Ask The Guide

There are a couple of issues with changing wheels sizes, but it’s a question a lot of people ask. That’s because the trend towards larger-diameter, super-low profile tyres doesn’t make sense for a lot of owners. Complaints include poor ride quality, expensive tyre replacement costs and the punctures you’re experiencing.

Even though the 50-series tyres on your car are not what most would call super-low profile, they don’t feature the same depth of sidewall as a `taller’ high-profile tyre. At that point, the sidewall has to be more rigid and there’s less flex in it. Which, in turn, makes the sidewall sometimes more susceptible to copping a stray rock or even a kerbside gutter and not being able to flex to prevent damage to the rubber itself. So, in some cases, going to a smaller wheel but a tyre with a higher profile (deeper sidewall) can be a good move.

What will limit this will be the brakes on your Tiguan. Fundamentally, you need to have a wheel rim with a large enough inside diameter that it clears the brake calipers. If the wheel diameter is smaller than the brake package, you physically won’t be able to fit the new wheel-tyre combination. There are also the issues of ground clearance and speedometer calibration, both of which can be compromised with a different wheel-tyre package and, therefore, a different rolling diameter. The trick is to use, say, an 18-inch wheel and match that with an 18-inch tyre that has a deeper sidewall that gets you back to the original tyres’ rolling diameter. That will retain your speedo accuracy and your ground clearance and should also give you a tyre that’s less prone to sidewall damage and cheaper to replace if the unthinkable does happen again.

A good tyres shop should be able to help you with the necessary measurements and sizing.

Poor Bluetooth quality and other connectivity issues have plagued Toyotas for years now. For a while there, it seemed as though Toyota might have gotten on top of the problems, but as your experience shows, clearly there are still issues.

In the first instance, you need to allow Toyota to try everything it can to make things right, including waiting on an upgrade to the Bluetooth system that will work for your car. Of course, that leaves you in the lurch in the meantime. When Toyota finally admits that they can no longer help you even though this is clearly a warranty claim, that’s when you need to call in the ACCC as, at that point, you’ve paid for something you haven’t got. Perhaps Toyota will agree to cover the cost of an aftermarket head unit (or a different brand of phone) that actually works in the Prado. In any case, something’s got to give or the vehicle is of no use (or at least limited use) to you in your line of work. Right now, there’s a class action in the USA for this exact problem. Although this legal action won’t apply to vehicles sold in Australia, it illustrates the depth of the problem. Sources also suggest Toyota has switched out some head units in US-market cars, so perhaps that will be extended to here.

It staggers me that a huge company like Toyota can’t get something as simple as Bluetooth connectivity right when pretty much every other car-maker around the world has this stuff sorted out. It’s not as though the Apple phone is an uncommon consumer choice, is it? In 2022, hands-free phone operation is a major selling point and to not have it (despite paying for it) is far from acceptable.

You have obviously taken this up with your dealer, but have you contacted Toyota’s customer service department at head office? You might make more progress going straight to the source rather than being fobbed off by a dealer.

If you’re of a certain age, your judgment on this subject is probably coloured by a particular generation of car vacuum cleaners. You might remember them: chubby little plastic barrels in pastel colours, powered by a single nine-volt battery with a rubber band (visible once you’d lost patience and hurled the thing against a wall) driving the innards. And, without sugar-coating it, they were useless.

But surely, car vacuum cleaners in 2022 can’t be so uniformly worthless? True, but some still are, so finding the right one involves checking that it has the features and grunt you need.

First things first; does the unit have the sucking power you need to remove jelly-babies from carpet? The single biggest gripe among car vacuum-cleaner owners is a lack of suction

Another thing to consider is the size and weight of the unit. While it’s tempting to use the household vacuum cleaner with the wand removed, you have to be sure the thing will be able to poke down between the seats and centre-console and under the front seats (where whole micro-eco-systems can survive for years). Weight is another issue and a vacuum cleaner designed for use while standing might be a bit ungainly as you’re sprawled across the back seat trying to vacuum up five-year-old Maccas fries.

The actual vacuum produced by a cleaner will be loosely linked to the power of its electric motor. These range anywhere from 200 Watts to 650 Watts and, the rule of thumb is that more is better.

The other big feature people look for is cordless operation. Not having to drag a cord through the car’s interior is a huge bonus and modern rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are good enough to give you the vacuuming time you need between recharges. Even household vacuum cleaners are going this way with handheld, 12-volt or 18-volt operation.

