Ask The Guide

One to try is the Ford Focus; it has a rear view camera, GPS, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and fits within your budget.

It clearly needs deeper investigation to try and determine the cause. Take it to a panel beater who specialises in European cars and have them assess it.

You should try to haggle, you’ve nothing to lose, the dealer can only say “no”. I would try to beat him down on the delivery costs.

It sounds like a characteristic of the CVT rather than a tuning issue.

You can buy a steel tray for it, but that alone is unlikely to stop the back end from stepping out in slippery conditions. The old way of stopping this sort of thing happening was to put some load in the tray, some bags of concrete or sand will help, but you also have to drive it to the conditions.

You could have a mechanic or dealer check the cruise electronics, but it could be that you are trying to drive too slowly on the cruise and it can’t cope with it.

The 1.6-litre engine has a timing belt, the larger 2.0-litre engines also offered in the Focus have timing chains.

Camper trailers typically weigh in the range of 850 kg to 1200 kg without the extra weight of things like food, bedding, clothes, etc. so it’s probably best to look at a compact SUV. A Mazda CX5 will tow up to 1800 kg, which would seem to fit your needs. Then there’s a Kia Sportage (1600 kg), Mitsubishi Outlander (1600 kg), or Suzuki Grand Vitara (1600 kg).

No, the Commodore ute was only produced with V6 and V8 engines.

There’s nothing that you should be concerned about, Mercedes cars generally age gracefully, but like any car they can always break down. Servicing is paramount, so make sure your budget will allow you to keep your car properly maintained.