10 days and you have not sorted it its either a wind up or you have no real intention of repairing the car.

Simon, thanks very much for your reply. yes I did run the car very briefly the day before it wouldn't start. I sent it to the garage and whatever they did it now runs fine, I've used it nearly every day since then. I'm never going to run it briefly ever again. I realise I may never know what happened, and I hope it never happens again so I'll never have to address it again. There is just a little niggle left as to why a modern well maintained car should do this? how brief is briefly? but as I say I may never know.......and I can live with that. I'll certainly crank it more if it does, its just I assumed the starter had gone so didn't bother. Thanks for your thoughts.

Thanks injection doc and simon, last question..the car was serviced by an independent garage, how can I tell if they used the right grade oil?

Easy, ask the garage what oil they use as you would like to match it with top up oil

I had exactly this problem with 2.2 zafira, car started one day, but not the next. Engine turning over unusually fast.

The tappets had "hydrauliced" and were holding the valves slightly off their seats. No danger of any collisions with pistons, but very little compression.

The fix is to connect, via a set of jump leads to another car with the engine running and then crank the non starting engine over until it eventually splutters into life. This may take several minutes and initially it will run really uneven, but it will eventually clear all the tappets and run normally.

Doing this just on its own battery will often flatten it, so it is worth getting another power source to keep it turning over.

Result - car fixed, no money spent.

Well except for new battery, coil pack, temp sensor, crank sensor and much gnashing of teeth and scratching of head. Fortunately I am on good term with my motor factor and he took all the parts back and gave me a refund.