Make sure the bag capacity is big enough for your needs, too. It can be a pain having to empty the bag too frequently, so check the capacity of the bag in the specifications. An alternative is the bagless, or cyclonic, type of vacuum cleaner that is increasingly popular. Makes and models such as the Dyson V6 are powerful bagless cleaners and are a popular choice.

The cleaner’s filtering system should also be investigated as it’s no use simply moving the dust around the car. Again, the specifications will tell you a lot, but a comparison from an independent source is always worth consulting. A cleaner with a good filtering system will also filter out even tiny dust and prevent it form entering the cleaner’s motor, potentially damaging it.

What attachments does the cleaner come with? Often, cleaning a car’s interior requires some pretty specialised little mini nozzles and brushes to get into every nook and cranny, so make sure they either come with the unit or can be purchased as accessories.

Finally, can you live with the noise of the thing without resorting to earplugs. Don’t forget, a car’s interior is an enclosed space, so what sounds tolerable in the shop may be painfully loud inside the car in a garage.

To be perfectly honest, when it comes down to it, many car owners find that their portable household vacuum cleaner is more than up to the job of vacuuming their car. And since many household cleaners are now cordless, you don’t even need to park the car anywhere near a power-point. It’s worth noting that professional car detailers don’t use car-specific vacuum cleaner. For them, the best vacuum cleaner for car work is an industrial-grade wet-and-dry barrel models (with the appropriate attachments) purely for the extra grunt they offer and the ability to clean more cars more quickly.

If, however, you’ve decided that a car-specific unit is right for you, what’s the best car vacuum cleaner on the market? These things change all the time, so the best advice is to find an up to date comparison or collection of independent reviews on the subject. Don’t forget that this is a hot marketplace, too, so there are lots of brands competing for your money including established household vacuum brands like Hoover, while traditional hardware brands such as Black and Decker have also bought into the market.

Check the sales brochure of a high-end new car and chances are you’ll find that the headlights are HID units. But let’s start at the start: What are HID headlights?

HID actually stands for High Intensity Discharge. Unlike old-school automotive lighting (Halogens and sealed-beam lights) which are incandescent (where a filament is heated until it glows) High Intensity Discharge lights are arc lights. That is, an electric current arcs between two electrodes, in an atmosphere of inert gas (typically Xenon) to create a bright, white light that is, as the name suggests, high intensity. For background, a Neon shop signs uses the same arc-lighting principles.

It’s not that simple, though, and creating the arc requires a lot more than a car’s 12 volts. That’s where the ballast comes in, which works like a transformer to step the voltage up to around 20,000 volts to initiate the arc and then a steady 85 volts or so to keep the arc stable.

The big advantage with HIDs is that they are super bright – as much as three times as bright as a conventional halogen globe. You’ll spot them in traffic by their clear, white light, often with a blue edge where the beam is cut off by the lens. And although they require plenty of volts, they don’t draw as much current and typically require just 35 Watts to run them, compared with, say, 55 Watts for a halogen, reducing the load on the car’s battery and charging system.

The downside is that they’re often dazzling to oncoming traffic. That’s why there’s an Australian Design Rule for them mandating that they feature a self-levelling system to keep them pointed where they should be, as well as a washing system to avoid the build-up of grime on the lens which can cause diffraction and dazzling. For this reason, some manufacturers use HIDs for the low-beam lighting and a conventional light for the high-beam system. 

A common question is whether aftermarket kits to convert a car to HID lighting are illegal or not.  It’s not a simple question to answer because it will largely depend on the mood of the police officer and the attitude of the driver when the confrontation eventuates. Provided you comply with all ADRs on the subject (including the washing system) don’t exceed 2000 lumens of brightness and stay within the warm to cool-white colour spectrum (4300 Kelvin to 6500 Kelvin) you should technically be legal. You also need to make sure the HID headlight kits you choose feature ECE certification (A European standard that applies here to HID lighting). And the self-levelling ADR? A classic grey area as many European cars sold here with HID lighting don’t have this feature. Nobody is sure how they slipped through the net, but they did. Again, your roadside attitude will play a huge part in how things pan out.

The big comparison most consumers make is the HID vs LED headlights one. Many specialists now believe that an LED light upgrade represents a better, cheaper, simpler alternative. LED lighting is so good these days, that a legal HID conversion simply doesn’t offer any real advantage.

