Ask The Guide

I’ll take a punt here and suggest that the $55,000 price was the trade-in value at a Toyota dealership. Certainly, it’s about what a dealer would offer as a trade-in on a new LandCruiser, so it’s a good deal at that money.

The best thing you can do is sit your mate down, look him in the eye and get honest answers about how the vehicle has been used and what condition it’s in. This was a relatively early example of the turbo-diesel V8 and while they improved as Toyota made running changes, the early engines were known to burn a bit of oil. After his years of ownership, your pal should be well aware of things like that, so get some straight answers.

If it checks out, that’s great, but you’d still want to have a contingency budget for repairs as these were complex machines, and even jobs like replacing the starter motor (which lives up under the inlet manifold on these V8s) can cost a motzah to complete. That said, I love the idea that the vehicle has done mostly highway kilometres and that it’s never been off road. Seriously, that’s the second-hand LandCruiser you want to buy.

Six-speed manual gearboxes often have gears one, two and three sharing a shaft inside the gearbox. The fact that you can select all those gears but not have any drive in them suggests that something on that shaft is failing to mesh with either the countershaft or the output shaft.

Does the gearbox make any weird noises when you select any of the first three gears? Is there any oil leaking from the gearbox casing? It could be anything from a stripped gear or spline to a failed bearing. Either way, I think it’s probably a fundamental mechanical failure and you’re looking at a gearbox rebuild or replacement. At least if the top three gears are working, everything downstream of the gearbox seems to be okay.

Starting an engine from cold requires a richer (more fuel, less air) mixture than the engine needs when it’s up to operating temperature. Because the inside of the engine is cold on the first start of each day, this richer mixture gives the engine the chance to run smoothly and not stall. Remember old cars with choke levers? It’s the same thing except that now, the computer controls the choke.

So, yes, that’s why you sometimes detect a petrol smell when a car first starts up. But make sure the smell goes away and doesn’t stick around the whole time the car is running, or you could be looking at a fuel-injection problem that will need addressing. And don’t confuse a petrol smell with an oil smell. If you can smell oil or see blue smoke on start-up, then you’re possibly looking at a worn or leaking engine.

Probably not as much as you might think, Lisa. SUVs are generally based on a hatchback or sedan, and – generalising again – they use the same engines and transmissions. As you’ve identified, they’re a bit taller, but they’re not always larger inside thanks to the sometimes larger suspension towers intruding into the cabin space.

You’ll often find extra gear such as plastic wheel-arch flares and bigger bumper bars but, usually, these are nothing more than visual additions to make the SUV look tough and butch. You’ll often find different tyres on the SUV version, too, but a bigger difference (and it’s becoming less and less common) is the addition of all-wheel-drive (most hatches are now front-wheel-drive) which adds weight and complexity and seems a bit odd since these are not off-road vehicles by any stretch of the imagination.

Meantime, the biggest difference between an SUV and the hatchback it’s based on? Usually the price-tag.

This is, indeed, a known problem with Ford (and other) automatic transmissions. The layout of your transmission uses the engine’s coolant to cool the transmission by running a transmission fluid line through the radiator. And yes, when that line fails, the coolant mixes with the transmission fluid. That leads the transmission to fail mechanically (the coolant doesn’t lubricate the transmission) as well as the coolant destroying the transmission’s computer.

By insurance, I take it that you took out an extended mechanical insurance policy when you bought the car, because general car insurance won’t cover mechanical failures such as this. Given the get-out clauses with which some of these policies are riddled, I’m not surprised that you aren’t covered for the full cost of the repair.

Mazda increased its factory warranty to five years/unlimited kilometres in August 2018, but when your car was new, it was covered for only three years. I’d still be giving my Mazda dealer a call, though, as you might find the relatively low kilometres you’ve covered might convince them to make a pro-rata offer for part of the repair costs. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but it’s got to be worth a try. And, no, I don’t consider 98,000km to be a reasonable distance for a modern transmission to fail.

This is, indeed, a known problem with Ford (and other) automatic transmissions. The layout of your transmission uses the engine’s coolant to cool the transmission by running a transmission fluid line through the radiator. And yes, when that line fails, the coolant mixes with the transmission fluid. That leads the transmission to fail mechanically (the coolant doesn’t lubricate the transmission) as well as the coolant destroying the transmission’s computer.

By insurance, I take it that you took out an extended mechanical insurance policy when you bought the car, because general car insurance won’t cover mechanical failures such as this. Given the get-out clauses with which some of these policies are riddled, I’m not surprised that you aren’t covered for the full cost of the repair.

