Ask The Guide

Some owners have, indeed noted power-steering problems in this model Commodore. That said, this is a very common model, so some problems are to be expected as they with most other makes and models.

The most common problem seems to be a squealing noise when the wheel is turned. That’s often due to low power-steering fluid level (check the dipstick at the top of the reservoir under the bonnet). If the level is low, you need to start looking for a leak as this is a sealed system and shouldn’t need topping up over time. Leaks can occur in the pump itself, the steering rack or the plumbing that joins them.

A vibration through the wheel or a fluttering sensation can often be caused by air trapped in the system. With the engine running and the car in Park, turn the wheel slowly from lock to lock a couple of times., That’s often enough to purge the air and return the steering to a nice smooth feel.

Some owners have reported an improvement in their power-steering by draining and flushing the system and adding new fluid.

The short answer: No. The 2005 Camry four-cylinder was rated to tow only 1200kg (with trailer brakes fitted). Even the three-litre V6 version of the Camry was rated to 1600kg.

So, even with the caravan you’ve nominated absolutely empty (no water, luggage or food supplies on board) it would still be way over the Camry’s limit. Ignoring these limits leaves you open to all sorts of potential legal and insurance hassles should something go wrong. You also stand to damage the towing vehicle by overloading it. Fundamentally, you need either a bigger car or a smaller caravan.

Conventional wisdom is that an over-drive gearbox (such as your five-speed) shouldn’t tow anything heavy in top gear. The loads placed on the transmission via the over-driven fifth ratio can cause internal transmission damage.

Also, by leaving the engine in fourth gear (locking out over-drive in the automatic version) you stand to have the engine operating squarely in its comfort and torque zone, rather than lugging along in a too-tall ratio.

So that’s the nutshell answer: Save fifth gear for downhills and tail-winds and keep the load off the transmission.

There are a couple of alarm bells being set off here. The first is that the engine, if driven through water deep enough, may have ingested some of that water which has caused what’s called hydraulic-lock. This is usually terminal and involves the (non-compressible) water, bending or breaking the engine’s internal bits and pieces such as the crankshaft and connecting rods. If the engine won’t turn over at all, this could be why.

The second possibility is a little less scary and involves the flood-waters entering a part of the car’s electronic or ignition systems, leading to a short-circuit. If that’s the case, the parts can sometimes be dried out and the engine will restart. In modern cars, however, once the computers and other electronics have been wet, they corrode internally and will need to be replaced over time.

This is part of the reason that insurance companies tend to write off flood-damaged cars, even if there’s no other damage. Insurers know that a car that has been under water will come back to haunt them in the longer term as all sorts of electronically-controlled components go belly up.

The importation paperwork and costs will vary from state to state, so you need to check with your home state’s authorities on what’s required. Your chosen shipping company might be able to help you with this, but make sure you check it all out at the Australia Border Force website (abf.gov.au).

While your budget rules out the latest shape Mustangs and the early classic models, you might just find a 1980s Fox-body Mustang or a 1990s model that’s already on the road here. Doing it that way, you stand to wind up with a better car than a cheapie from the States that will swallow several thousands of your budget dollars just to land it here. Which is another way of asking why you’d import something that was already available here?

Even if you still want to import a Mustang, be aware that you’ll be up for costs including (but not limited to) pre-shipment costs (removal of asbestos and steam cleaning) freight and insurance, all government charges and duties, storage charges, customs broker’s fees, wharf and transport charges and processing fees. And that’s before we even get to the modifications you might have to make to the vehicle to make it legal to drive in Australia. And did we mention that, right now, global supply-chain problems are holding up literally thousands of containers on the docks in the US?

Perhaps the one advantage you have is that, as a temporary resident, you can (under some conditions) import a car for a limited time (up to 12 months) without paying duties and taxes.

If you mean that the engine refuses to be turned over either by the starter motor or by physically pushing the vehicle in gear and then letting out the clutch, then there’s potentially something seriously wrong. As in a seized engine. Has it been overheated? Has it been run without oil? Both those things can seize an engine to the point where it is locked solid.