It's the old rubbing your tummy while patting your head thing: Fundamentally, it’s quite difficult to do two things at once. Moreso if they’re abstract pursuits. And, on the basis that you wouldn’t try to juggle kittens at the same time as you were attempting to cook dinner, or you wouldn’t begin reading a book while riding a bicycle, neither is it a wise move to combine driving a car at the same time as operating a mobile phone. No, we shouldn’t need to say it, but the sheer number of people caught using a mobile phone while driving suggests otherwise. Those same people are also the one who show up in large numbers in road-crash statistics.

The government message on using a phone while driving is pretty clear, and the penalty for using a mobile phone while driving can range from hundreds of dollars to more than $1000, and up to six demerit points on your license. Often both. And yet, the problem of people texting and checking their phone while driving persists. So now the police have adopted a new measure to stop the practice.

They’re called mobile phone detection cameras and while they don’t replace the previous method of police officers in traffic watching what you’re up to, they add another string to that bow. States such as Victoria, NSW and Queensland are already using these new cameras which basically give the law-enforcement agencies a new angle (literally) on spotting the wrong-doers.

These new cameras don’t use radar or lasers or anything else designed to detect who’s doing the wrong thing. Instead, they’re perched high on poles or gantries and peer through the windscreen of every car that passes under them. A high-speed camera then takes a photo of every car.

So how do they sort the legal drivers from the law-breakers? Each photo is scanned by the camera’s computer using artificial intelligence to match the image with an algorithm of what a driver on a mobile phone looks like. Each image that is deemed a likely suspect is then sent to head office where it’s viewed by a human who ultimately decides whether or not to issue a traffic infringement notice. Once an image has been discarded as not worth pursuing, the officials assure us that image is erased and can never be accessed again by anybody.

If the idea of having somebody photographing your lap while you’re stopped at the lights or beetling down a freeway, seems a bit creepy, you’re not alone. And just like toll-road collection agencies, there’s a possibility that the invoice sent out won’t always match up with what really happened or who was involved. That’s when you will need to defend yourself. But as the law is written, it becomes your problem to prove that either it was something other than a mobile phone you were touching, or it was somebody else in your car. This sems to go against the basic premise that you are innocent until proven guilty, but that’s the way modern, owner-onus traffic laws are being written.

Bear in mind, that even touching a switched-off phone to move it from your pocket to the centre-console while you’re in a car with the engine running (even if you’re stopped in a car-park) is, according to the legislation, the same offences as texting your mate, hand-held while roaring down the highway at 100km/h. So this is serious stuff, and it could be argued that common-sense seems to have been misplaced somewhere along the way. But one thing you can’t argue is that using a mobile phone while on the move is a dangerous game to play and mobile phone fines are here to stay.

Fixed mobile phone cameras on freeway gantries can’t be moved easily, but there are also mobile set-ups that can be parked in hot-spots and then moved to other locations quickly and easily. The phone cameras are not easy to pick from a speed or red-light camera either, so there’s no real way of knowing what a particular camera is checking as you whizz past it. The best advice, then, is to keep your phone in your pocket or the glove-box and leave it there until you’ve safely arrived at your destination.

If you’ve ever been stuck behind a slow-moving caravan that’s wandering all over the road and making it impossible for you to overtake, you’ve probably speculated on the need for a special caravan towing license. But, in Australia, provided you have a full driving license and the caravan and tow-vehicle don’t exceed the mass limits that involve an endorsed or heavy vehicle license, there’s no such requirement. Whether that’s the ideal situation from a safety point of view is one thing, but it remains the law. But that’s not to say there aren’t specific caravan towing regulations, because there are…lots of them.

Those start when you become a learner-driver or a P-plater, inasmuch as some states and territories allow L-platers to tow, while others don’t. However, it’s not a simple set of rules and it varies between the states and territories. So here’s how it pans out for learner-drivers:

In Western Australia, learner drivers can legally tow a trailer or caravan. Obviously, they still need a fully-licensed person in the front seat beside them, just as they do for any L-plate driving in any state. The same goes for South Australia, Northern Territory, and Queensland. It also applies to the ACT with the caveat that the towed trailer or caravan may not exceed 750kg GVM (Gross Vehicle Mass).

In New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, L-platers are not allowed to tow anything.

