Holden Colorado Problems

Modern common-rail diesel engines with their sophisticated, multi-pump fuel systems and high-pressure injectors can stop in their tracks for any number of reasons, not all of them electrical. You could start by checking the battery and the charge-rate from the alternator (if the engine will restart). But you also really need to be checking the fuel system and the obvious stuff such as a dud ignition barrel that’s shutting everything down. A simple fuse or relay that controls the fuel pump system could have failed, too, with similar results.

The absolute best advice is to have the vehicle electronically scanned at a workshop with this type of diagnostic gear. By having the vehicle tell you what’s wrong with it, you’ll save a whole lot of time and money replacing random bits and pieces, hoping that you’ve identified the culprit.

Your problem could well be torque converter-related, but it could also be something else inside the transmission. The fact that the transmission will not shift back out of sixth gear even going uphill, suggests that there’s – in theory least – a problem with the electronics or hydraulics that control the shifting patterns. That the transmission is also shuddering is either a symptom caused by the same problem, or a result of a second fault in the unit.

It always raises suspicions when a problem crops up just after a vehicle has been serviced, and sometimes that suspicion is well placed. Have you double-checked the level of fluid in the transmission since it was flushed and refilled? Incorrect fluid levels can cause the sorts of problems you’re seeing. So can the incorrect grade of type of fluid used. You should check both these things first and move on from there if they check out okay.

This is a weird one. I spoke to two different Holden service workshops (former Holden dealers) and the consensus was that the reverse lights on your car are not on a separate fused circuit. Certainly there’s no mention of such a fuse in the owner’s manual. That means, then, that the reverse lights share a circuit with other functions at the rear of the vehicles, possibly the tail-light circuit. Beyond that, nobody could be specific.

In turn, that suggests that it’s not the fuse at fault because, if it was, the whole rear of the vehicle would be blacked-out. Which brings us to the possibility that the problem, rather than being a blown fuse, is rather the adjustment of the switch that recognises the car is in reverse and turns on the lights and camera. This is located on the side of the transmission and, if it’s out of alignment or showing wear in its contacts or wiring, could lead to the problem you have.

A minor increase in noise when shifting to four-wheel-drive is quite a normal thing to happen. By selecting four-wheel-drive, you’re suddenly engaging the transfer-case output shaft, the front differential and the front driveshafts. So, fundamentally, there’s a lot more mechanical stuff happening, and that’s probably what you’re hearing.

But the change in noise shouldn’t be a huge one, nor should it involve a high-volume noise of any kind. If there’s something screeching, grinding or knocking when the vehicle is in four-wheel-drive, then there’s probably something wrong with the driveline. If the noises are loud or nasty, then you need to have the vehicle inspected to find the cause and fix it before it causes more damage.

It all depends on what parts of the suspension the workshop is telling you is worn out. If the strut tops or suspension-arm bushes are worn out, or there’s a problem with the ball-joints or tie-rod ends being too worn, then there’s certainly the chance that there’s insufficient adjustment within the system to return your wheel alignment settings to their correct spec. Even a worn out wheel bearing can cause all sorts of wheel-alignment issues.

Just because you haven’t felt the problem, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. These issues develop gradually and we don’t always notice the small changes week to week until they become a bigger problem.

If, however, you genuinely think the tyre shop is trying to rip you off, you can have the car independently inspected to see if you’re being told the truth. Your state motoring club should be able to help here. Sadly, some of the bigger car-repair retailers have been caught loading up a customer’s repair quote in the past, and consumers need to be on the lookout for these bogus `faults’ that will be added to the bill. We’re definitely not tarring all big chain retailers with the same brush, but it’s something to be aware of.

Vibrations through a car at varying speeds or throttle position can be an indication of wheel imbalance, poor wheel alignment, worn suspension parts, a damaged tyre, bent wheel rim, a driveshaft or CV joint problem, engine misfire, gearbox of differential issue, over-tight brake, worn brake drum or rotor and perhaps a million other things.

