Ask The Guide

Unfortunately, you’re unlikely to get a manufacturer to pay for repairs on a car that is well and truly out of warranty (as a 2013 Hyundai, which came with a five-year warranty, is). The difference would be if the faulty radio was a pre-existing condition that Hyundai had been notified of before the warranty ran out.

It’s very unlikely that a car-maker would issue a recall for something like a faulty radio, as recalls are generally caused by safety-related problems and faults. But manufacturers do issue TSBs (Technical Service Bulletins) for non-safety problems.

I have heard of Hyundai radio units giving trouble, usually starting with a lack of volume and working their way up to no sound and then no power at all. The good news is that the trade knows about it and there are specialists who have a dedicated fix for these units. In the meantime, it would certainly be worth asking your Hyundai dealer if they’ll fix or replace the head-unit. For instance, since you’re obviously a Hyundai family, or if you were a long-time, repeat customer, you might find the dealership will listen sympathetically in order to keep your business into the future. But don’t go to the bank on it.

Obviously, the safety of your grandkids is the primary concern here, so definitely go for a car with a five-star safety rating. Something with side-curtain air-bags is a good idea, too, as it provides air-bag protection for the rear seats as well as those travelling in the front.

A car with autonomous braking and all the driver and braking aids is also worth the extra investment. That way, you’re less likely to be caught up in a prang in the first place.
Beyond that, Marlene, the world is your oyster with the budget you have, and $18,000 buys some terrific second-hand cars. I’d look at a Toyota Camry, Mazda 6 or a late-model Hyundai Sonata. Remember that the later the build date, the more safety equipment you’ll be buying.

Make sure you find a car that is comfortable for you to drive and that suits the rest of your circumstances. As in, will it fit easily in your garage and can you afford to maintain it and put fuel in it.

With that list of problems, I’d be looking at having the body computer checked, at either a Hyundai dealership or a known automotive electronics specialist. Modern cars have computers to control not just the engine and driveline’s behaviour, but also the functions you’ve mentioned.

Central locking and sunroof problems are classic examples of a body computer that is not playing the game. You might find a specialist can reboot the computer to fix these flaws, but you may also be looking at a complete computer replacement.

But before you do any of that, try this little hack: Lock the vehicle and when you press the button to unlock it, hold the unlock button down for at least 30 seconds. Believe it or not, this can sometimes re-set the body computer and will fix all your problems. It’s a bit of a long-shot, but definitely worth a try.

Because you’re looking at a car built before January 1 2019, the vehicle won’t carry Toyota’s current, upgraded five-year factory warranty. Instead, you’ll get what’s left of the three-year/100,000km factory warranty. In the case of a hybrid Toyota, that also includes eight years and 160,000km worth of cover for the batteries, so if the car you buy is just two or three years old, you’ll have anything up to six years of warranty on the battery-pack. That’s a pretty good deal.

The catch is that the car you buy must have a full service record that shows it has not been neglected in any way. If the service record has gaps in it, Toyota has the right to cancel the warranty on that particular vehicle.

Modern hybrids are clever in that when a battery cell fails, only the dud cell (rather than the whole battery-pack) needs to be replaced. Our experience, too, in this department is that Toyota hybrids are hitting wrecking yards (thanks to crashes) faster than they’re wearing out their battery-packs. That means there’s a decent supply of second-hand batteries with lots of life left in them at reasonable prices. One quote for a second-hand Prius battery-pack was between $1500 and $2000 from a wrecking yard.

Let me guess, you did an oil change 12 months ago using semi-synthetic oil and then another one six months ago using fully-synthetic. And now, there’s just enough oil left in either container that, if you combined them, you could do the next oil change without buying more oil. Am I close?

Anyway, the short answer is no, you shouldn’t mix two different types or grades of oil. Remember the old Castrol TV ads; Oils aint oils? Well, it should have been: Oils aint just oils. Oil isn’t just refined crude; a modern automotive engine oil is made up of lots of components, collectively referred to as additives. These additives make oil more effective at both high and low temperatures as well as providing extra protection and sometimes even a cleaning function.

Which is great, but the different additives in different oils sometimes don’t get along too well when they’re mixed. Sometimes they can cancel each other out, at which point you’re suddenly using oil that doesn’t protect as well as it should.

Keep the spare oil from each oil change as a top-up (something you probably won’t need in a relatively new Toyota Camry). And if it’s not needed for that, give the poor old lawn-mower an oil change with the left-overs. How long since the mower or brush-cutter got some love?