But can you tow a trailer on P-plates? For P-platers, it’s no less confusing, mainly because some states have two-tier P-plate systems, with different rules for each. So here goes:

In the ACT, the first 12 months of your P-plates means the same towing restrictions as your L-plates. That is, you can tow a trailer, but nothing over 750g GVM. Once you move to your green (P2) permit, you can tow as if you had a full license.

For NSW, the P1 permit allows you to tow only a trailer with an unladen mass of less than 250kg, so that rules out any caravans. Once you move to your P2 permit, you can tow any legal load in NSW.

The NT has only a single-tier P-plate system and that allows holders to tow a caravan or any other legal combination.

QLD allows all P-platers to tow any legal combination.

In SA, there are no restrictions on P-platers towing.

Tasmania is the same as SA with no restrictions on P-platers towing.

Victorian P1 drivers cannot tow anything, but those restrictions are dropped once the person has attained their P2 permit.

In WA, P-platers can tow with no restrictions.

Of course, there are exceptions to some of this, including, in some states, an exemption for a P-plater to tow if their employment requires it. These vary from state to state so you need to check each location and each driver specifically to avoid making a mistake and winding up in trouble with the law.

The other question that crops up is whether, say, a young driver with a South Australian L-plate wants to cross the border into Victoria while towing a trailer or caravan. Is that allowed? On the surface, it’s not as Victorian L-platers can’t tow. But dig a bit deeper and the consensus seems to be that the rules of the home state apply to the driver regardless of what state or territory they find themselves in. We say consensus rather than rule of law, because there have been cases where the police officer on the spot has not agreed with this interpretation of the law. And we all know how that can end.

Getting back to our original scenario where a caravan is holding up traffic, it seems a bit academic, but is there a speed limit for towing a caravan? Yes there is, although, again, it’s very fragmented along state and territory lines.

NSW allows a caravan to be towed at the posted speed limit unless the combination (car and trailer) weighs more than 4500kg. At that point the limit becomes the posted limit or 100km/h, which ever is lower. And with a modern four-wheel-drive towing a full-sized caravan, breaching that limit is a very real possibility.

WA takes the approach of limiting all towed loads to 100km/h, even if the posted limit is higher.

In all other state sand territories, a caravan or other trailer can be towed at the posted limit. The other exception is Tasmania, where there’s a 12-tonne limit to that, after which you’re restricted to specific speed limits, but it’s the posted limit up to that point.

The over-riding proviso with all these scenarios, of course, is that the vehicles are in roadworthy condition and that you are driving safely and to the conditions regardless of what the maximum speed limit is for that stretch of road.

So should there be a license to tow a caravan? Plenty of people reckon we’re over-governed as it is, and exactly what the mooted caravan license requirements would be is anybody’s guess. Doubtless they’d vary from state to state which might water them down considerably. So what about the grand concept of a Caravan License Australia, which would apply anywhere in the country? Well, when the states and territories can’t agree on so many other issues and so obviously value their sovereignty (read; control) that seems unlikely.

Which means the best advice is to take matters into your own hands and sign up for a caravan towing course. These are structured and run by specialist training companies and are likely to be of much more practical use to you than a set of regulations dreamed up by a bureaucrat.

So, you’ve just been to the mechanic to have your car serviced and the mechanic tells you your car needs new suspension bushings. But what are bushings on a car? How do they go wrong, and what do they do in the first place?

A bushing is part of the suspension and steering systems and is located where the suspension pivots. A car has lots of pivot points in its steering and suspension. Think about how the front wheels go up and down over bumps as well as swivel when you turn the steering wheel. All those movements require pivot points.

Those pivots obviously need to be strong, so they’re made from metal. The problem then is that those pivot points involve movement between the two suspension or steering parts that form the pivot and that would involve metal-on-metal movement. And that would make things wear out very quickly. It would also contribute to noise and the car would be very uncomfortable without some `give’ in those joints.

Enter the bushing. The bushing is more or less a layer of rubber or polymer that keeps the two metal surfaces slightly apart, reducing noise as the movement occurs, but also reducing wear and allowing a little compression to reduce the shock being transferred into the cabin. Think of the bushing as the cartilage in your knee joint, giving the bones full, smooth movement without them grinding on each other.

