Ask The Guide

The recommended Honda Civic engine oil is a fully synthetic 0W20 oil. That’s what oil manufacturers say is best for any of the Civic engines sold here from 2017 onwards. That includes the 1.8-litre and 1.5-litre petrol engines as well as the high-performance Civic Type R model.

Like many Honda engines over the years, the Honda Civic oil passages can be quite small and narrow, so a good supply of clean, fresh oil is critical to these cars. That’s also why the Honda Civic oil type is a very light (thin) oil; so it flows easily and quickly.

If you know how to perform a service on any other modern car, then you already know how to change oil on a Honda Civic. It’s a DIY maintenance job for anybody who is an average mechanic and involves little in the way of tools apart from an oil filter wrench and the correct size socket or spanner to tackle the drain plug. You’ll also need drain pans and the car’s owner’s manual which will tell you things like how often to change oil, any other service interval info and specifications for how tight the drain plug needs to be tightened.

Failing all that, a trip to any service centre will be able to supply the oil and replacement filter, dispose of the waste oil and even reset the service reminder light as part of the process.

Looking at the popular CX-5 range from 2017 onwards, is the Mazda CX-5 timing belt or chain driven?

There was a big range of engines used in this model CX-5, but the short answer is a very simple one. It doesn’t matter whether your CX-5 has the 2.0 or 2.5-litre (turbo or non-turbo) or even the turbo-diesel engine option, the engine uses a maintenance-free timing chain rather than a rubber toothed belt.

That means, you don’t need to even think about the timing chain, because it should last the life of the engine. A timing belt, meanwhile, needs regular replacement to avoid doing expensive damage to the engine if it should break while the engine was running.

It sounds like a pretty nitty-gritty tech question, but is the camshaft in the engine of the Kia Rio timing belt or chain driven? There’s a good reason for knowing the answer, though, as it determines whether you need to add a crucial routine maintenance step to your ownership.

In cars with a toothed rubber timing belt, the belt and its tensioners need to be changed at an interval recommended by the car’s manufacturer to avoid expensive belt failures which can ruin the whole engine. Ignore this maintenance at your peril.

The good news is the GL4C engine as used in the Kia Rio since 2016 uses a timing chain which should be good for the life of the engine and not need any extra maintenance.

I've not seen any information where cars were distinguished on the basis of being a household's second car. The average distance travelled figure I keep finding is between 12,000 and 15,000km per annum for the average car registered in Australia. From there, it's a pretty simply piece of arithmetic to multiply that yearly figure by the age of the car in years and figure out whether the car has more or less kilometres than it `should' have.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has a very informative page that looks at this subject and includes passenger and commercial vehicles and breaks the info down on a state-by-state basis. You can find it here: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-transport/survey-motor-vehicle-use-australia/latest-release

Without knowing the make and model of your car, I'm flying blind here. But, the spanner warning light suggests to me that the car is trying to tell you it needs to be serviced. If that's the case, and the service was only a few weeks ago, I'd suggest the mechanic who serviced it hasn't electronically turned off the service-reminder warning (the spanner symbol showing up on your dashboard).

The oil-can warning light could either be suggesting that the engine needs an oil top-up (which you've checked and it doesn't) or the light is telling you that the engine has lost oil pressure. But if it was the latter, you'd expect the light to illuminate after you'd been driving for a while and the oil thins out as it gets hotter. For the light to be on when the engine is cold and then turn itself off could be a case of a faulty sensor which is giving the dashboard a false warning. This is actually more common than you might imagine. Some Holden Commodores, for instance, had a very common fault where a bad sensor would suggest either low oil pressure or low oil level, even though the engine was perfectly fine. Other makes and models can suffer this, too.

The bottom line, however, is that no warning light should be ignored and having the car scanned to check any fault codes and making sure the light is a false alarm is the smart way to proceed.