It sounds like part of the mechanism that operates the door latch has broken or melted or fallen off or in some other way failed. I’m not sure about the specifics of the rear doors on a 2006 Yaris, but the solution is to get inside the door and operate the latch mechanically to open the door. But that can be easier said than done.

If you can lower the window in that door, you might find a locksmith or specialist safe-breaker who can use a hook to manipulate the latch. But in many cases, the only solution is to remove the interior door trim to get at the broken mechanism. The problem there, of course, is that the door trim will be hard up against the door jamb and the rubber deals, so removing it can be a huge problem.

In some cases, you’ll be able to remove/lift one corner of the door trim to gain access, but I can’t guarantee that the trim won’t be damaged in this operation. Once it’s damaged, of course, all bets are off and you can cut a hole in the trim to gain the access you need to trigger the latch.

And the better news is that there are plenty of Yarises in wrecking yards waiting to give up their door trim to replace the one you’re about to butcher. And if memory serves, all Yarises had the same colour interior, so finding a matching door trim won’t be too difficult.

This is one of those `if you have to ask, it’s not for you’ questions, I’m afraid. Changing a car’s oil is not, in and of itself, a difficult mechanical challenge, but getting it wrong can easily cost you an engine rebuild, so it’s vital that you’re across the job. And when you consider that an oil and filter change (as opposed to a full service) at an independent workshop for a conventional car in an urban area shouldn’t cost more than about $150, there’s maybe not so much to gain. Not when you consider the cost of the oil and filter should be included in that price.

The other big advantage of having a workshop change your oil is that they’ll be able to dispose of the used oil in a legal and environmentally sound way. Otherwise, you stand to have four or five litres of filthy, toxic used engine oil in a pan just waiting for you to trip over it in the garage next day and create a messy bio-hazard.

The best advice is to always use good quality oil (a name you recognise is a good start) and give extra-cheap or supermarket-chain-branded oil filters a miss as they’re quite often poor quality and can cause their own problems, including engine failures.

The rule of thumb is that a float with two horses on board is around the 2000kg mark, so that’s the absolute bare minimum towing limit you’d be looking at. Even then, by the time you add a couple of saddles, some feed bins and whatever else it is horsey people cart around, you could easily be looking at 2.5 or even three tonnes.

With that in mind, the smart move would be to buy a dual-cab ute with as much towing capacity as possible. The good news there is that many of the popular choices can tow a braked trailer weighing anything up to 3.5 tonnes. Think about it; if a ute can tow 3.5 tonnes, it should cope easily with two tonnes.

If, on the other hand, we’re talking a three-axle float and a pair of Clydesdale horses, you might have to look at one of the US-made utes from the likes of RAM or other US-market brands. And even then, you need to be careful: Even though some versions of the RAM ute can legally tow 4500kg with a braked trailer, to do so and not exceed the GCM (the combined mass of the vehicle and trailer) the payload in the tray falls to less than 100kg.

It would pay to bear in mind, Tony that there’s an all-new A3 due in Europe next year (Check out Carsguide’s overage of the Geneva Motor Show when it happens) as well as a major upgrade of the A4 that will include new or comprehensively revised engines and mostly new body panels and interior.

Is the heavily discounted A4 a dealership demonstrator? As that might explain why the A4, even though it’s the bigger car, has had its price slashed, despite having all that desirable kit thrown in. That said, the A4 lives in a market segment (mid-sized sedans) that is not doing terribly well right now (in Australia and elsewhere) so maybe Audi has too much stock of a car that has plenty of competition (Mercedes-Benz C-Class and BMW 3-Series) in a struggling market.

The bottom line, however, is to buy as much car as you need and don’t make the mistake of buying a smaller, cheaper car when it won’t easily do the jobs you have in mind for it. Again, though, the A3 is a pretty practical hatchback (or sedan) and owners don’t seem to complain that it’s underdone in any major way.
So, drive them both, and see which one you like to pilot. And then start throwing offers at the salesman and see how much he or she is able to bend on either car. By the way, the virtual cockpit is brilliant technology.

Nissan made a big song and dance about the new infotainment system on its 2019 Navara, and rightly so, because the vehicle had been off the pace in this regard compared with its major competitors. The changes included the inclusion of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, but also included full smart-phone mirroring.

None of which is much use to you, Dom, because if the system won’t connect to your phone without dropping out, it’s a moot point, yes? I’d be straight back to the dealer to have it sorted out. The computer that controls the infotainment might need a re-boot or maybe there’s a more fundamental problem. Either way, Nissan’s factory warranty should cover this.

But before you do that, try one thing: Pair the car with a different phone just to rule out the possibility that it’s your phone that the upgraded system doesn’t like.