Ask The Guide

There's no doubt in my mind that you are up for the service charge; you asked them to service it and they did. You are correct that your car isn’t worth a lot of money, but it’s worth almost nothing with a cracked head. You could perhaps talk to the dealer about getting a second hand engine from a wrecker and having that fitted. It might be a cheaper option to get the car going.

The used Captiva does appear to be great value, but their shaky reputation for reliability would lead me to consider other options. The Territory would be a better bet, but they are known to have electrical and front suspension issues in the long-term.  If you're after an SUV, a seven-seat 2006-12 Mitsubishi Outlander is smart buying at the moment, but if you're just after the seven seats, I highly recommend taking a look at a 2008-13 Kia Rondo. These represent excellent value at the moment. Hope that helps, and keep us posted with your progress.

The range of values for your vehicle is $29,000 to $32,000 as a private sale. As a trade-in it’s worth $24,000 to $28,000. With its low kays, plus the towbar and bullbar yours is probably at the top end of that range. You don’t tell us anything about your needs and wants for the car you are looking to buy, but the Kia Sportage is a good car and worth you looking at it.

The CVT transmission in the Jazz was prone to shuddering. To fix it Honda introduced a service requirement on the transmission, basically to change the oil. The automatic transmission in your Mazda is not a CVT, and does not suffer the same problem. But automatic transmission specialists will always tell you that it's wise to service automatic transmissions to prolong their life. It's even more important if you do a lot of towing.

Take it back to your Kia dealer and explain your concern to them and ask them to check it to identify if it is the lifters or perhaps something else. If they find a problem have them tell you what they plan to do about it. If you cannot find satisfaction with that take your concern higher and talk directly to the customer service people at Kia headquarters.

Take it to a mechanic or an auto electrician, who will be able to sort it out for you.

The recommended interval is 24,000 km or 12 months, not 24,000 km and how ever many months it might take to do 24,000 km. The time recommendation is specified to cover those items that deteriorate with time rather than kays. Have the service done.

There are no hard and fast rules for how fast you should drive when towing, but many companies recommend driving at a lower speed when towing. Subaru say you should not drive its vehicles, including the Forester, at speeds in excess of 80 km/h when towing. It's done for safety.

Those early Barinas were prone to oil leaks. I guess that you have had it repaired before, but without success. If it's fixed properly it shouldn't leak, but it could be that it needs a better sealant, or the surface of the rocker cover might need machining flat.

Carbon build-up is not an uncommon complaint with Mitsubishi engines; it's the EGR valve that gets gummed up by the re-circulated exhaust gases. There is no reason for the dealer to have your car for that amount of time, and there's no excuse for not telling you what's going on. If you can't get a reasonable explanation and outlook for getting back from the dealer/Mitsubishi consider going to the NSW consumer affairs department to get some action happening.