Holden Barina Engine Problems

First thoughts are that the stepper-motor (which controls the idle speed) is faulty. That would explain both the high idle at low engine temps and the stalling and stumbling as you roll to a stop. This component is really just a small electric motor and shouldn't be too expensive to replace.

But have the car scanned first to make sure there are no other obvious causes for this behaviour. A faulty engine temperature sensor or some other small component could also produce these symptoms.

This generation of Holden engines was prone to failure of the crankcase ventilation valve (PCV). When it failed, it caused a vacuum leak in the engine that could easily cause rough running and hard starting. It would also possibly trigger a check-engine light.

Depending on the model and year of the car, you might be able to fit a replacement PCV, but sometimes the solution was to replace the entire rocker cover assembly, which included the valve in question. In many cases, the valve failure was accompanied by a failed rocker cover gasket that leaked oil on to the spark plugs, making the car run even more erratically. Don’t be tempted to try a second-hand PCV from a wrecked Barina. The chances are every high that it’s PCV will be trashed, too.

If the fluid in question was fuel, you have a petrol leak and a big opportunity for the engine to catch fire. If it was water, it could be condensation from the atmosphere or perhaps even residual water from when you last washed the car. If not, the water could have come from the car’s cooling system, at which point you have a coolant leak and that needs to be fixed before the engine overheats. If the fluid was oil, suspicions would be a leaking rocker cover gasket.

Fundamentally, there shouldn’t be any unexplained fluids in the engine bay or on the engine, and if there are, something is probably leaking. By the way, the fluid you notice could have actually been the cause of the misfire; spark plugs can misfire if they’re in contact with water or, especially, oil.

My money’s on the fluid, indeed, being oil. The park plugs on this engine are located deep inside the rocker cover. Any leak from the gasket on that cover allows the oil to pool in the spark plug tube, which means it’s a fair chance this is the cause of your misfire, too.

The answer to this will depend on exactly which model Barina you have. In some models (typically earlier ones) the code is simply a servicing reminder to make sure the owner knows maintenance is due.

But in some versions of the Barina of this era, fault code 89 usually relates to a problem with the car’s thermostat. So don’t drive it any farther as the faulty thermostat could cause the engine to overheat with catastrophic results. Have a mechanic check things out and see if the thermostat is indeed faulty. If it is, it’s a relatively cheap fix, certainly compared with the cost of a new engine.

Sometimes the code relates to a switch in the thermostat that is responsible for switching on the car’s electric fans, but either way, it could lead to overheating. Don’t ignore it in any case.

The thing with problems like these is that you could be looking at a single fault or a group of problems that are each giving you a different symptom. Something could be getting hot in the engine management system that is causing the vehicle to shut down, and a good place to start looking would be the crank-angle sensor. When these get hot, they stop sending a critical signal to the engine’s computer and it just shuts down. After a short cool-down period, the sensor can often come back to life and away you go again.

Meantime, a stuttering idle and inconsistent engine speed on start-up would make a lot of mechanics check out the stepper motor which is part of the throttle mechanism and is responsible for setting the idle speed and allowing the engine to start.

Has your mechanic scanned the car or simply done a few basic checks? An electronic scan should be your next step if it hasn’t already been done.

There are literally hundreds of reasons for a modern car to simply refuse to start. However, there’s one way to perhaps tell if the starter motor is the problem or not: When you turn the key, does the engine crank over? If it does, regardless of whether it starts or not, then the starter motor would appear to be fine.

If the engine doesn’t crank, the starter motor might still be okay, but you might have a flat battery or an electrical problem. Even a problem with the automatic gear selector (in the switch that that prevents the engine being started in gear) can cause a no-crank situation even though the starter motor itself is fine.

A good mechanic should be able to run a few tests and figure out pretty quickly what’s going on and what’s wrong. They will check the fuel system, ignition system and, of course, the starting system, and work it out from there.

The first thing to determine is whether the engine is actually getting hot. You need to find a mechanic who can tell the difference between a genuinely hot engine and one that is crying wolf. Most times, this will involve letting the engine idle until the warning light comes on and then checking the actual temperature of the coolant. This is usually done via a trusted thermometer (infra-red thermometers are great for this) checking the temperature of the coolant in the radiator's top tank.

If the engine really is hot, then you're looking for a mechanical problem. But if the temperature is within a normal range, then you need to start looking for a dud temperature sensor, faulty gauge/light or a problem with the car's wiring. This can be a lot harder to find than you might think, but driving around with a temperature warning flashing is no good either.

What make you think it’s the MAF (Mass Air Flow) sensor? If you’ve simply googled the symptoms and found a forum that suggests the MAF sensor, be very careful. These forums are not universally populated by people who have the first idea of what they’re talking about. True, some forums are great and wise, but simply pulling an answer out of a hat without even seeing the car is a road to nowhere in many cases.

It's also why the advice we’d have to give is to have the car looked at by a professional who will probably start by electronically scanning the car to see what fault codes have been logged by the computer. It’s possible the MAF sensor is, indeed, the problem, but it could also be about a thousand other things that need to be ruled out before you start spending money on new parts that may or may not solve your problem. The fact is, these symptoms could be anything from a dud spark plug to a loose wire, either of which would cost a lot less to fix than fitting a new MAF sensor.

It won't be the sump itself disintegrating, but my guess is that somebody who has changed the oil in the past has over-tightened the drain plug when they've replaced it. That stretches the threads on what is often a relatively soft metal and, as a result, the threads have broken away from the rest of the oil pan as you've tightened the plug.

This is actually more common than you think and happens because people don't stop to think about how much force they use when they replace the plug. While it's true that you don't want the plug undoing itself while you're driving, it's also the case that all that sump plug has to do is keep the oil inside the engine. It serves no other purpose and simply doesn't need to be too tight. Sometimes, home mechanics ignore the need to replace the crush washer on this plug with the result that they then notice an oil a leak a few days later. That's when they'll reach for the big spanner and try to tighten the sump plug some more to stop the leak. And that's when the threads break away and they're in the position you now find yourself.

The solution is to get the vehicle to a workshop (you may have to tow it as it can't be driven with no oil in the engine) which should be able to drill the hole in the sump to the next over-size and fit a slightly larger, new sump plug. It's tricky though, as you don't want to allow swarf (little metal filings from the drilling process) into the engine where they'll damage those expensive internal parts.

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.