If the problem is worse since the new engine was fitted, I’d be looking at things like engine mounts which can wear and even fail, leading to a vibration or wobble throughout the whole car.

But if the bull-bar is wobbling in sympathy, don’t rule out a loose bolt(s) in the bull-bar mounts which are allowing it to flop about and send a shiver through the rest of the car. Even a blob of mud stuck in the inside of a wheel rim can be enough to imbalance that wheel and produce the same effect when the particular harmonics of slowing down enter the equation.

You could start with the engine mounts and work your way backwards along the driveline, looking for worn couplings, U-bolts and universal joints. If you have a Go-Pro camera, maybe mounting that under the car and reviewing the footage afterward might give you a clue as to what’s causing the wobble. Having the wheels and tyres balanced would be another relatively inexpensive way of ruling out one possibility.

You’re on the right track by asking about the gear-stick and its linkages; either of those two things is almost certain to be the cause of your problem. The gearstick itself needs to pivot in two planes, so there’s always scope for wear to develop in those joints and create the sloppy shift action you’re experiencing. In fact, because the shifter on your car bolts directly on to the gearbox – with no external linkages – wear in the shifter pivots is a very good bet as the cause.

You can remove the shift lever, take it apart and replace the bushes that allow the shifter to move and select each gear. That should tighten up the shift action and give you much better feel for what’s going on. The other possibility is that the shifter has become loose where it bolts on to the gearbox, or the rubber gasket that sits between the shifter and the transmission has perished or failed, allowing movement to occur.

If replacing the actual sensor doesn’t fix the problem, then you could be looking at a problem with the wiring that connects that oxygen sensor to the car’s on-board computer. Did the mechanic that changed the sensor check the condition of the wiring? This equipment all lives very close to a very hot exhaust system, so damage from that is not unknown.

There’s also a chance that the computer itself is throwing up a bogus fault code when it’s interrogated. Temporarily swapping the computer for another one is a reasonably simple way to rule this out. There’s also a chance (and it’s more common than you might imagine) that the brand new oxygen sensor you had fitted was a dud straight out of the box. This has definitely been known to happen, and it’s the first thing some experienced mechanics will think to check.

There’s a chance that the battery is old enough that it won’t hold charge for long, so a check of the battery’s general health would be the first step here. Beyond that, conventional wisdom holds that there’s something in the car that’s staying on even though the ignition switch is off, and that’s what’s draining the battery.

But before drawing the latter conclusion, attend to the basics: Make sure the battery terminals are clean and tight and test the vehicle with the engine running to make sure the alternator is, in fact, charging the battery at the correct rate. Most tradesmen agree that something between 13.5 and 14.5 volts at a fast idle is about right for the alternator. While the voltmeter is hooked up, turn on the headlights and make sure that the alternator keeps up. If the voltage drops during this stress test, you could have a dodgy regulator.

If that all checks out, the usual suspects here become a stereo (particularly an aftermarket one) or an alarm system (ditto) that is draining the battery. Make sure that the ignition switch is, indeed, turning everything off and then go back and check the car in the dark to see if there’s a courtesy light or underbonnet light that’s still on and slowly sending the battery flat.

If nothing sticks out as being wrong, the next step would be to take to the car to an auto electrician who can use a multi-meter to check each circuit in the car individually until they find the one that’s energised when it shouldn’t be. It doesn’t take a huge current draw to flatten a battery or at least take it to the point where it will no longer start the car.

Ignoring this will not only eventually leave you stranded, it will send your battery to an early grave as batteries don’t appreciate being flattened over and over again.

A better idea would be to fix the sensor that’s creating the false alarms. That will probably be simpler and quicker than finding the right wire to cut or fuse to pull out, as well as maintaining the car’s legality. A car that doesn’t have all its safety equipment functioning properly is, technically, unroadworthy and if that fault can be blamed for any injury in a crash, then you could be in real trouble in a legal and insurance sense.

Don’t forget, too, that a car such as yours will usually have a sensor to determine whether the seat-belt is secured and another to determine if the passenger’s seat is occupied. Either of those could conceivably be causing your false alarm.