these had to be rectified and that wasn't cheap. But the reliability isn't too bad, it's just that the Vauxhall Zafira doesn't stand up to some of the newer MPVs on the market and I'm jealous!
There are practically none of the little gadgets in the Zafira that you get in comparable cars, and it's so noisy, it sounds like my old Ford Transit van or something! It just feels like I'm driving round in an old-fashioned relic and everyone else has something better. No serious complaints though - the Vauxhall Zafira isn't a bad car as such, I just wish I had something better.