Holden Problems

Any time you have a soft brake pedal, you also have the potential for sudden brake failure. On that basis, you really shouldn’t drive this car anywhere, just in case the entire system decides to fail at the worst possible moment.

Meantime, the noise you’re hearing could be the sound of a leaking brake booster which is losing vacuum and, therefore, braking pressure. But if that was the case, you’d expect the brake pedal to go hard and require more effort to push it, not the other way around.

In many cases, a soft brake pedal is an indication of air in the system. The system should be full of brake fluid, not a combination of fluid and air. That’s because brake fluid is incompressible and, therefore, transfers all the braking force to the brake pads and rotors, stopping the car effectively. Air, on the other hand, is very compressible, and its presence will take away the brakes’ efficiency leading to the soft pedal you’re feeling. But it’s not just a soft pedal; you’ll also experience longer stopping distances and less outright braking power when you need it in an emergency.

Your car may need a brake overhaul, new brake fluid or perhaps just a process called bleeding (where the air is removed from the system). Either way, don’t drive it any farther.

A cracked turbocharger intake pipe is a pretty common problem as this tubing has to withstand high temperatures and the force of the turbo’s boost. You really wouldn’t bother trying to fix this, and a replacement piece of tubing is the proper fix.

Just make sure you get the right piece of tubing as there are different pipes of different shapes that run between the turbocharger and intercooler, and the intercooler and the engine. It’s quite possible to change these yourself, but modern engine bays can be pretty tight and you might find it’s a fiddlier job than you imagined.

While you’re in there, check the condition of the clamps that secure the tubing, too. You may wish to replace them at the same time. I’ve seen replacement pipe kits for anywhere from $200 to $300 for this make and model. Online sellers are plentiful, but conventional parts stores should also be able to help you out.

This model Cruze used a toothed rubber timing belt, rather than a timing chain. Holden recommended the belt be changed at 90,000km intervals. It’s not a job to ignore, either, as a snapped timing belt will often turn the engine to junk in an instant.

Yes, like the vast majority of dual-cab utes sold in Australia, the Holden Rodeo was indeed built in Thailand, at the Isuzu plant (the Rodeo was an Isuzu D-Max under the skin apart from the petrol V6 version which used a Holden-made engine). But diesel Rodeos used the Isuzu 4JJ1 four-cylinder diesel which used a timing chain rather than a rubber toothed timing belt. As such, the chain should be good for the life of the engine.

What you haven’t told me is whether your car is a petrol or diesel Captiva. The two engines have very different ways of operating and both can make very different noises depending on what’s going on with them.

Diesel engines often have a fair bit of fuel pump noise which can increase as the car travels more kilometres and the pump develops a bit of wear. But whichever engine we’re dealing with, if the noise is at idle, then you’d really want to check the engine’s oil pressure. Oil pressure is lowest at idle, and low oil pressure can cause noises from the hydraulic lifters and even the engine’s crankshaft and pistons. Neither of those are what you want to hear, though, as they suggests some fairly major internal wear or damage.

That the shudder only occurs in fifth gear is, perhaps, the big clue here. If the problem was an engine mount or drive-shaft or suspension problem, the shudder would appear at those same engine revs or road speed, regardless of what gear the car had selected. So maybe you need to dig a bit deeper into the transmission to see if there’s a problem with the torque converter, the way the converter lock-up is working or even a problem with the gearset itself that offers up fifth gear. This is, of course, if the vehicle is an automatic (which you haven’t disclosed).

If it’s a manual, then fifth gear is the overdrive ratio for that gearbox and some Colorados were fitted with five-speed manuals that had a problem with the thrust washer on fifth gear. This washer could fracture if the vehicle was used for towing heavy loads. When the washer finally failed, the vehicle could jump out of fifth gear and actually lock up the rear wheels. Back in the day, Holden was actually replacing the entire gearbox if the vehicle was one of the affected ones. It would be worth checking with a Holden service centre to see if your vehicle is from that batch.

What’s probably happened is that the battery of the vehicle has been disconnected as part of the repair process (perhaps there was some welding done, or the workshop disconnected the battery while waiting for parts to arrive). In the process, the radio’s stored stations have been lost.

This is a pretty common problem in most cars that have had their battery disconnected for any length of time, and it requires you to retune the radio to store your favourite stations. If the stereo unit is the one that came with the car from the factory, the owner’s manual should detail how to store your stations, but if the stereo is an aftermarket one, you’ll need to find the instruction sheet, or just wing it until you work out the process.

In some vehicles, you’ll also need to find the radio’s security code and key that in before the unit will even switch on.

There’s a very real chance that in getting the headlight globe out and a new one in, you’ve somehow managed to bump the indicator light fitting and, perhaps, dislodged a wire or displaced an earthing point. The lights on the Captiva are housed in a cluster, so it can be a bit tight for space in there.

So give the indicator globe a wiggle and see if that restores things. If not, you need to look a bit deeper and start checking fuses. But if the rest of the indicators are working properly, it’s most likely that you’ve knocked a wire off or something similar. Either that or the indicator globe has chosen that exact moment to blow. It sounds unlikely, but it’s definitely possible.

Basically, the light is telling you that there’s something wrong with the car’s driveline and that you need to have it checked out before the problem does any permanent damage. This can be taken care of at a workshop that has the correct scanning tools.

Possible causes are numerous, but can include a dud sensor, a bad earth, wiring problems, damaged exhaust or any one of about a thousand engine or transmission glitches. Don’t bother trying to guess the reason, have the car electronically scanned and home in on the actual problem that way.

It sounds like there’s some kind of problem with the way you have the wiring loom hooked up. One wire in the wrong spot can cause all sorts of mayhem, even in an older car like yours with its relatively wimple wiring. Grab a circuit diagram and try to find out which wire is connected to the wrong terminal.

The other possibility is that the actual light switch has failed internally, allowing the wrong wires to contact each other, or causing them to fail to connect altogether. If you can’t figure it out, it should be a fairly simple and quick fix for an auto electrician to sort.