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You could be right in presuming that the clutch is not fully disengaging as this will definitely cause gear-selection problems. If the clutch is worn or has broken components inside, then it can be impossible to make it fully disengage, and choosing gears – particularly from a standing start – can be difficult if not impossible. At that point, presuming the clutch is adjusted properly (and your car uses hydraulic clutch actuation, so there’s not really any adjustment in it) a replacement clutch is the only real fix.

But don’t rule out a problem with the mechanism that actually selects the gears and links the gear-shifter to the gearbox proper. In some cars this is a cable, in others it’s a set of linkages, but either set-up can become maladjusted and cause shifting problems.

This cost of this will depend on a few things, Anthony, including which workshop you choose to carry out the work and what that workshop’s hourly labour rate is. That said, budget for around $2000 for the clutch kit and the time to fit it and you should be okay.

The other thing to consider is whether this is a good time to replace the sometimes troublesome dual-mass flywheel with a simpler, more robust singe-mass unit. The cost should be about the same, but the single-mass replacement will be a stronger, more reliable unit over time. It’s the first modification a switched-on Navara owner will make if they intend to tow heavy loads with the vehicle.

The Kia Sportage sold in the US certainly did have its share of problems. In some cases, the engine failures were traced to a faulty batch of engine bearings, in others, a leaking oil sump was blamed for allowing too much oil to escape, leading to oil starvation which destroyed the whole engine. Kia’s fix for the latter condition was to fit an oil-pressure warning light with a more proactive trigger-point.

But it’s dangerous to assume that the same make and model sold in the USA (or anywhere else) will have the same problems as Australian delivered cars. Often, even though they share a brand and badge, the cars from different markets are built in different factories and use parts from different suppliers. Sometimes there are major mechanical changes to cope with local conditions and tastes which can lead to very different reliability outcomes.

That said, however, the Theta engines used in local Kias have been problematic for some owners and catastrophic engine failures are part of those. You could talk with Kia Australia’s customer service division about financial assistance with the cost of repairs, but at nine years old – even with relatively low kilometres – there would be no guarantee of that happening. 

This is a known problem in the Mazda turbo-diesel, and many owners have suffered similar failures. The problem begins with the formation of hard, carbon deposits in the top end of the engine which eventually find their way into the engine’s sump and block the oil pick-up. When that happens, the engine can’t pump oil efficiently and some parts of the engine become oil-starved. That’s when a build-up of friction and, therefore, heat, will cause a catastrophic failure with the attendant metal shavings that were subsequently discovered in your engine.

So why was the problem missed? An enthusiastic mechanic will always have a look at the oil that comes out of an engine, looking for just the symptoms you’ve noted. A really keen technician will sometimes even cut the old oil filter open to check for anything that shouldn’t be there. Unfortunately, in the context of a busy workshop with price-conscious customers, this doesn’t always happen. In the Mazda’s engine, the normal practice should be to check the strainer that covers the oil pick-up, but, again, that may not have been the case with your engine. If the workshop you used was a Mazda dealership, I’d be asking management why that process wasn’t followed. Even then, it’s difficult to say whether this check would have saved your engine, as the damage may already have been done.

It’s not unknown for a car-maker to receive a batch of parts from a supplier where the parts in question have a materials or manufacturing flaw in them. Certainly, enough Hyundai owners have reported this same problem for that to be a reasonable hypothesis. The theory about the gear in the steering system is one possible cause for the noise you’re hearing, but I’ve also heard other mechanics suggest that it’s the clock-spring (that electrically powers the air-bags, steering wheel controls, yet still allows the wheel to turn) that’s at fault.

Either way, it’s a warranty job for the dealer to sort out, but experience has shown that Hyundai’s dealers are very good at keeping their customers happy. Meantime, the replacement part should be from a later, improved batch, without the inbuilt flaws, so it shouldn’t happen again.

This is a relatively common complaint among Hyundai Kona owners. Sometimes the noise manifests as a buzz or a groan and sometimes it’s loud enough to hear over the stereo. Since your car has electrically-assisted power-steering, there’s no chance that it’s a lack of hydraulic fluid causing the noise, but some Hyundai specialists believe the noise comes from a worm gear within the electric assistance unit. It seems that even in almost new cars, there can be enough wear in this component to cause a noise. The other possible cause is the clock-spring which is a spring that resides inside the steering column and maintains the electrical connections with the steering-wheel mounted controls, the air-bag and the rest of the car, yet still allows you to turn the wheel to steer the car. The good news is that your car is well and truly within the factory warranty period, so a Hyundai dealer is obliged to sort it out for you. Just don’t make the mistake of taking 'they all do that' for an answer.

No, it doesn’t. Nissan dropped the 1.6-litre turbo-diesel with the facelift in 2017, replacing g it with a two-litre unit that was both more powerful (96kW plays 130kW) and had more torque (320NM versus 380). Beyond those numbers, the progress was a bit harder to see as the later, two-litre engine used quite a bit more fuel (7.4 litres per 100km against 5.3 litres for the 1.6-litre engine) and was only available as an all-wheel-drive vehicle and with a six-speed manual transmission. The earlier, 1.6-litre X-Trail was available with a CVT transmission (two-pedal operation) but if you chose that transmission, the vehicle was front-wheel-drive only.

Not sure where you heard or read that. Stuart, but it’s not even close to being true. Australia will get the 2021 Subaru Levorg, but the nuances of global supply from the Japanese factory mean that it might not show up in local showrooms until the fourth quarter of this year.

What precise form it will take is still a matter of great conjecture, but the smart money seems to think that it will be a muscled-up Levorg this time around. It will definitely have a turbocharged petrol engine and, again, the rumours suggest it might use the new 2.4-litre engine from the WRX, perhaps with a slightly different tune. A hybrid or plug-in electric Levorg? Not this time around, it would seem, and Subaru will probably wait until the next platform upgrade before it introduces electric-drive technology to the Levorg range.

The 4B11 (official code-name) engine in your ASX used a timing chain rather than a toothed, rubber timing belt. That means the chain should be good for the life of the engine, rather than requiring periodic replacement as a timing belt does. While the timing chain in this engine seems to be of a good design and hasn’t caused widespread problems, the accessory drive belt (which drives the water pump and power-steering pump, has been known to jump off its pulleys, leaving the car with no power-steering and no pump to operate the cooling system. At least it’s obvious when it happens (so the car can be shut down with no further damage) and the fix is an easy one.

The simple answer, Andrew, is that the 2.5-litre turbo-diesel engine in your Navara has a timing chain rather than a timing belt. However, it’s not that simple, as the engine uses two chains, rather than a longer, single timing chain.

The primary timing chain on your engine is a single-row chain while the secondary chain is a duplex (or double-row) chain. The secondary chain doesn’t seem to give too many problems, but many owners have found that the lower, single-row chain seems a bit underdone and has been known to stretch in service. When that happens (if the stretching is enough) the pistons and valves inside the engine can collide with fairly devastating results. The chain guides can also show signs of premature wear in these engines.

The trade recommends that the primary timing chain in these engines is changed every 80,000km or so and inspected for wear and stretching every 40,000km. Which pretty neatly sidesteps all the advantages of a timing chain over a timing belt.