Car-makers generally use rubber for their bushing material, while the aftermarket can also supply replacement bushes in a range of plastic or polymer materials. These latter types are a bit stiffer than the rubber bushings so they control the suspension and steering a little more accurately at the expense of a little more harshness reaching the cabin. The polymer bushes are also more impervious to oil (of which there can be quite a lot of under a car).

Car bushings are located virtually everywhere under a modern car, with upper control arm bushes, shock absorber bushes, rear and front lower control arm bushes, steering arm bushes, sway bar bushes and more, all keeping you isolated from the violence involved in hitting a pothole at 100km/h.

Suspension bushes are a wearing part, so eventually, they develop slack or slop and don’t hold the pivots together as tightly as they should. Symptoms of this include a loose feeling through the car, vague steering and noise from the suspension. Fundamentally, with worn bushes car control is reduced. Once the bushings are really worn, the car will not handle or steer properly and will be unroadworthy. You might even find that worn bushings can create uneven tyre wear.

At that point, you need to replace the bushings. You can buy a whole set of bushings as a kit, or individually if only some are worn. Replacing them is a fairly involved job and usually involves a hydraulic press, including removing the old bushings, so it’s not really a job for the driveway on a Saturday morning. The replacement cost complete kit of bushings for the average car will range in price, but a good ball-park figure is around the $500 mark. You can then add at least the same amount in labour. Some polymer bushing kits are more expensive, but while it’s not a cheap fix, replacing worn bushings will transform the way the car drives. Not to mention making it safe again.

A: If the reason the battery is going flat has anything to do with a fault within the rest of the car, then yes, I would imagine the problem – and the subsequent battery replacement if the battery is damaged – would be a warranty issue. The body computer in modern cars can do curious things with the electrical systems and accessories fitted, and that can sometimes result in a flat battery.

Subaru is not the only brand with this problem, but flat batteries caused by it are definitely not the sort of statutory wear and tear issues that normally exclude a battery from any warranty claims. It would be the same with tyres, brakes and clutches. Normally, when these components wear out its deemed normal wear and tear and is not covered by the car’s warranty. But if a tyre, clutch or braking system fails because of a manufacturing or materials fault, then the new-car warranty should cover it.

A: Unfortunately, a vehicle with a transfer-case with a neutral position, a manual gearbox and the option of two-wheel-drive is not a common thing any longer. But those are the attributes you need to flat tow a vehicle behind your motorhome or camper. Towing any vehicle with an automatic transmission is a no-no as the gearbox needs the engine to be running for it to be properly lubricated.

A Jeep Wrangler with a conventional manual transmission might be another option. In either case, you’d need to check with the manufacturer of whatever you choose, as flat-towing will potentially void any warranty on the car. Some owners have looked at the Ford Ranger on the basis that it’s a popular flat-towing choice in the USA, but that won’t work here as the transfer-case of the Australian version of the Ranger doesn’t have a Neutral-2WD position, while the US-market version does. Even a manual Ranger is not suitable as Ford told us that flat-towing even that version would be tearing up your warranty.

A: Transmissions are a wearing part of any car, In the case of the X-Trail, the vehicle used a CVT transmission rather than a conventional automatic. The CVT uses variable pulleys and a steel belt to vary the gearing and allow the engine to accelerate the car efficiently. In decades past, the CVT was not as durable as other types of transmission, although recent advances have made it a more robust unit

The specific servicing required by a specific vehicle varies from model to model, and there’s also a recent trend towards transmissions that don’t – according to the manufacturer – require much maintenance at all, including regular changes of the transmission fluid. Old school mechanics don’t always agree with this sealed-for-life strategy on the basis that clean fluid never harmed a transmission, while worn out or contaminated fluid certainly can. Heat is the natural enemy of transmission fluid, and if you live in a hot climate and do regular highway driving, chances are the transmission has been pretty hot at times.

In any case, the experts reckon that 100,000km is the maximum distance you should drive between fluid changes in your Nissan with its CVT. Was this done during your ownership or according to the service records? Nissan’s own servicing notes on this car indicate that the CVT fluid only needs to be checked every 15,000km (and then only for leaks and level) but not replaced. There’s a clause that says if the vehicle is used for towing or in harsh conditions, the fluid should be checked for condition at 90,000km and replaced if necessary.

Either way, you’re way beyond the factory warranty period. Brand-new, your car would have had a three-year/100,000km warranty (Nissan extended the warranty to five years in 2019) so you’re well beyond both those limits.