Mazda increased its factory warranty to five years/unlimited kilometres in August 2018, but when your car was new, it was covered for only three years. I’d still be giving my Mazda dealer a call, though, as you might find the relatively low kilometres you’ve covered might convince them to make a pro-rata offer for part of the repair costs. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but it’s got to be worth a try. And, no, I don’t consider 98,000km to be a reasonable distance for a modern transmission to fail.

Flat-towing – where the towed vehicle has all four wheels on the ground – is common in North America where it’s quite normal to see a motorhome flat-towing a Chevy Suburban or Ford SUV. The idea is that the motorhome is the mother-ship and the SUV becomes the grocery-getter once you’ve settled in somewhere with a nice view. They take their fun seriously, those Americans.

The practice is much less common here, but I’ve seen a few Suzuki Sierras and Vitaras and other small four-wheel-drives being flat-towed, so clearly it’s possible. As you’ve identified, a two-wheel-drive vehicle with a conventional manual gearbox shouldn’t suffer any dramas from being flat-towed. That said, I’d be careful with a four-wheel-drive, particularly a permanent all-wheel-drive example - because these are more complex drivelines and sometimes don’t appreciate being back-loaded.  It’s also worth remembering that a vehicle with a conventional automatic is a no-no for flat-towing as, unless the engine is running, the pump that lubricates the transmission isn’t working and the gearbox will be destroyed.

Unless the dealer can show you precisely why a particular year-model HiLux shouldn’t be flat-towed, I’d be a bit suspicious (especially when other dealers say yes) but the fact that nobody wants to offer you a warranty on a HiLux that’s being flat-towed also suggests to me that you could run into problems if there’s ever a claim.

It would also be worth checking what your insurance company says about flat-towing and don’t forget that different States and Territories have different rules and regulations. In Queensland, for instance, the law says that unless the unladen mass of the towing vehicle is at least three-and-a-half times the laden mass of the vehicle being flat-towed, you need to somehow make the towed vehicle’s brakes part of the package. On that basis, unless you’re towing your 1500kg HiLux with a vehicle that weighs at least 5250kg unladen, you’ve got yourself a problem that could involve the law and the insurance industry if something goes wrong.

Diagnosing problems like this one are difficult, Willie, mainly because you can bet your bottom dollar that the car won’t reproduce the problem when your mechanic drives it. But three or four times every tank of fuel is not funny and, should the problem rear its head just as you’re about to enter a busy road or turn across traffic, it could be very dangerous, too.

But the fact that the car runs perfectly most of the time suggests that it’s not a problem with any of the actual, mechanical engine parts, or it wouldn’t run properly at all. That leaves you with fuel, spark or the computer that controls everything as your most likely suspects. A dodgy sensor such as a crank-angle, camshaft-angle, temperature, oxygen or throttle-position sensor can cause problems like these and sensors have definitely been known to throw up intermittent faults.

The best bet is to have the car scanned by a dealership or workshop with the correct computer gear. Otherwise you could be chasing your tail for weeks, wasting time and money as you change sensors that were working properly and still not fix the problem.

You can work this out mathematically if bald numbers don’t scare you. The petrol four-cylinder Santa Fe is $3000 cheaper than the diesel. In all-wheel-drive form, the diesel has an official combined fuel consumption figure of 7.5 litres per 100km, while the petrol scores 9.3 litres. That means, that for every 100km travelled (based on those official test figures, remember) the petrol will use 1.8 litres more fuel. Based on $1.50 per litre, that means the petrol will cost about $2.70 more to run for every 100km, and that means you’d need to cover roughly 111,000km before you broke even on the extra purchase-price of the diesel. Even then, it’s not that simple as the diesel might be more expensive to service and maintain. Either way, though, petrol starts to look good.

That said, you sound like you’re in the perfect situation to make the most of a diesel engine. Yes, the turbo-diesel will tow a small caravan better than the four-cylinder petrol Santa Fe and, provided you do at least some country driving every month or so, you shouldn’t need to worry about the diesel particulate filter filling up or failing. Country driving will also stretch the diesel’s fuel consumption advantage further.
My advice? Drive both and make a decision based on the smoothness of the petrol or the relaxed flexibility and towing smarts of the diesel.

I’d go for the Rukus every time. And that’s not to say there’s anything inherently wrong with the Nissan Cube, but it was only sold here as a private import with all the insurance, servicing and spare-parts hassles that can bring with it.

But besides all that, the Rukus is, mechanically speaking, the previous-generation Toyota Camry, built on a Corolla platform with a super-useable boxy body. So, as well as being amazingly practical, it should also be a zero-hassle ownership experience. The Rukus might not have the pizzazz of the Nissan, but it’s the one to buy second-hand.