A TERRIFYING trial by fire suffered by one Ivybridge family has led vehicle manufacturer Vauxhall to begin an ‘internal investigation’ into the cause of a spate of car blazes.

In September, Sue Freemantle’s 2007 Vauxhall Zafira was parked on the driveway of her home when she noticed smoke and steam coming from the left hand side of the dashboard and making the windscreen mist up.

Sue, who was in the car with three of her children, as well as her cousin and her daughter, quickly released her son’s car seat and got the rest of the children out.

The family then watched in horror as the car was engulfed by flames in a matter of minutes.

Firemen later told Sue that if the windows of her house had been open, that may well have gone up too.

Sue also said that she was lucky as her son’s car seat was an ‘isofix’ design.

She has now had to replace it with one that is secured with a seat belt, and if a similar seat had been in use at the time of the fire, Sue says she may not have been able to pull the back seats forward to release her children from their seats.

The thought still gives her goosebumps, she says.

Sue got in touch with Vauxhall after the blaze, and says she was told the manufacturer had ‘never heard of the problem before’, but someone from its legal team would be in touch.

After hearing nothing for three weeks, she contacted the legal team, only to be told that no further action would be taken as her insurers had already paid out.

Incensed, Sue decided to post on Vauxhall’s official Facebook page, telling her story and saying how disappointed she was.

To her surprise, she was contacted first by a lady called Jade from Preston, who said that her Zafira had caught fire just the previous day, and then by Claire Wheatley from Plymouth, whose Zafira had apparently burst into flames in the car park of Tesco, Lee Mill.

Sue said: ‘Claire and I met last week as we’re both local.

‘We had a chat about it and I said why don’t we get a Facebook page set up.

‘From there, it’s really kicked off.

‘On Saturday, we went from 52 members to 400.

‘On Monday we had 700 when I woke up in the morning, up to 1012 by the evening.

‘I’ve asked people to tell me the year of the car, when the fire started and how.

‘We’ve found out about 65 cars now that have caught fire.

‘I never expected it to get to this.’ Sue and Claire’s campaign has hit the national headlines, and is to be featured BBC’s Watchdog programme next week .

Their Facebook group now has 1,373 members, and the reaction seems to have prompted Vauxhall to take reports seriously.

A company spokes-man said this week: ‘We are aware of the reports concerning vehicle fires involving right-hand drive versions of the previous model Zafira – not Zafira Tourer – and have begun an internal investigation to determine the root causes.

‘The safety of our customers is our number one priority, for the time being we have no reason to assume a general safety concern.’