2015 Holden Barina Pricing and Specs

Let me guess: Your car is white, yes? This has been a real problem, not just for Holden, but also Toyota, Kia, Hyundai and even Honda (and possibly others) around the world. The problem is a chemical one in the white paint being used and it leads to delamination of the paint layers, with the white top coat either flaking, chipping or peeling off in great swathes.

Even some other colours have been noted succumbing to this process, but white seems to be the worst offender. Whether the problem is with the car’s preparation at the factory a function of a poor batch of paint from the supplier isn’t really known, but the finger is being pointed at the latter. Either way, it effectively destroys the resale value of your car as well as laying the car’s structure open to the elements.

The best advice is to contact Holden’s customer service department and perhaps even have the car professionally inspected (your state motoring club is a good place to start here). In the past, carmakers have been known to repaint affected cars at their own cost which, given your car’s garage history, shouldn’t be out of the question.

This is not a good sign and suggests that you have a fairly major engine problem. Sometimes this can be caused by an automatic transmission’s oil cooler having split and emptying transmission fluid (oil) into the radiator’s coolant. If that’s the case, the transmission will also probably be damaged both mechanically and electronically.

Other causes are a catastrophic failure of the engine crankcase or – not quite as serious – a blown cylinder head gasket. But in either of these cases, the engine will need major repairs. The cost of which may exceed the actual value of the car.

Depending on the severity of the problem, a recycled, second-hand engine from a wrecked Barina of the same model might be a better option.

First things first: If you can smell coolant when the engine is warmed up (or any other time) then you have a leak somewhere. Coolant leaks can be hard to spot as they are not always large and are often located in weird, hard to see places. But if you can smell it, it’s escaping the cooling system somewhere and you need to locate it and fix it.

If you have a slow leak, it’s possible you could drive for weeks without the car overheating, but eventually the engine will start to notice the low coolant level and run hotter as a result. Get it fixed now before you damage the engine. You should be fine to use a bit of tap-water (which will dilute the coolant in the rest of the system) until the leak is found, but don’t leave tap-water (or an incorrect or diluted mixture of water and coolant) in the radiator for the long term.

As for the brakes, the problem does, indeed, sound like warped rotors. Sometimes these can be machined back to true, but often they need to be replaced. Either way, replacing the brake pads at the same time is best practice. Worn pads on new rotors can make those nice, new rotors wear faster than they should.