I am a disabled driver and have my Zafira Automatic fitted with hand controls

My wife and I visited a friend in January 2004 and parked our car in the short drive at the front of her house. On leaving two hours later my wife noticed the plastic wheel cover on the ground under the rear of the car. The wheel clamp was down and to our astonishment and anger,we realised the spare wheel had been stolen. As I am disabled, and my wife was unable to secure the clamp, it was necessary to get assistance from our friend's neighbour in order to do this for us so that we could drive home. Our friend is also disabled and therefore unable to help us and to make matters worse, it was dark and raining very hard.

I contacted my garage and the salesman told me it was a common occurrence. He informed me of a special lock available that would be suitable for a Zafira. I purchased the K -Lok for £37.50 and my son was able to fit this for me. The total cost for the lock and a new spare wheel was a total of £133.55.

I wrote to Vauxhall Customer Services regarding this matter and their reply, although apologetic, accepted no responsibility for poor design and informed me of the locking device I could purchase despite the fact I had in fact put the details of this product in my letter to them.

I feel the least Vauxhall suppliers could do is to inform all those purchasing this model of this problem and offer to supply and fit the locking system at the time of the sale. The cost of this to the dealer would be negligeable and would prevent a considerable amount of possible customer dissatisfaction and inconvenience. I must add that apart from this extremely aggravating incident, I am very pleased with the car.
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The Zafira is a good all round family car

Based on the Vauxhall Astra chassis, there are quite a few similarities between the two cars, such as the general driving ride and the quality of the car as a whole.

There have been a few problems that general users have seen with the cars, such as:

• The engine cutting out when idle.
• The In car radio not functioning correctly.
• A squeaking noise from the brakes after only 10,000 miles or so use.
• Spare wheel thefts.
• A necessity to keep refilling the oil on diesel models (1 litre every thousand miles or so).
• Small storage space.
• Strange engine noises which can not be located or fixed.

Saying this, however. The car is very practical and does have some very good points. The innovative ?Flex 7? seating system makes it very easy to switch the car from 5 to 7 seats without too much hassle.

Other nice features include easy access to the car thanks to the wide opening doors, ideal for families with small children, and an anti-stall device. Designed to stop the car from stalling a low revs.

The car is generally very good and although a minority of owners have had some problems, it represents extremley good value for money and provides a great means of getting the whole family from one place to another.