Comfy People Carrier (Vauxhall Zafira 1.9 CDTI Design)

Member Name: suz1584

Product:	Vauxhall Zafira 1.9 CDTI Design
Date:	16/03/09 (345 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Comfy, loads of room, nice to drive

Disadvantages: For the price they could make it feel a bit more special inside with some added extras

I had one of these as a courtesy car for just one week. And on first impressions I thought that I wouldn't be able to drive a people carrier! But once I get over the initial shock of the car I began to look round it, It didn't look to big for a people carrier and looking I could only see the 5 seats in it.

The model I got was a Vauxhall Zafira 1.9 CDTI Design. This is a diesel and was black in colour. I was told that it's based on the Vauxhall Astra and I can see the similarities of the looks. It had alloy wheels which were nice but not outstanding.

Inside the car - Ok finally after wandering round looking at it I decided to jump in the drivers seat to have a better look. It felt very high up which isn't a surprise for a people carrier. I wouldn't say it was very different to our Vauxhall Vectra, the steering wheel has the controls for the CD/radio which are very plain but do they job well.

The dash had on orange backlight for the speedometer. One thing I did notice though was there wasn't a temperature gauge on the car so you didn't know when it was warm enough to put the heaters on, I do actually find this necessary in the car to have one because Diesel cars take a lot longer to warm up and when it's -12 outside you don't want to blast yourself with cold air in the car.

The other extra with this car is it has a sport button, when you press this it has an orange light to show you it's on. This button is to obviously put the car in sport mode which greatly improves the throttle response and also better steering especially on corners, this is because the steering is quicker.

It has the usual built in CD/Radio which is also orange lighting on it, the stereo was loud enough and once changing some setting on it, it did sound pretty good.

With the radio display it also showed you how many miles you had left until you needed to fill up again. It also showed you miles per gallon but this also went up to 999.99 everytime the car stoped or slowed right down so again I wasn't overly impressed with it. It has a 6 speed gearbox which is very good for your fuel consumption.

The car is very spacious with more than enough leg room, the seats were part fabric and part leather which sounds disgusting but looks really good. The seats are also very comfy and all have headrests. In between the two front seats there is an arm rest which is great to lean on when you are driving or veen for the passenger but compared to the armrest in the Vectra it is very small and thin. It has a button at the front and when you press it the top half of the arm rest lifts open with a small storage space.

The driver seat moves up and down to adjust the height that you are comfortable with as well as usual cars moving back and forth.

There is electric wondows for the front and back of the car which can be controlled at each seat or all 4 can be controlled by the driver. As well as electric mirrors which is easy to adjust them to what way you are ocmfortable with.

The handbrake on this car is like a handbrake on a van, its U shaped. I don't really know how to explain what it's like but it does take a bit of getting used to. Below the arm rest and in between the handbrake there is a cup holder but it's difficult to use when you have the arm rest down, cup also gets in the way when you put the handbrake on.

The back of the car has 3 seats but you can pull the middle seat down to have a table which has two cup holders on it. There is also a storage net on the back of the front seats that would be good for papers and magazines. I was quite surprised to see that they didn't have pull down tables like the ones you get on an aeroplane and also other people carriers.

In the boot the boot door is very large and quite heavy to open. The boot is very large with definately more than enough room for a days shopping spree. It is very flat which I was surprised at because it does have the two seats folded down here. There is a cup holder on each side of the car for the two back seats. I didn't actually have a chance to pull these seats up to see what it looked like but have been told that they are very roomy.

The car is a 1.9 diesel which is the same as the Vectra but I have to say it is a lot nippier than the Vectra is. It seems to get up to 60mph very quickly which I was surprised about. And I have actually checked it and it says it takes 11.7 seconds from 0-62mph but I did actually feel that it was faster. But still very good for this type of car. I found the fuel consumption in this car was good, I put £10 in it just before it went back to the garage and it said that would do 120 miles but this did vary depending what speed I was doing so it's not the best way to tell how much miles it would do.

Ok the cost, because I haven't actually bought one of these I am going by prices on the internet. On www.vauxhall.co.uk the car is selling for £20,645.00 but will cost extra for some colours etc.

Overall it was a lovely car to drive, it has fantastic brakes on it like most vauxhalls do. It was comfortable to drive and would be fantastic for long distances, when I was in it I just wanted to keep on driving. I didn't find it difficult to drive this even though I thought I would because it's a lot bigger than i'm used to but it was easy and even parking was very easy. I would definately consider buying one of these if I had children because they have loads of space but not worth having one for just a couple.

Summary: Good car for a family

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