Ask The Guide

The Suzuki Grand Vitara is kind of considered the last of the four-wheel-drives that can be successfully flat-towed. That’s because it has a driveline that has a neutral position where the wheels are entirely disconnected from the driveline. In cars without this facility, flat-towing is a no-go as damage will be done to the transmission if they are flat-towed (flat-towing, of course, referring to the practice of towing a vehicle without a trailer and, therefore, with all four of its wheels on the ground).

Even in a vehicle with a conventional automatic transmission which does, indeed, have a neutral position, the gearbox would be destroyed by flat towing as the driveshaft will still be turning the inside of the transmission. A car with a manual transmission should be able to be flat-towed, but finding a new car with a clutch pedal these days will be the big challenge. Certainly that’s the case in the type of multi-seater vehicle you’ve nominated. And many modern four-wheel-drives and SUVs have permanent all-wheel-drive which is also mechanically unsuitable for flat-towing.

The other catch is that a lot of car-makers say that flat-towing their product will void any driveline warranty. You need to check with each manufacturer before taking the plunge. And don’t forget that different states and territories have different rules about flat-towing (it is legal across Australia, but the details vary). You also need to keep in mind towing limits which vary across different makes and models. Flat-towing is big in North America, but it has never really caught on here.

The short answer is that home servicing is, indeed, possible. The expanded version of the same answer is that you need to know not only the basics of the mechanical bits and pieces you’ll be dealing with, but also have a clear idea of what’s involved in each service.

We think of servicing as changing the oil and spinning on a new oil filter. But it’s not that simple. Modern cars (and I’ll put a 2010 Cruze in that category) have a strict regime of things that need to be attended to at each service interval, and that list changes as the car covers more kilometres. Ignoring any one of the prescribed servicing tasks means you run the risk of having something fail, wear out or somehow go wrong at the least convenient time.

Depending on the distance your car has travelled, the next scheduled service could include things such as changing the air filter, pollen filter, rotating the tyres, changing the automatic transmission fluid, replacing the park plugs and leads, flushing the cooling system, replacing the timing belt, checking brake rotor and pad thickness, and checking dozens more things like the car’s bulbs, drive-belt condition and wiper-blade condition.

This is an ongoing concern for owners of cars that were built in places that simply don’t have the UV radiation levels we experience in Australia. And, yes, I know your car is a Holden Calais, but the ZB model you own was actually built in Europe and is a fully imported car. That said, even local car-makers have had an awful time over the years trying to get their paint to last in the Aussie sun.

However, I don’t believe that a 2018 car should be showing signs of paint degradation this early, so I think you’d have a very chance of making a warranty claim to have the problem put right. Even though Holden no longer exists as a brand, its parent company still has an obligation to provide parts and service (and warranty) for the next few years. That said, there’s not much in it for General Motors to keep you happy as you won’t be a repeat Holden customer (since the brand is gone).

But it’s definitely worth a try and if you don’t get any satisfaction from head office’s customer service division, I’d be talking to the ACCC (what used to be Consumer Affairs) to see if a resolution can be found. It’s difficult to diagnose problems by remote control, but if the paint is peeling in a very specific section (the drain channels) rather than randomly on the roof, then it would seem as though there might have been a production problem when the roof was painted. If that’s the case, what’s left of Holden should put it right.

Holden Astras of this vintage have been known to suffer false alarms from the security system, and it seems as though a re-flash or replacement of the ECU (on-board computer) is the ultimate fix. In many other cases, false alarms are the result of faulty switches and sensors, but the Astra’s track record suggests the computer will be the culprit. At which point you have a decision to make which may involve disabling the alarm system altogether (make sure you advise your insurance company if you go down this road).

This model Astra was also infamous for a radio that could turn itself on (independent of the ignition system) and flatten the battery.

The `smart’ alternator fitted to the Ford Ranger was designed to cap the amount of charge being fed back into the vehicle’s battery. In effect, it meant that the battery was usually charged to a lower voltage that it would have bene with a conventional alternator.

The reason for this was to extend battery life by never over-charging (and stressing) the battery, but many owners have found that the lower charge rate left them with a battery more likely to go flat when they most needed it. Many Rangers are also used for camping and therefore have a second battery fitted. That could also cause problems as the extra battery and electrical accessories often fitted to such vehicles weren’t recognised by the vehicle’s computer, leading to more low-voltage problems.

