Our Fleet Test Drive: Vauxhall Zafira – 1st Report

The Zafira Tourer, which has been around for about a year, has passed through BusinessCar’s hands on two previous occasions, but they were short-term test drives and not the extensive ‘what’s it like to live with’ examination we’re about to embark on.

The previous tests also didn’t feature Vauxhall’s Tech Line trim, which wasn’t available when this Zafira was launched and is the reason why we booked it in for a six-month stint.

As this point we should point out that the Tourer name [1] denotes the new version of the seven-seat mini-MPV Zafira, which is being sold alongside its predecessor. It’s not, as is generally the case with other manufacturers, an estate model.

The third-generation Zafira is both wider and longer (bumper to bumper the Tourer is nearly 200mm longer than its forebear). As a result, there’s more space in just about every direction.

Something else Vauxhall has improved is the car’s famed practicality – the Flex7 seating layout [2] is more versatile than it has ever been.

While both aspects will be fully assessed – the car has found it’s way to me as there are now five members of my young family, so we should be able to push its practicality to the limit – it’s the aforementioned, fleet-friendly, Tech Line trim that’s really key to this model from a business car perspective. The specification is available on other Vauxhalls, and is designed to ensure that corporate drivers and businesses can benefit from the latest technology without having to hammer the options list and therefore pay out large sums of money in P11D price, lease rates and benefit-in-kind. Core to Tech Line is the addition of, among other equipment, satnav [3], Bluetooth and DAB radio, as well as 17-inch alloys.

Of the four engines available (two petrol, two diesel) our car comes with the diesel 130hp 2.0-litre Ecoflex engine, which according to one of our earlier test drives was noted not to be all that different in terms of power delivery from the 165hp variant. It also emits less than 120g/km, which is an achievement for a full seven-seat car.

We’ll let you know how the engine, as well as the car’s other features, perform over the next half-year.