GWM Problems

If the GWM Tank 300 appeals to you, check out the latest addition to the Tank range which is a version with a plug-in hybrid driveline. CarsGuide recently tested the new Tank 300 and recorded fuel consumption of 8.5 litres per 100km in the sort of rural driving you’ve described. That’s hardly a guzzler considering the Tank 300 is a very capable off-roader and will take the rough stuff easily in its stride.

Even better is that you can charge the Tank up overnight and get something like the first 100km of your journey on electricity alone, meaning you’d only be running the petrol engine for half of your daily round trip.

It’s not uncommon for owners of new vehicles with dual-clutch transmissions and throttle-by-wire to technology to feel a bit at odds with the way the car behaves. The feeling of a stilted, hesitant operation mirrors your experience to some degree. Over time, this sensation can be reduced. But it sounds as though your experience is a bit more dramatic than the norm.

In the first instance, give the dealer the opportunity to check the car out and make it right if there’s a problem. Modern vehicles like this can be scanned and the operation of their major functions graphed to show whether they’re within tolerance or not. There may be a software 'patch' in the works at Haval to address this.

If that doesn’t satisfy you, you can contact Haval Australia’s customer service department and lodge a complaint. Finally, if none of that does any good, you can contact the ACCC as a car sold brand-new that is not fit for purpose falls within the commission’s sphere of influence. You may find an independent test report of the vehicle’s behaviour would be a handy thing to have if you go down this route.

A $200 aftermarket throttle controller may, indeed, produce a vehicle you are happier to drive, but you should definitely check with Haval first to see if there are any warranty concerns in fitting such a device. Some advertisers of these devices claim there is no warranty issue, given that Haval would need to prove the throttle controller was the cause of any mechanical issues in the future. We’d still check with Haval before committing, however.

A lot of car owners would be horrified at the thought of having to top up their engine oil between services. But the reality is, all car engines use at least a tiny amount of oil. It’s just part of how an engine works.

There are other factors, too, including the extended oil change intervals we’re seeing these days as car-makers try to drive down servicing costs and down-time. But some modern engines also use what are referred to as low-friction piston rings. These don’t exert so much force against the cylinder walls during the engine’s operation to reduce internal friction and, as a result, can contribute to noticeably lower fuel consumption. The flipside is that these low-tension rings can also contribute to an engine using a bit more oil.

Haval specifies an engine oil change every 12 months or 15,000km whichever comes first, and that’s a pretty decent length of time (and distance) to go without servicing. So full marks to you for keeping your eye on the dipstick and knowing when the level is dropping.

The general view in the trade is that the oil you use to top up should be a fully synthetic 5W30, but you really need to find out what oil Haval put in it at the last service. That’s because you don’t really want to mix oils as different brands have different additive packages that may not necessarily be compatible with other brands.

I’m not sure the 'vents' you’re looking at in the luggage compartment are actually air vents. The five-seat Jolion has air vents in the rear of the centre console for back seat passengers, but since there’s no third row of seats, there’s no need for vents in the cargo area. Even if they were fitted, they’d direct air from the air-conditioning unit, not the outside where they could funnel rainwater inside.

A tail-light seal is a common source for boot leaks, though, so maybe it’s worth checking this again as the new seal may have been damaged when it was being fitted. But the real culprit is likely to be the rubber seal around the tailgate opening. This seal occupies a huge surface area, and even something is simple as a tiny scrap of fluff or a stray leaf or twig stuck to the rubber can cause a leak into the car.

The best way to chase a leak like this is to put somebody inside the cargo area with a torch, while you hose off the car’s exterior. Be sure to hose down the whole car (not just the area in question) as water leaks have a clever habit of starting in one spot and ending up in another. Hopefully, your observer will be able to spot where the water is entering the boot, and from there, you can home in on the leak.