You stand to do more damage by persisting with this, so the smart move would be to present the vehicle at a Great Wall dealership as your Steed is still well and truly covered by the five-year factory warranty (assuming it has a complete service record and hasn’t travelled more than 150,000km. I can see that you’re from the Northern Territory, so perhaps the nearest dealership is a long way away, but if the drivetrain doesn’t want to turn at all, then a dealer is the solution.

If, however, you mean that the engine won’t fire up (but is physically turning over) even after push-starting the vehicle, then the problem might not be so catastrophic. A modern engine needs the correct input signal from literally dozens of sensors before it will run properly (or at all), and if you have a single dud sensor, that could produce the no-start condition you’re seeing.

But here’s the first thing to try: Turn the ignition on and listen for the faint buzzing sound of the electric fuel pump. If you can’t hear it, chances are the pump has failed. It’s very common and one of the typical ways fuel-injected vehicles cease to function. Even so, in a vehicle so young, involving the Great Wall dealership network should be your first step.

The JMC brand is a pretty obscure one here in Australia. It launched in 2015 and was gone almost without trace by 2017 thanks to a model line-up that lacked an automatic transmission option and the resulting glacial sales rate.

In fact, a lot of Australians never even had the brand cross their radar screens, so finding out anything about the JMC ute can be tricky. But the diesel engine was actually a Ford design built under license (Ford owns a big chunk of the Chinese brand) and is actually Ford’s JX4D24 design. As such, it has a timing chain, rather than a toothed rubber timing belt. That means it should not need a chain replacement as these are designed to last the life of the engine.

Your mechanic is probably referring to the petrol-engined version of the JMC Vigus which used a Mitsubishi designed four-cylinder engine which did, as a member of the G469 family of engines, have a timing belt which would require periodic replacement.

The backlog of orders for the retro little Suzuki Jimny means that buyers need to be patient. At the start of this year, Carsguide was told that the average waiting time between purchase and delivery in Australia was between six and eight months. While ever Suzuki is experiencing demand like that, you wouldn’t expect any rush to expand the range.

That said, reports have emerged that Suzuki has, indeed, green-lighted a five-door Jimny which would have those two extra doors as well as the possibility of a turbocharged engine and even a mild-hybrid driveline (mainly to suit European tastes). The five-door concept is said to be 300mm longer and will probably weigh a little more as well.

At this stage, rumours suggest the five-door wouldn’t be in production until 2023 at the very earliest, but given Australia’s demand for the two-door version, you’d expect Suzuki to give serious consideration to sending the five-door Down Under.

A lot of modern cars don’t feature a drain-plug for the fuel tank. That’s a bit annoying to old-school mechanics, but it does make for a stronger, more leak-proof tank in the case of a modern plastic fuel tank as fitted to so many cars these days.

Most mechanics faced with this will either remove the tank and tip it upside-down to remove the offending contents, but there is a simpler way if you know what you’re doing. That is to disconnect the fuel feed line from the tank to the engine at the engine end, and then simply turn on the ignition and have the electric fuel pump empty the contents into a safe container. This will take several minutes, depending on how full the tank is to start with.

Remapping an engine – done right – can provide you with more performance. But there’s also often a price to be paid in terms of reduced fuel economy and increased tailpipe emissions. Typically, there are workshops that are very good at this and others that aren’t so expert at extracting more performance.

But before you go down that route, it sounds like there’s something wrong with your vehicle in its current state. Fundamentally, a 2013 Isuzu D-Max should be able to haul a van of that mass, comfortably at the legal speed limit. That said, that’s a fairly hefty caravan and experience shows that many owners of similar rigs find that about 90km/h is a more comfortable speed for highway travel. So maybe you need to lower your expectations a little.

A full service and tune-up would be the first step in improving the towing situation, by returning all the engine’s settings to their stock position. Modern turbo-diesels can also suffer a fall-off in performance over time as the fuel system (pumps and injectors) wear, the diesel particulate filter becomes full of soot and the intake system becomes clogged with a mixture of soot and oil from the vehicle’s emission-control system. Those are the things we’d check first before shelling out for a remapped engine computer.