Ask The Guide

Start with the basics: Is there enough oil in the engine? Check the actual dipstick rather than any on-dash gauge or indicator, as the dipstick never lies. If the level is low, replenish it and you should be okay provided you haven’t already damaged the engine by running it almost out of oil.

The other thing to do is check the owner’s handbook to see if the light in question suggests low oil level or low oil pressure. These are two very different things, but they will both cause catastrophic engine failure if ignored.

If there’s oil showing on the dipstick, you really need a mechanic to look at the vehicle to determine whether it’s a faulty sender unit (that is making the light think the oil level or oil pressure is low) or whether there’s something more mechanical at fault. Low oil pressure can be caused by worn engine bearings, a blocked oil pick-up tube in the sump or even oil that has been contaminated by fuel or moisture and is no longer doing the job of protecting the engine. Diesel engines, in particular, are capable of producing sludge that can block internal oil passages and stop the flow of oil to where it’s needed.

Mazda hasn’t made any firm announcements on the release date for its new CX-5 SUV, other than to suggest it will be some time in the second half of this year. Expect Mazda to launch the model in petrol form first, with a hybrid driveline option to follow.

The CX-5 is a very popular model in the medium SUV market, and an important one for Mazda’s hopes here and across the rest of the world. It therefore carries plenty of high expectations, so it will need to be good.

In the meantime, if you like the current model CX-5, dealers might be starting to think about clearing stock of those in anticipation of the new model arriving. There could be great deals to be done pretty soon.

You could be experiencing what’s called vapour-lock. In simple terms, the fuel in the fuel line in the engine bay is getting so hot, it’s more or less boiling and bubbling as a result. That causes two further knock-on problems. The first is that fuel pumps don’t really like to pump bubbles. The second is that bubbles of air don’t burn in the engine like fuel does.

The usual solution is to re-route the fuel line away from any source of heat (exhaust system, hot engine parts) and see if that works. The other old-school solution for this ancient problem is to lag (insulate) the fuel line itself to protect it from ambient heat inside the engine bay.

The other common heat-related stalling problem comes in the form of a faulty crank-position sensor. Once these start to die, they can stop working when they get warm. When that happens, the critical signal telling the car’s computer when to fire the fuel injectors is missing and the engine stops. You can test this next time it happens by pouring cold water on the sensor and then trying the ignition. If it starts and runs perfectly after that, you might just have found your problem.

Any time you have that combination of symptoms, the end result is possibly not going to be very good. Rangers of this year and model have experienced problems in the past that include poor fuel or other fuel-system damage causing a piston to develop a hole or crack, and even things like a failed EGR valve (which is water-cooled in this model) draining the radiator and causing the engine to melt down.

You need to have an experienced mechanic take a look at the vehicle before doing anything else, as there’s a high percentage chance that your engine will need to be rebuilt or replaced. You might be lucky and have a simple problem that is cheap and easy to fix, but plenty of Ranger owners will attest to the slimness of that chance.

The message you’re seeing is trying to tell you that there’s something in the car that is draining the main battery. It probably has nothing to do with the key fob’s battery at all.

It could be that the car’s battery is failing (even though it’s not that old) or the charging system is not doing its job of keeping the battery topped up. Have you fitted any aftermarket accessories? Something like a dash-cam, if not fitted properly, can drain a car’s battery overnight. In fact, this is a more common problem than you might think.

You might find that at high throttle inputs, the car’s computer is switching the fan on in anticipation of higher temperatures. Or, perhaps it’s the air-conditioning fan that is switching itself on to keep things cool, because you’re using lots of throttle at that moment. It could simply be that the fan itself is noisier when you spin it harder (in line with engine revs) and that’s what you’re hearing in the cabin.

If in doubt, make a note of this with the service department when the car gets its first service. Perhaps it’s not a fan at all, and the noise is the result of a poorly adjusted drive belt or a leak somewhere in the air-intake or turbocharger plumbing. Any small leak in the trunking that conveys the pressurised air from the turbocharger to the engine can contribute a range of hissing noises.

Either way, it should be a simple fix at best, and a warranty claim at worst.

This is actually quite normal and nothing to be concerned about. If the engine temperature is high enough, the computer will continue to run the cooling fan even though the ignition has been turned off. This helps keep the temperature from spiking when the vehicle stops and is turned off.

Even though this only really lowers the temperature of the coolant in the radiator (not in the actual engine) it also helps to maintain a constant, safe temperature if you restart the car soon after shutting it down.

That said, the fan should only continue running for a couple of minutes at most after you’ve turned the car off. Any longer and you might have a problem with the circuits that power and control the electric fan.

Plenty of owners of this make and model have experienced similar frustrations with the rotary dial not selecting two- and four-wheel-drive promptly and accurately. It’s possibly down to a switch (the rotary dial itself) that has developed wear or play in its mechanism and simply isn’t as accurate as it once was. But it’s also worth checking the electronics that control the shift function, as a glitch might have the system trying to select something other than what’s showing on the dial.

This is a classic case of electronics taking over a mechanical function (early 4WDs had a simple, mechanical lever to switch between two and four-wheel-drive) and not being as good at it. This function, when you think about it, is an incredibly important one for this type of vehicle and might mean the difference between getting out of a bog-hole and not. Many owners would welcome the return of the purely mechanical lever, but that’s not the direction car design is travelling.

Fixing this would involve disassembling the door from the inside (removing the door card) to reveal the workings inside. From there, you can assess whether the glass has jumped out of the rail that supports it at the bottom, or if there's some other problem with the mechanism.

If it’s the former, you’ll need to find out what adhesive is required to fix it back into place. A windscreen replacement specialist might be able to provide this information. A Nissan dealer may also have the correct product on the shelf.

Replacing the glass might be a bit fiddly as there's a lot of gear inside a modern car door, including the side-intrusion bars, the window winding mechanism and the metal parts of the actual door. Some patience may be required.

This make and model has a reputation for leaking transmission fluid either through breather outlets or plugs that should seal but don't. And one of the first signs that a transmission has lost fluid is a refusal to select a gear. Everything an automatic transmission does is through hydraulic pressure. Lose enough fluid over time, and there's insufficient pressure to make the vehicle move.

The good news is your vehicle should still be under factory warranty, so take it to an LDV dealership to be assessed. But don’t try to top up the fluid and drive it there, as this could cause more damage if the problem is something more complex.