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The lower-tax answer to business car users with families

Vauxhall Zafira Tourer 2.0 CDTi 16v SE 130PS ecoFLEX Start/Stop business car test review
VAUXHALL has launched the new Zafira Tourer – more upmarket and spacious than the standard Zafira. And with a low-CO2 engine it’s tax efficient, too. But is it any good?
Review: Robin Roberts
566_ZafiraTourerFront
Vauxhall Zafira Tourer: bigger than existing Zafira but still retains the FLex7 seating system. ecoFLEX version offers low company car tax option

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27 February 2012

Vauxhall Zafira Tourer 2.0 CDTi 16v SE 130PS ecoFLEX Start/Stop business car road test review
Vauxhall Zafira Tourer: bigger than existing Zafira but still retains the Flex7 seating system. ecoFLEX version offers low company car tax option

 

Vauxhall Zafira Tourer 2.0 CDTi 16v SE 130PS ecoFLEX Start/Stop business car test review

Review: Robin Roberts

What is it?

WHEN car makers use the designation ‘tourer’ for their cars, they usually mean estate car…but something not as practical or everyday. More ‘lifestyle’.

But here’s a new interpretation of Tourer. By Vauxhall. The Vauxhall Zafira Tourer is really a scaled up and more modern take on the Zafira compact MPV seven seater.

The fact that people are gradually increasing in size and therefore expect more space has spurred development of the Zafira Tourer, which is longer and wider than the current Zafira introduced six years ago with its clever Flex7 seating system, which allowed a wide variety of different seating and load carrying permutations.

It sits on a completely new platform – unlike the current Astra estate-derived Zafira – but it’s not an ‘Insignia MPV’ and it comes with the very latest quicker-folding Flex7 seats and sports a much higher grade interior, although it is still a seven seater.

Because it is literally a class above the current Zafira, Vauxhall says the Zafira Tourer will take on other sporting family-styled business cars, such as the Ford S-MAX, Peugeot 5008 and Citroen C4 Grand Picasso.

However, the introduction of the new Zafira Tourer does not spell the end for the current Zafira. This remains on sale to compete against its rivals such as the Ford C-MAX, VW Touran and Renault Grand Modus. However, the Zafira range has been trimmed to 11 models from £18,500 to £24,000 while the Zafira Tourer range starts at £21,000 and extends up to £28,465 with 31 models in the price list. There is also a truly huge options list to personalise your business car choice as much as possible.

There are five choices of engine available in the new Zafira Tourer range. In the petrol line up there’s a 1.4-litre 138bhp turbocharged unit, and a 1.8-litre normally aspirated 138bhp unit.

However, business car drivers are more likely to be drawn to the three 2.0-litre turbodiesel units, with three different power outputs of 109, 129 and 162bhp.

Vauxhall Zafira Tourer and company car tax

The all-important company car tax CO2 emissions range from 137g/km for most diesel models but the 129bhp ecoFlex diesel engine with fuel-saving stop-start option has CO2 emissions down to 119g/km.

For company car and business user chooser drivers the benefit-in-kind tax rate – at least for the remainder of this tax year – is 19 per cent for the diesels, except the stop-start version where it is an appealingly low 13 per cent, 21 per cent for the 1.4 petrol unit and 23 per cent for the 1.8 petrol engine.

However, looking at our company car tax calculator tax changes will see these increase from April 2012. There will, in particular, be a big leap in the company car tax band for our ecoFlex model tested here: from 13% to 17%. So these changes should be factored into your business car choice.

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Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

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