The piece of the puzzle you've left out here is whether your Courier has a petrol or diesel engine. If it's the former, you could simply be looking at a worn out engine. These four-cylinders worked pretty hard and once they become worn, they start to blow smoke and lose power. That said, it could be something as simple as a blocked air filter element or a slack fuel pump.

If the vehicle has a diesel engine, there's a chance the intake system is choked up with black soot and oil fumes which eventually narrow the engine's breathing passages like cholesterol blocks a person's blood vessels. Suddenly, the air can't get into the engine properly and the engine loses power as a result. Again, though, it could be something completely different and apparently random such as the turbocharger's plumbing having fallen off, leaving the engine with no boost.

A word of warning, though, about driving a diesel Courier flat out everywhere. These engines were under-cooled and are notorious for overheating. Driving it with the throttle pedal on the floor is asking for problems.

Assuming you're looking at the coolant catch-bottle and not the windscreen-washer fluid bottle, this is probably a bad thing. Any time the car's engine coolant can mix with its oil or vice-versa, there's a chance that the cause is a failed head gasket or perhaps even something more serious like a split cylinder bore.

But don't just assume that any contamination in the coolant is engine oil. It could be something else from another source. Does the engine oil look milky on the dipstick? If it does, then that's almost certainly due to coolant being mixed with it, and that backs up the failed head gasket theory. The other thing I'd like to know is how fast the engine oil level is dropping. Some oil use is normal for a car's engine, so simply watching that level fall over a few thousand kilometres and presuming it's going into the coolant is a long shot to say the least. It sounds like you need to have the car's cooling system pressure tested and the engine compression tested. That's the best way to put and end to the guessing game.

By the way, is your car a South African-bult VW? From what I can gather only South Africa got a model called the Polo Vivo which featured a few country-specific features and details and was very well received by buyers in that part of the world.

This is how car dealerships get a bad name. Your car would have come with a five-year/unlimited kilometre factory warranty. Since it's been (factory) serviced by the book, that cover should still apply up to October 2024. Which means it's Hyundai's problem to make it work properly every time you turn the key.

The fault certainly sounds like it lies with the inhibitor switch (which prevents the car starting unless it's in Park or Neutral) but it doesn't matter. If the car doesn't work correctly and it's under warranty, it's Hyundai's responsibility to put it right. Of course, there are exceptions such as examples of driver abuse and normal wear and tear items like tyres and brake pads, but a critical safety function like this is definitely a warranty issue.

Contact Hyundai's customer service department, report the issue and the dealership's `offer' and see what head office has to say.

All the information I can find on this car suggests that the towing limit (with a braked trailer) is 1600kg, not 2000kg as suggested by your source. At which point, you'd need to be pretty careful you didn't inadvertently overload the car by adding a toolbox or other gear to the trailer.

The Mondeo is not really the ideal vehicle for towing heavy loads as it's front-drive layout means it doesn't have the traction a rear-drive car does when towing. A slippery boat ramp, for instance, might pose no problem for a rear-drive car, while forcing a front-drive car trying to haul a boat out of the water to struggle with wheelspin.

That said, the turbo-diesel engine in the Mondeo is a strong, torquey thing, so provided you don't stray on to slippery or loose surfaces, the Mondeo should be able to do the job. Again, though, your 1500kg projected load is almost at the car's legal limit.

It's not just transmissions that cop a hiding when towing, either. Just about everything on the car from the brakes to the cooling system will wear faster when subjected to the extra strain of towing a big load.

Oil manufacturers recommend a 10W-50 semi-synthetic oil for this engine. But not just any 10W-50. Crucially, the oil needs to be formulated specifically for LPG engines which have different combustion by-products and, therefore, require a different additive package in their oil compared with a car running on petrol or diesel.

Your car has covered quite a distance, but modern metallurgy and engine design suggests that 330,000km is not too many kilometres these days, and the engine could have plenty left to give. If it's starting to use a little oil between services, you could consider going to a slightly thicker grade of oil to compensate, but make sure it's still specifically formulated for an engine running on LPG.