Car makers have responsibilities in this scenario, but so do car owners. In a nutshell, the law says that you have to give car maker ample opportunity to make things right when there’s a catastrophic failure like yours. And, to be honest, it sounds like that’s what’s happening here with Haval agreeing to replace the entire engine, presumably at its own cost as a warranty job.

The tricky part is making everybody happy and, sometimes, that is difficult if there are not enough loan cars to go around. Perhaps you could approach Haval Australia’s customer service department and suggest a hire car until yours is fixed, but in most cases, there’s no specific warranty-claim allowance for this.

Don’t even bother trying to fix this important safety feature yourself. Instead, take the vehicle to the dealer you bought it from, as this is a classic warranty job. Plenty of makes and models have problems with camera systems either freezing or shutting down, and sometimes it’s as simple as a dirty lens on the camera.

But, in reality, a 360-degree camera system is a pretty complex piece of gear and needs to be tackled by the experts, especially given its importance to the vehicle’s safety.

If you are determined to fiddle with it yourself, sometimes a reset of the car’s body computer will do the trick. Leave the car’s battery disconnected overnight and reconnect it in the morning. Sometimes this will reset things back to factory settings and the camera (and other functions) will magically come back to life.

Sometimes, all it takes to inject a bit of gearshift movement into a car is a slightly worn gear-selector linkage. Wear in one of the many joints can translate as movement or vibration, along with a rattling noise as company. Is it possible the ticking noise is this rattle? If this is the case, then the linkages can be replaced usually quite easily without touching anything else on the transmission.

Another possibility would be a worn engine or transmission mount that is allowing the entire transmission to flail about under the car (particularly when the driveline moves from loaded to unloaded - ie; when the driver is on and off the throttle) when it should be held firmly by the mount. Again, this is not a huge problem to fix in most cases.

If you’re unlucky, the problem might be something actually inside the transmission, at which point the repair gets a lot more complex and usually involves removing the transmission for a mechanic to check inside. The fact that both fifth and sixth gear are the problems, suggests you may have internal gearbox wear on those two gears or the shaft that carries them, but a check up at a transmission specialist should be your next move.

You’ve hit the nail on the head when you confirm that the vehicle is still within its warranty period (provided the vehicle has been serviced correctly). That means you need to make this Haval’s problem and not yours.

There are many, many things that can cause a transmission to behave like this, starting with low fluid level and ending with complete catastrophic failure. But if you ignore this problem, it could easily morph into a bigger, even more expensive fault. Take the car to the dealership you bought it from and give the service manager the full run-down on what’s going on and when. From there, it should be possible for Haval to identify the cause and fix it as a warranty issue.

Even if it’s not fixed immediately, the fact that you’ve reported it to Haval means it’s then a pre-existing condition and remains a warranty issue even if the warranty was to run out in the meantime.

GWM is unlikely to replace your hybrid battery, because under the terms and conditions, the car is now out of factory warranty. The problem is that the car has been used as a ride-share vehicle, at which point GWM’s factory warranty drops from eight years and unlimited kilometres to eight years and 150,000km. So, on the basis of distance travelled and the car being used for ride-share duties, you’re around 20,000km over the warranty limit.

You can certainly contact GWM’s Australian customer service department and plead your case, but on the face of it, your car is out of warranty and GWM has no obligation to help with repairs or costs.

This is a relatively common annoyance for many owners of different makes and models, not just Havals. It’s caused by the automatic shut-off mechanism on the bowser’s nozzle thinking that the tank is full and it need to shut off to avoid overfilling and a spill.

It’s not actually a fault with your car (although some makes and models do seem worse than other) and is actually more to do with the bowser.

To get around it, you can either fill very slowly (as you’ve discovered) but you can also try inserting the nozzle by a different amount until you find the sweet spot where the fuel flows freely into the tank. The other trick picked up over the years is to insert the nozzle and then give it a quarter of a turn so that the fuel is hitting a different part of the car’s filler neck (which may not cause the same problem). You could also try a different service station to see if its nozzles alleviate the problem to some degree.