Holden Problems

If the problem goes away when you restart the car, it’s reasonable to assume that there’s something electronic that’s responding to the rest, or there’s something like a crank angle sensor that is getting hot, delivering bad information to the computer and then working fine again once it’s cooled down.

Have you had the vehicle scanned for fault codes? This should probably be your next step rather than simply changing more components that don’t turn out to be the problem. Meantime, don’t rule out things like the spark-plug leads or even a failing fuel pump. How about something from left-field. I’ve personally seen a dirty fuel filter allow a car to run perfectly for the first 10 kilometres, until the gunk built up on the filter element and stopped the fuel flow. Switching the engine off and then back on again, allowed all the rubbish to fall away from the element and the car would be perfect for another 10km. Until it wasn’t.

Just because you can’t see where coolant is escaping, doesn’t mean it isn’t. Equally, a lack of milky oil in the sump does not guarantee that the problem is not a head gasket-related one. Even an external leak from a hose or fitting can be hard to track down as the hot coolant evaporates before you have time to find the witness mark or the coolant drips on the garage floor.

Your best bet is to have the car’s cooling system pressure tested. A mechanic will pressurise the system and leave it for a period of time. If the system holds pressure, that’s a good sign that there’s no leaking. If it loses pressure, you have a problem somewhere in the closed-loop cooling system. That could indicate a problem with a radiator, hose, water pump, head gasket or even a split bore or cracked cylinder head.

But there’s one other check to make that might save you a lot of time and hassle. Takle a close look at the car’s overflow tank. This is also called the expansion tank and is designed to catch coolant as it expands (through engine heat) before allowing that extra coolant to return to the engine as the car cools down at the end of the trip. If this tank is leaking (even from a tiny crack) coolant that expands into it will be lost and the cooling system will appear to be continually losing coolant.

This is not an uncommon problem with the head unit in a lot of makes and models. Like any other computer-driven piece of equipment, they have a finite lifespan and, once they’re done, they’re usually done for good. That’s why the dealer would be recommending to replace the unit rather than tyring to fix the one you have.

What a lot of people do is that this opportunity to upgrade to a newer, better head unit with better sound, better connectivity and more up to date apps. There’s loads of choice in the aftermarket and you can spend as little or as much as you want. Many owners also use this as a chance to upgrade speakers and perhaps add a sub-woofer or extra amplifier for much better sound. And you’re right; if the original unit died, a replacement of the same type may well have the same problems.

Noises are impossible to diagnose without actually hearing them. So you need to take the vehicle to a mechanic and get the car to produce the noise you’re reporting. That may involve leaving it overnight or otherwise reproducing the circumstances under which it misbehaves. Experienced mechanics can often tell whether a noise is important or just wear and tear, and act accordingly.

For the record, your mystery noise could be anything from a worn turbocharger, a sticking hydraulic lifter, piston slap, bearing knock or even something as weird as a loose baffle in the exhaust system. All these things can manifest as random and metallic noises, and they range from simple to catastrophic in magnitude.

This is really backwards, isn’t it? The ice warning is designed to alert the driver to road conditions cold enough for ice to form and cause a skidding risk. But in your case, the opposite is happening and the car thinks it’s freezing outside whenever the temperature creeps up to 28. This would make most mechanics think that the temperature sensor that reads the ambient temperature has gone haywire and is telling the onboard computer lies.

Either that, or the vehicle is selecting the ice and snow driving mode on its own behalf, and that’s what’s limiting your engine speed. That wouldn’t be dependent on the ambient temperature reaching 28 degrees, however. But if the ice and snow driving mode is part of the problem, you could have a faulty switch or even a problem with the car’s body computer. An auto electrician is your best bet.

This could simply be a case of the engine’s idle speed being set too low. If that’s the case, even though it’s firing on all four cylinders, it can feel rough and lumpy as though there’s something major wrong. Then, as you increase the revs, the engine smooths out and feels normal again. Even a worn or broken engine mount can amplify vibrations at idle, as can an exhaust leak.

A good mechanic will be able to tell you quickly whether this is the case or if, in fact, the engine really is dropping a cylinder at idle. If the latter is the case, you may have a dud spark plug, ignition wire, sensor or even a blocked or dirty fuel filter. Again, most mechanics won’t have a problem tracking this one down.

Regardless of whether you use an additive, a car’s Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) will still need to be cleaned (or regenerated) periodically as soot builds up in it. Short trips where the engine doesn’t get a chance to warm up properly, as well as extended periods of idling in traffic and stop-start running will all hasten this requirement.

In the case of the Captiva diesel, the best way to manually force a regeneration is to put aside an hour and go for a decent drive. The advice from Holden in the day was to travel at more than 50km/h and at more than 2000rpm (which may mean locking the car out of overdrive) for a minimum of 25 minutes. During this process, you should not allow the speed or revs to fall below those two figures which suggests finding a decent strip of freeway to carry out this process. You should also not turn off the engine at any point in this procedure.

The broad idea is to get the engine and exhaust hot enough for the filter to regenerate and clean itself. Experience suggests a couple of attempts may be needed to get this to happen as it should, and in fact, the car’s computer will give you several chances to produce the desired effect before the workshop beckons.

If, after 100km of this type of treatment, the DPF light on the dashboard hasn’t disappeared, the solution is a trip to a workshop to have the filter investigated and, potentially, hand-cleaned. Also, a mechanic can initiate a DPF regeneration via a scanning tool.

You have a few choices here, but all of them involve replacing the broken handles rather than trying to fix them. Your first option is to find one of the remaining Holden dealers out there and order genuine replacements. The second is to find a parts recycler (a wrecking yard as they were once known) and harvest a set of door handles from a wrecked Captiva.

The other option is to find an online seller with brand-new or second-hand replacements (lots of parts recyclers also have online stores). You can order them and have them delivered, usually within a few days if it’s an Australian-based seller. Just remember to specify the handles that incorporate the keyless-entry button.

For a start, you might find it’s neither of those things causing the noise. You may have a worn tyre, poor wheel alignment or a faulty brake, to name just a few possibilities. That said, both your suspects are likely contributors to this type of noise.

In any case, there’s a simple way to tell whether a noise is coming from the driveline (engine and transmission) or from one of the wheel bearings. Drive the car at whatever speed is necessary to make the noise appear. If it gets louder as you apply throttle, there’s a good chance it’s driveline related.

But now, with the car still making the offending noise, drop the transmission into neutral (where it’s safe to do so, of course) and let the vehicle coast. This takes all the stress off the driveline and the engine should return to idle. If the noise is still present, then you have a wheel bearing or other problem linked to the wheels, brakes or axles, but not the engine or gearbox.

This is actually quite normal and nothing to be concerned about. If the engine temperature is high enough, the computer will continue to run the cooling fan even though the ignition has been turned off. This helps keep the temperature from spiking when the vehicle stops and is turned off.

Even though this only really lowers the temperature of the coolant in the radiator (not in the actual engine) it also helps to maintain a constant, safe temperature if you restart the car soon after shutting it down.

That said, the fan should only continue running for a couple of minutes at most after you’ve turned the car off. Any longer and you might have a problem with the circuits that power and control the electric fan.