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We bought a Vauxhall Zafira A four years ago, when we got it the engine on it was just under 100,000 miles. Since then we've had a number of things fixed on it - we've had new exhaust, clutch, radiator, timing belt, water pump, spring, brake pads, brake discs, shock absorbers, etc.
We have it serviced usually once a year and every year it just flies through it's MOT. The only thing that ever seems to come up on the MOT is when the tyres need changing. We also usually try and get the advisories sorted out every year too.
We have two garages in our local area that look after the car - Overton Service Station in Ludlow and Gatechange Garage in Tenbury, both seem very confident when it comes to cars and always seem to do a great job.
The vehicle now has done over 163,000 miles, it's a 55 plate vehicle (it was actually one of the last Zafira A's before they switched to the B's and judging by the fire problems I'm glad it's an A!)
Anyway my dad has been driving for years, and every time I phone him up now he always asks repeatedly about the car. It's really starting to get on my nerves. He keeps demanding that I replace the car because it's done a lot of miles and it's going to pack up because he thinks that 163,000 miles is a lot for a car, although when we first got the car he did ask us why on earth we bought one with nearly 100,000 miles on the clock anyway as apparently 100,000 miles to him was the end of life for a petrol engine - although I notice some of the courtesy cars Overton sometimes lend us have done over 250,000 miles and they are also petrol.
So I'm not too sure what to think, it's annoying me that he keeps mithering me about buying a new car when actually this car still seems to be running fine (he also keeps telling me to go to somewhere like Arnold Clark and spend about £6,000 on a decent car rather than some dodgy trader - I can't quite see the irony of this that he actually bought his last car from Arnold Clark and within 2 months it was smoking - ok they did fix it but it still broke! Where as we've had 4 years out of this car from what he deems is a "dodgy trader" and spent only £1,200 on it! And tbh I see it more risky to buy a car from a dealer that has mechanics that only work for the dealer, than to buy it from a garage that has a mechanic there that owns the place, and his dad also owned the place too and so passed his skills on and ultimately his name is on the line more than a faceless corporation), it's not really using oil differently, it always seems to use a lot of oil in the winter and then not so much in the summer (usually I have to top it up twice in the winter, but nothing in the summer - it's been like that since we got it so I guess that's just normal).
When it goes for MOT it always comes back fine, it's emmissions report is usually quite low, actually it's even lower than the Vauxhall stats for that car!
The only one slight issue we do have is that if I initially leave the car on with the radio running for about 10-15 minutes and then turn the vehicle on I find that the power steering doesn't work for about 10 minutes. It's not really a big problem - someone told me that as it's electric power steering it's possibly the battery, but we've had the battery checked so many times and each time it comes back fine, the battery is still the original battery though, but it does also have a green light on the battery that also shows up fine too.
So is 163,000 miles quite high for a petrol or is my dad worrying me prematurely also I'm going to The Netherlands this year, is it quite risky to take such a high mileage car to The Netherlands, am I better hiring a car for that trip or getting decent breakdown cover.
Edited by Theklf99 on 24/01/2018 at 09:56
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