Holden Barina Problems

The Barina is fitted with a safety device that prevents you from removing the key from the ignition when the engine is running or when Park is not engaged. To remove the key you have to put the auto trans into Park and switch off the engine. According to Holden this is to prevent the car rolling away in the event you leave the car parked on a slope without the handbrake being applied. Holden advises it is a common feature on all cars sourced from Opel, like the Barina. As for premium unleaded, I wouldn't waste your money. Your car is tuned to run on regular unleaded and that will be fine.

Reliability and resale should be the key factors in your decision, given you're doing about 30,000km a year. That's considerably more than the average, and in three years you'd be clocking up close to 100,000km. With that in mind I suggest you go for a Japanese brand with a reputation for quality and reliability. That way you are more likely to have a trouble-free run and have a car that will be highly valued on the used-car market when you come to sell it. The Lanos and Accent are both built in Korea by companies whose credo was cheap, cheap, cheap. While the reliability of their products wasn't necessarily poor, their cars weren't built as well as their more expensive Japanese-made rivals. The Korean makes don't hold their values as well as the cars from Toyota, Mazda, Honda and Nissan. I'd consider a Nissan Pulsar, a Mazda 121, Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla, all of which are good, robust cars with good resale potential.

Some AM stations don't have a very strong signal and that, in combination with the tiny roof-mounted antenna on the Barina, leads to problems. The longer the antenna the better the reception, but modern cars don't have long antennas that would solve your problem. It would be worth checking the antenna connections and mountings again to make sure water hasn't got in. And check the signal amplifier at the base of the antenna. Finally, unscrew the antenna, insert a coat hanger in its place and check the reception with that. If it improves the problem is with the antenna, so see if you can find a longer antenna.