Design 1.9 CDTi (150ps) 5dr People Carrier

DPF weakness spoils otherwise fabulous car

The Zafira is spacious, easy to drive and the auto box is a dream, and it even has a manual over-ride option. It's flexible and quick and quite fun and it even looks good. It swallows six with luggage and seven with a couple of soft bags and we would otherwise absolutely recommend it. But there's a problem...

We have the diesel and that's its Achilles heel: the DPF warning light comes on more frequently than we'd like and the car is simply unsuited to town driving for that reason. And when the DPF starts to clog up the car simply stinks inside. Think of a mix of old dog, diesel and vomit and that shows you just how bad it can be. The dealer re-programmed the engine and that has helped a bit but it also means the car now suffers from slightly scary turbo lag.

Sure, we run it every week on the motorway but that's simply not enough to keep the DPF clear no matter what Vauxhall tells you.

The motorway is this car's home and if that's all you drive on, this would be an excellent buy.

But if you do a fair amount of town driving, regretfully I'd suggest looking elsewhere, perhaps at a Verso.

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