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Zafira fires: the other side of the story Story developments Experienced vehicle technician, Colin Simon shares his experience with heater motors and explains why the Zafria fire outbreak didn’t surprise him. IT’S not uncommon to see problems with heater motor resistors, there are many different vehicles where they burn out. Often the wiring is just not up to the job,
“You’ve got restricted airflow and extra load on the motor, the thing is getting hotter and hotter...” even OE replacements, they are just not man enough for the job. For years now, I've been advising customers that they should never run their heater motor flat out for more than a few moments at a time. The fan speed increment resistor sits in the airflow to keep it cool but the problem is, with most vehicles now being fitted with pollen filters, a blocked filter adds extra load to the motor. It’s a bit like putting your hand over the hose on a vacuum cleaner, you're loading the motor, increasing the current draw and the increment resistor will get hotter. What you’re getting is a double whammy.
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Vauxhall Zafira drivers continue to report terrifying scenes of their family cars becoming engulfed in flames. An initial statement issued by Vauxhall put the blame on ‘poor repairs’ and nongenuine parts. In January, the DVSA upgraded a ‘voluntary recall’ to an official ‘safety recall’.
You’ve got restricted airflow and extra load on the motor, the thing is getting hotter and hotter and there's restricted cooling. Ultimately, it will burn out the wiring. With the Zafira, it appears that it doesn't just burn out the wiring and stop, it looks like it causes a major fire. The actual resistor itself is on ceramic material so won't catch fire but if it's close enough to something else that will combust, of course it can start a fire. The long and short of it is, although it's not uncommon for resistors to burnout, the Zafira's pollen filter is in a particularly difficult place to get to and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that technicians working in a bonusled environment won’t always replace the pollen filter to the correct service schedule.
IAAF chief executive, Wendy Williamson "They started off blaming these fires on the aftermarket but have subsequently toned it down saying that it was actually due to a soldering repair on the resistors but that's the sort of activity that just doesn't happen so we're looking to challenge Vauxhall’s comments on this.”