Ask The Guide

What you haven’t told me is whether your car is a petrol or diesel Captiva. The two engines have very different ways of operating and both can make very different noises depending on what’s going on with them.

Diesel engines often have a fair bit of fuel pump noise which can increase as the car travels more kilometres and the pump develops a bit of wear. But whichever engine we’re dealing with, if the noise is at idle, then you’d really want to check the engine’s oil pressure. Oil pressure is lowest at idle, and low oil pressure can cause noises from the hydraulic lifters and even the engine’s crankshaft and pistons. Neither of those are what you want to hear, though, as they suggests some fairly major internal wear or damage.

It is indeed a dangerous situation, especially if you’re trying to pull into fast-moving traffic when the engine suddenly cuts out. Frankly, there are literally hundreds of causes for this, so the best advice is to go back to basics and try to find anything wrong with the fuel or ignition system. An electronic scan of the car (if it hasn‘t already been done) is a good idea, too, as it might pin-point the problem area.

You could be looking at something as simple as a poor earth connection or a blocked fuel filter. That the car runs properly in the meantime, suggests that it’s an intermittent fuel or electrical problem rather than an inherent mechanical failure.

The petrol V6 engine in an FJ Cruiser is a fairly conventional piece of equipment and shouldn’t represent too much of a problem for a mechanic with decent experience. Poor starting can be caused by any number of things but will usually come down to a fault with either the ignition or fuel system.

An engine that takes two attempts to start can often be suffering from poor fuel pressure, so a check of the pump and filters would be a good place to start. But a slack ignition system can also cause the same symptoms. If the problem is a relatively new one, it’s possible that you might have unwittingly bought a tankful of old or contaminated fuel. Start with the basics, including a mechanic that knows their way around this engine.

It’s certainly true that automatics are far more common than manual cars these days. It all started decades ago when people decided it was easier to have the car shift gears for itself than bother to shift them manually. But there have been other factors, too. One is that modern automatics no longer represent the performance shortfall they once did.

Back in the bad old days, autos used to be less efficient than a manual, leading to less acceleration and greater fuel use, making the manual the natural choice for a keener driver. But modern automatics have really caught up and no longer hinder performance or increase thirst. In fact, the best of them can shift faster than a human ever could and, with eight, nine or even 10 ratios, they can be more efficient than a manual.

Turbocharged engines have also helped make the case for automatics and – generally speaking – turbo-motors often work best with an automatic where there’s no lengthy gear-change interval to allow the engine to fall of boost. And turbo-diesels which need boost to operate and don’t rev very hard in the first place, are a natural choice for an automatic which also works very well for towing and when driving off-road.

But there will always be people who prefer manuals (yours truly included) especially those who actually enjoy the physical aspects of driving a car. So while the manual transmission in your car will turn some people off, if you can find the buyer who wants a manual, you might find the rarity of your manual car will actually be a selling point.

First thing: Don’t drive this vehicle anywhere. Any time you need to pump the brakes to get a vehicle to stop, you have a major safety issue. Because the time taken to give the brakes that extra pump might just be the difference between stopping safely and running into something or someone.

A workshop should be able to sort this, starting with what’s called bleeding the brakes. Over time, the braking system can ingest air which – unlike brake fluid – is compressible and can make the pedal feel spongy or require the pedal to be pumped before much happens. The bleeding process removes this air, leaving only brake fluid in the system.

But you should also check the condition of the brake fluid as it should be changed periodically. There’s also the question of how the air entered the braking system in the first place, so you may need to replace some seals to prevent it happening again. Either way, the car is not safe to drive as it is, and should be towed to where ever it’s going to be fixed.

There are many reasons for a vehicle to enter limp-home mode. One of them, of course is transmission temperature, but there are lots of things being monitored, from the temperature of the engine oil, coolant temperature, oil level and even the operating temperature of the EGR valve (which is often water-cooled in vehicles like the Mazda).

The point being that even though the transmission entered limp-home mode, the actual problem may have been elsewhere, but the vehicle’s computer believed that shutting down much of the transmission’s functions would preserve and protect the rest of the driveline. Don’t forget, either, that there are many things – a failed solenoid, low fluid level, even a faulty wiring connection or earth – that can cause a transmission limp-home event beyond actual overheating.

A lot of owners of cars such as Peugeot, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Renault and even Porsche tend to steer away from the higher costs of dealership servicing once the vehicle is out of warranty. That has led to the establishment of a raft of specialists in particular brands who are not factory dealerships. So, the trick is to find such a specialist independent workshop and take the car there.

Such a workshop should have all the test gear and service equipment, not to mention model-specific know-how, to tackle any job (including this one) without the hourly rate of a factory dealership with its higher overheads.

It all depends of what sort of a leak we’re talking about here. If the tank is constantly leaking after it’s been filled up, there’s clearly some sort of hole somewhere in the tank or its plumbing from the filler neck to the tank proper. You could surmise that the level of fuel in the tank at which the leak stops, is also the level of the hole or crack. As the fuel drains further (as you drive the car) the fuel level is below that of the leak-point and the leak stops. Either way, this is a dangerous situation as even if there’s no liquid fuel leaking, there’s almost certainly fuel vapour escaping (which is more flammable than petrol itself).

While it’s rare for a tank to fail, much more common is having the plumbing which takes the fuel from the filler neck to the tank cause a leak. But if the leak stops soon after you’ve filled up, it could simply be that a small amount of fuel has sloshed out of the filler neck and into the car’s body near the neck, where it can drain away, thanks to gravity, towards the bottom of the car where you’re seeing it. Next time you fill up, be sure not to overfill the tank and remember to use the watering can on hand to slosh away any spilled or excess fuel.

Any time you have oil mixing with coolant, you have a pretty major problem on your hands. In the case of your Territory, it could be that the head gasket has failed, allowing the two fluids to mix, creating the milky murk known in the trade as a 'milkshake'. It’s a bit unlikely but it could be even more serious and your engine may be suffering from a cracked cylinder head or a split cylinder liner. A blown head gasket is a lot more likely, though.

But just as probable is a problem that occurs pretty frequently with this make and model. The Territory’s transmission is cooled via a heat-exchanger that is cooled by the engine’s coolant. If the plumbing on this cooler fails (usually because of friction due to junk inside the tubing) then the engine coolant and transmission fluid can mix and also form a milkshake which you’ll see in the radiator or coolant catch-tank.

Unfortunately, if this is the case, the transmission’s computer and its hardware may also be damaged beyond repair by the coolant diluting the transmission fluid and generally causing havoc inside the transmission.

The best advice is to not drive the vehicle any farther and have it diagnosed by a workshop to see exactly what has happened.

It’s often the case that the spot you see water entering the car is not where the actual leak is located. Water can take all sorts of interesting routes on the way to where you can see it, being driven by both the air passing over the car and following the odd shapes and profiles that make up the bits of a car’s body you can’t see.

But believe it or not, one of the best ways to find the source of a leak is to sit in the car while somebody on the outside trains a garden hose in specific places. As the aim of the hose moves, you might find the leak increases and decreases, helping you pin-point the source.

This cause of a water leak can sometimes be as simple as a small twig or leaf stuck in a door rubber, but it can also be the result of a damaged seal, body damage and even a replacement windscreen that has not been sealed properly.