Ford Problems

With the broad spread of capped-price servicing, lots of dealerships are padding service bills with unnecessary stuff to shore up their income. I've never head of aircon sanitising but a Google search found a spray can of the stuff for $20. Draw your own conclusion there.

The Avenso Versis is a good all-rounder in the people-mover class. Other people-movers you could consider are the Honda Odyssey, Kia Grand Carnival, or VW Caddy Life, you could consider SUVs like the Ford Territory or Nissan Dualis.

Providing the car hasn't been involved in a crash or anything else that might have an effect on the window you could have a claim on the basis of a manufacturing or design fault. Either the glue wasn't up to the job, or it wasn't properly applied in production. The car is six years old, however, and it would probably be easier and less painful to simply repair it instead of trying to lever a few bucks out of Ford.

Based on your height alone I'd say the Commodore will be a better fit. And why not enjoy an Aussie V8 before they're gone?

It’s not a recall situation, recalls are mostly about safety and a broken hinge does not constitute a safety concern. It is a 10-year-old car and sometimes things fail on old cars. I would take the dealer’s advice and have a panel shop quote on repairing it.

It's not as good as the previous model, which easily scored The Tick. These days I'd go first for a Mazda6.

The most obvious thing is that the clutch has gone, but before you replace check that the clutch is disengaging when you depress the pedal.

Definitely not the Captiva. The Kluger will cost more because of the Toyota badge. I'd favour a Territory — but make sure it's had necessary upgrades to the ball joints. As an alternative, a Hyundai Santa Fe would be a good choice.

If the engine is running fine there is no damage. As soon as water gets into a combustion chamber it does the damage, as it is impressible and can wreak havoc with things like valves and even connecting rods.

It sounds to me like a fault with the transmission ECU. By turning the engine off and restarting you are rebooting the computer, which suggests it's a fault with the computer.