Ask The Guide

The Seltos was only launched in Australia in 2019 (and has already had a couple of specification tweaks) so I wouldn’t be expecting an all-new model to be just around the corner.

There are strong rumours from around the world, however, that the next Seltos will gain a hybrid driveline option as part of its mid-life update probably next year. If it does, the question then become one of when we will see it. And car-makers being traditionally coy about future product plans, who knows, other than to say Kia doesn’t usually mess around getting new tech to market.

For an idea of what it might be like, we reckon a look at the Kia Niro hybrid (which went on sale here mid-last year) might just give you a pretty good insight into what a Seltos hybrid might consist of. Certainly, that’s what reports out of South Korea are speculating on.

This is a very important issue as exceeding the Gross Combination Mass (GCM) is a distinct possibility in modern vehicles with high towing limits. Even if the towed trailer comes in under the permissible weight limit, if you’re heavily loaded the car towing it, you can easily be outside the GCM limit, leaving yourself open to all sorts of legal and insurance hassles if it goes wrong.

If you check your owner’s manual, you’ll find that the all-wheel-drive Kluger has a GCM of 4685kg. So, on that basis, you could tow a 1900kg caravan and load the Kluger up to the tune of about 700kg and still be legal. However, that 700kg load in the Kluger includes everything, including the humans. That arithmetic also assumes that the caravan is not carrying a single extra thing that’s not part of the actual van. That includes water in the on-board tank, gas bottles, an extra spare tyre and any other luggage. As you can see, a 1900 caravan, despite the 2000kg towing limit, might have you sailing pretty close to the legislative wind.

Rather than concentrate on a particular brand, the best advice is to find a vehicle with a full service history and signs that it has lived an easy life. Too often, commercial vehicles like vans are bought by their first owner and used and abused. They’re nearly always purchased with a job in mind, and that job can often wreck them or at least shorten their lives.

Sometimes, the down-time associated with proper servicing means that maintenance is skipped, other times the sheer weight of the cargo being carried puts a lot of strain on mechanical components. A van that has been used by, say, a pool chemical company might have been exposed to highly corrosive chemicals every day of its life and could be hiding lots of rust. Even a florist’s van might have every nook and cranny filled with potting mix, waiting to become damp and start the rusting process.

Another good idea is to buy a van that has already been converted to a camper. This conversion is not an inexpensive process, so letting the previous owner spend the money is a terrific concept. Keep an eye on the classifieds for a van that has done a tour of duty with a grey nomad or van-lifer, and is now up for sale as the owner moves on to something new.

This is a pretty common issue of this generation of Falcons. The problem usually occurs if the car’s battery goes flat or has recently been replaced. Sometimes you might get the screen to reboot, but even if it does, the end is often nigh as the unit is dying. It’s worth a shot, though, so try disconnecting the relevant fuse for at least 15 minutes with the ignition turned off. If it comes good after reconnecting the fuse, you might be lucky. But you might also be simply delaying the inevitable.

The problem lies in a circuit-board within the ICC system and the fix is generally to replace the screen for an aftermarket head unit.

DPF additives are real thing right now as consumers run scared over the thought of their car’s DPF needing replacement. These additives use a catalyst that claims to help clean out the DPF and regenerate it, usually by lowering the temperature at which the soot will be burned off in the filter.

Perhaps some do, but just as surely some of these will be snake oil. Choose a known brand and be prepared for the experiment to be a complete dud. Expect to pay about $30 for a bottle of additive, too, so it’s not a cheap experiment.

You can try either the type of additive that is simply poured into the fuel tank when you refuel next, or the type that is sprayed into the air intake system with the engine running. Either way, these are probably best regarded as a preventative measure and the servicing industry seems pretty doubtful about the additives’ ability to clean a DPF that is already blocked.

A good quality 10W40 engine oil should be perfect for your car, Carol. Always go for a known brand of oil rather than the cheaper, Brand-X supermarket stuff, as quality varies enormously. Keeping clean, fresh oil in your engine is the absolute best piece of preventative maintenance there is.

Don’t forget to change the filter at the same time as there’s just no point putting clean oil through a dirty filter. By the way, the correct oil filter for your car is a Ryco Z9 or brand-equivalent.

If you’re selling to a licensed car dealer, there’s no need to do any of those things as the dealer will be able to take car of all of it. In fact, the dealer will need to do so before he or she on-sells the car to its next owner, and since it might sit around in the car-yard for a while before it’s sold, there’s no point having a roadworthy certificate for it which might run out before that happens.

As far as replacing tyres or making minor repairs, there’s really not much point. Because a car dealer will have a network of suppliers and repairers (perhaps even in-house repairers) they’ll be able to replace things and repair things much more cheaply than you can. Even larger repairs won’t faze a car dealer, and whatever you spend on pre-sale repairs will almost certainly not be recouped when selling to a dealer.

For more info, check out this story on our website here.

As for value, get online and see what similar cars with similar options and mileages are selling for. Bear in mind, though, that a dealer will offer you less for your car than a private buyer might. That’s simply the difference between wholesale and retail value. The dealer’s margin, in other words.

Kia in the US has copped plenty of flak over the two-litre petrol engine fitted to some Seltos and Soul models. In fact, there’s been a major service campaign undertaken to identify cars with the problem and attend to them. The problem seems to be within a batch of piston rings which were incorrectly heat-treated during manufacture and can lead to excessive oil consumption. In extreme cases, this can lead an engine to run completely out of oil and seize.

But just because that has happened in the US, doesn’t mean the problem is the same in Australia where different batches of engines might be built in different factories. In fact, Kia Australia tells me that there is no recall or service bulletin issued for this problem in Australia.

In any case, if you bought a brand-new Kia and it had this – or any other – problem caused by faulty materials or workmanship, then you’d be covered by the factory new-car warranty anyway.

This could be a fault with the engine and/or transmission but it could just as easily be a fault with a sensor or even a poor earth or other electrical connection somewhere in the vehicle. Scanning the vehicle should show up any faults the on-board computer has logged.

The fix? That’s easy: Your car is still covered by the factory warranty, so Toyota is obliged to make things right. Take it back to the dealer as it’s Toyota’s problem, not yours.

While it’s much less common to see a leaking rear main seal these days, it’s certainly not unheard of and definitely not an impossibility. While ever cars have seals and gaskets, they can fail, even if it’s not a common occurrence.

The rear main oil seal is the one located at the rear of the engine and is designed to allow the crankshaft to spin inside the engine without leaking oil through the rear main bearing to the outside world. When this seal wears or becomes hard with age and heat cycles, oil can get past it and that’s when you’ll start to find oily patches on the driveway under the car.

This seal is sandwiched between the engine and gearbox, so it’s quite a bit of work to separate those two components to gain access to the seal and replace it. It can easily be one of those $5 parts that costs $1500 to replace.

But before you commit to this, you need to make absolutely sure the rear main seal is the culprit. The best way to do that is to thoroughly clean the engine to remove any oil and then take it for a drive where it gets fully up to temperature. From there, you should be able to see where the oil is coming from and whether that place is the rear main seal. It might take a couple of journeys before the oil leak starts to show up again.

Don’t be surprised if the leak actually turns out to be from some external plumbing or even a seal or gasket at the back of the engine near the top, where the oil is escaping, running down the back of the engine and appearing to come from the rear main seal. Oil leaks can be tricky little devils, so take the time to diagnose the source carefully or you may find you’re replacing a seal that is perfectly fine. At which point you’ll have spent your money and still have an oil leak.