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Vauxhall Dealer Repair

I had previously owned a Zafira B from brand new to 8 years and 108,000 miles old. It had had the Vauxhall Lifetime Warranty on it, but not much went wrong - just a leaky water pump and an air con compressor, both replaced under warranty.

A Zafira C therefore seemed an obvious replacement - this one bought second hand at 3 years old and 18,000 miles - partly because cars have got so much more expensive and partly because it was one of the last Zafiras made.

However somewhere between the two cars being built Vauxhall were bought by Peugeot Citroen, and it seems that they managed to apply their build quality to the cars pretty rapidly.

The first failure, which happened fairly soon after purchase and left me stranded in the road, was a throttle body. Fortunately this was repaired under warranty, but had it not been it is an expensive repair and has to be done by the Vauxhall dealer as it needs reprogramming.

Next failure was a misfire, usually under acceleration, but which made the car horrible to drive. This was a faulty spark plug, but a set of 4 costs over £100 from Vauxhall.

The car was also making a truly hideous noise, which the garage had a job in diagnosing (although not hearing). Eventually traced to a premature failure of a shock absorber. Even when diagnosed it took a while to fix as the part was unavailable.

At this point the rear washer pump failed.

Soon after the car kept having a problem with the engine light coming on. This was traced to the exhaust flexi pipe leaking, again a part which was not in stock.

Next problem was a return of the misfire. Being bored of garages at this point I replaced the spark plugs myself and this largely (but not completely) fixed the problem. I replaced the coil pack myself too, and this did fix the problem.

My next issue was that from time to time when I first started the car I could not select any gear. Each time the problem sorted itself as the engine got warm but it was really aggravating. The problem deteriorated to the extent that the clutch pedal made a loud crunch each time you changed gear. This was found to be a faulty pedal box. This was an £1,100 repair and again I could only get a Vauxhall dealer to attempt the repair as it needs so much of the dashboard removed to reach it.

By this point I am truly hating driving the car, as it feels like there has almost constantly been an ongoing issue with it waiting to be fixed, and if there isn't currently a problem I am on tenterhooks waiting for the first sign.

That sign was the engine light coming on again, although it extinguished itself after a day. A week later it came on again, and went away again even sooner. Next time it appeared it was followed by a warning "stop engine now" on the dashboard, fortunately I was able to stop immediately.

This issue was a loose timing chain - one of the plastic guides had broken up into tiny pieces and spread themselves aroung the engine. As I had managed to stop very quickly the engine hadn't completely destroyed itself, but it was a repair that can only be done by Vauxhall as it needs a special Vauxhall-only tool. The repair cost £2,000 and the dealer wanted to replace more engine parts (cost of parts alone at least an extra £1,000 plus VAT and labour). Even after this they said they couldn't tell what long-term damage had been done inside the engine and that it might never be the same again, and would likely exhibit high oil consumption.

Looking on a used car site I found another car at remarkable simliar age and mileage advertising replacement chain just fitted, so I suspect that 6 years/72,000 miles is the expected lifetime of this pitiful engine.

As soon as it was fixed I sold the car.

The car had always been service on time, always by Vauxhall or a competent garage.

I would never, ever, buy another Vauxhall.

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