For many Ranger owners, the solution was a trip to a Ford dealer where the computer could be re-programmed to make the alternator perform in a traditional (non-smart) way and keep everything purring along. Having this performed at a dealership will not affect your warranty, but having a non-Ford technician fiddle with the charging system may not be so warranty-friendly.

I’m also informed that driving everywhere with the car’s headlights switched on causes the alternator to acknowledge the current draw and switch to a higher charging output.

The only thing more unreliable than a low-fuel warning light is the on-board computer that gives you a distance-to-empty kilometre figure. The problem with the latter is that the figure will differ enormously depending on your driving style at the time. For instance, the computer, a highway trip might, suggest you have 100km left in the tank. But once you hit the outer suburbs and switch to stop-start driving, that number could be as little as half the figure flashing on the dashboard.

As a rule of thumb, car-makers tend to calibrate the fuel-warning light to come on somewhere between 100 and 50km before you actually run dry. But it’s still a stab in the dark, and really not worth pushing your luck.

To get the most accurate feel for what the fuel-warning light is really telling you, here’s our advice: Fill the car to and absolute brim. A 2014 Navara holds either 75 or 80 litres of fuel, depending on specification. Then, the next time the fuel light flashes on, pull into the first service station and fill it to the brim again. That will give you a pretty accurate idea of the umber of litres you’ve used from filling up to the point where the light switches on. Then, you can subtract those litres from the tank’s capacity to arrive at how much was left in the tank.

There’s no simple answer to this as the final cost will depend on how much performance and battery range you wish to engineer into the car. That said, the basic cost of a kit to convert a conventional car to run on electricity is somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000, but that includes only the very basics. Neither does that figure include the cost of the battery-packs that you’ll also need, so the cost will only go up from that figure. All engineering sign-offs would add dollars to the final tally, too.

Converting petrol cars to run as EVs is a real trend right now, but if you look at the types of cars being converted, there’s a common theme running through them: The majority of conversion candidates are older, simpler cars with none of the safety systems that a 2003 Nissan X-Trail has as standard. It’s much easier, for instance, to convert a car with no air-bags, no anti-lock brakes and no stability control. If the car in question lacks power-assisted brakes and power-steering, even better. 

This is not to say that the conversion can’t be done, but it’s much simpler – and cheaper – to convert something old-school (like an air-cooled Volkswagen) than converting your relatively modern Nissan. You’d need to ensure that the car’s anti-lock brakes and air-bags (and everything else) still worked and then be able to prove that to an engineer before the car could be legally registered and driven on public roads.

What you’d end up with would be a Nissan X-Trail that represented maybe $50,000 and still only had 150km of range between recharges. Those numbers simply don’t add up when you can buy a second-hand EV – a Nissan Leaf, for instance – for comfortably less than $20,000; a car that is already legal to register and drive. 

The best anchor point to use in the rear seat of a Falcon is the centre one which is located behind the back seat in the parcel tray. That centre-rear position is the safest one as it puts as much space as possible between the restraint and the outside world. But for families with more than one child restraint, Ford also fitted two extra anchorage points in the parcel shelf to either side of the central point. You may have to remove two little plastic covers and add the attachment hardware if these points have never been used before.

Yes, your Commodore is suitable to run on either E5 or E10 ethanol-blended fuel. Switching to E10 would definitely save you a few dollars per week versus filling up with 95-octane unleaded.

While some makes and models have a simple, DIY method for cancelling this reminder, it seems these late-model Havals do not, and the service indicator needs to be cancelled via the diagnostic port and a laptop with the correct, Haval-specific software. Which could mean a trip to your nearest dealer.

Did you have the vehicle serviced at a non-Haval workshop? Given the relative scarcity of Haval dealerships, that’s the reality for a lot of owners, but not every non-Haval workshop has the software to cancel the reminder. One option is to phone around local workshops to see if they have the software to perform this task. The other is to put up with the service indicator beaming at you constantly and remembering when the next service is due. A lot of old-school workshops put a little sticker at the top of your windscreen listing the date and mileage that the next service is due. It’s a nice touch.