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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. I drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under real-world South African conditions. Many of the vehicles driven are world cars as well, so what you read here possibly applies to the models you get where you live.

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Second Life: 2022 Opel Zafira Life

Deliciously spacious

Posted: March 27, 2022

The numbers
Prices: Life Edition at R749 900 and Life Elegance at R869 900
Engine: PSA DW10, 1997 cc, DOHC 16-valve, four-cylinder turbodiesel with commonrail direct injection
Power: 110 kW at 4000 rpm
Torque: 370 Nm at 2000 rpm
0-100 km/h: 15.5 seconds
Top speed: 182 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 9.4 l/100 km
Tank: 70 litres
Luggage: 989 to 3300 litres VDA
Ground clearance: 175 mm
Turning circle: 12.7 metres
Towing (SA specs): 600 kg
Standard tyre size: 215/60R17
Spare: Full size steel, under body
Warranty, roadside assistance and service plan: Five years, 100 000 km

Forget all you knew about the original Zafira, a pretty little crossover developed from Opel Astra with input from Porsche.

Those in power decided to drop the original concept in 2019, choosing instead to develop a New Zafira out of Citroën’s Jumpy panel van; also known as Peugeot Expert, Fiat Ducato and Toyota ProAce.

Civilianised and fitted with seven or eight seats and a selection of passenger vehicle parts, it became Opel Zafira Life (and a few other names). But its commercial roots still show. Fit and finish is a bit rough ‘n ready, its owner’s literature is wrapped in a cheap cardboard folder and some details, like the heavy tailgate and dearth of feminine touches, mark it as a conversion rather than an original design. But if you want a deliciously spacious people mover with luggage volume to suit and five ISOFix mounting sets for kiddie seats filled with young heirs, Zafira Life is the way to go.

We’re offered two versions, Life Edition and Life Business Elegance. Both use a legacy Peugeot diesel displacing two litres and an eight-speed automatic transmission.

1. Don't turn the dial, move the indicator. 2. The M button is for manual override.

Other basic kit includes four airbags; four-wheel vented disc brakes with ABS, EBD, ESP, traction control and hill start assist; 17” alloy wheels; tyre pressure monitoring; auto-on halogen headlights; automatic wipers; front fog lamps; clear analogue instruments; dual-zone automatic aircon with ducting to the rear compartment; front and rear parking sensors; 180-degree camera; blind spot monitoring; Intellilink infotainment with seven-inch touchscreen, and cruise control with limiter.

The Business Elegance model costs R120 000 more but offers many extras: seven seats clad in leather rather than eight covered in fabric, sunshade curtains, keyless entry and start, head-up display, panoramic sunroof, automatic high beams, lane departure warning, electric sliding side doors, smart cruise control, forward brake assist; connected navigation and a smarter sound system with ten speakers rather than six.

Between the pair of luxurious second-row lounge chairs is a removable storage box that doubles as a fold-out table. Also removable, to maximise luggage space, are all the seats in both rear rows. But before you do that, you might like to know that all are adjustable fore and aft and that the third row can accommodate fully grown people – not just babies in chairs. Your cynical 1.84-metre tester was satisfied with headroom, knee space and accessibility. That doesn’t happen often.

Driving: Not a racehorse but capable, the autobox works smoothly, the engine turns over lazily at 1800 rpm in top gear, the suspension is firm but handles dirt roads well, there is plenty of storage space with a main glove box that isn’t typically French (read, tiny), a companion box on top of the dash and there are lots of bins and cup holders as well.

What we would like to see, in order to render it more civil, would be climb-in assistance handles at the doorways, a lit visor mirror for drivers who happen to be female, recirculation and vent direction buttons that are easier to reach and fold-away head restraints for rows two and three. The present sea of these, when travelling light, obstructs one’s view rearward.

Summing up, Opel Zafira Life doesn’t quite meet modern luxury car expectations but as a spacious family cruiser it’s practically unbeatable.

Test unit from Stellantis SA press fleet

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.

Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads or goat tracks as well. As a result, my test cars do occasionally get dirty. It's all part of the reviewing process.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material.

If ever I place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with a very similar vehicle already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. There are no advertisers and no “editorial policy” rules. I add bylines to acknowledge sponsored launch functions and the manufacturers or dealerships that provide the test vehicles.  And, as quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so you can see I do actually exist.

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