Holden Problems

The biggest potential repair cost for this make and model would probably be the replacement of the engine’s timing chains. These were of poor design and quality from the start and many Commodore V6s of this era have suffered stretched chains which require replacement. It’s not a cheap job, either, and you should budget for at least a couple of thousand dollars. While the vehicle in question has covered low kilometres, the health or otherwise of its timing chains will be down to how well it’s been serviced over the years. Any skipped servicing makes it a ticking time bomb in this regard. But even well maintained vehicles have experienced the same problem.

I’d be taking the vehicle to a transmission specialist (as opposed to a general workshop). A good transmission expert will be able to tell you a lot about the condition of your gearbox by giving it a once over. That will include an examination of the level and condition of the fluid as well as an inspection of the contents of the transmission filter which can offer up an enormous amount of detail on what’s happening inside the gearbox.

When was the last time the transmission was serviced? The fluid in these units is a bit like the oil in your engine; left unchanged for too long, it will degrade and won’t be able to do its job which, in the case of an automatic transmission, includes both lubricating the unit as well as providing the actual driving force to turn your car’s wheels. If your problem was intermittent or was solved (even temporarily) by switching the engine off and back on again, then I’d be inclined to suspect an electronic or sensor problem. But since the problem only happens when the transmission gets hot, it does sound potentially mechanical in nature.

The biggest potential repair cost for this make and model would probably be the replacement of the engine's timing chains. These were of poor design and quality from the start and many Commodore V6s of this era have suffered stretched chains which require replacement. It's not a cheap job, either, and you should budget for at least a couple of thousand dollars. While the vehicle in question has covered low kilometres, the health or otherwise of its timing chains will be down to how well it's been serviced over the years. Any skipped servicing makes it a ticking time bomb in this regard. But even well maintained vehicles have experienced the same problem.

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.

The biggest problem with this model of Commodore was it’s V6 engine and that unit’s propensity to suffer stretched timing chains. Cars without a full service history will be the worst offenders, but even a car with a perfect maintenance track record can still require new timing chains. However, this usually occurs long before 200,000kmk have been clocked up, so it would be very interesting to see if the car you’re looking at has, indeed, had this repair made by a previous owner. Of course, even if the timing chain has been replaced, that’s no guarantee that the problem won’t occur again. There’s also a suspicion that the three-litre version of the Holden V6 was a bit underpowered and needed to be driven hard everywhere; a situation that didn’t help timing-chain wear at all.

Other problems with the VE Commodore generally include some electrical problems that are surfacing with age, particularly camshaft-position sensors, a build-up of carbon on the intake valves which can cause rough running and poor economy, oil leaks and leaks from the cooling system. That said, if you can find a good one with an engine that has had new timing chains, the VE wagon represents a lot of car for not much money these days.
 

Doing your own oil changes is a great way to learn a bit about how cars work and develop a relationship with your car. You might even save a few dollars, too, but there are caveats.

The actual act of changing the oil is relatively simple and requires just a couple of hand tools. Basically, you drain the old oil out of the engine via the sump-plug, remove the old oil filter, replace it with a new one and then add fresh oil via the filler cap on top of the engine. If that sounds simple, that’s because that is a very crude, thumbnail sketch of the procedure, but it does cover the basics. Whether you feel confident enough to take the plunge is the next question. A workshop manual is a great investment and will be invaluable down the track.

But other things to consider include the fact that a service is often not just an oil change. There are many other things (transmission, brakes, cooling system etc) to be checked and adjusted at the same time as a scheduled oil change, so doing it all at home requires a reasonably broad idea of what’s going on mechanically. Your service handbook should spell out what tasks are specified for each service (each service is not all the same, either, some are more complex than what’s called a minor service) so that would be a good place to start.

Don’t forget, too, that the old oil and filter has to be disposed of in an environmentally responsible way, something that a professional workshop service takes care of for you. But there’s definitely satisfaction to be gained from this maintenance job and it’s absolutely the best place to start learning.

You’d expect any noise from under a car’s bonnet to be caused by the engine, but if this noise occurs before you’ve started the engine, you’re on to a real mystery. Perhaps the noise can be heard as you crank the engine but before it actually fires? If that’s the case, the clunk or knock could be coming from the starter motor. Or perhaps the action of the starter motor is causing the engine to rock back and forth on worn engine mounts and allowing the engine to hit on the cross-member or some other component under the bonnet. Perhaps it’s a loose exhaust system that’s banging on something as you crank the engine. Once the engine fires and is running, the frequency of its vibrations changes and the clunk goes away.

But I’m afraid that without more information, this one remains a mystery to us.

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.

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. 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.

This is not an unknown problem with Holden’s Alloytech V6 engine and can often be traced back to a damaged gasket for the thermostat housing which is located at the rear of the engine block. And you’re right, to change this gasket which costs just a few dollars, involves removing the exhaust and transmission. The best advice is to have the thermostat itself changed while all this work is being done, as it will save you going through it all again if the thermostat ever fails (and they have been known to).

But definitely have it checked out as coolant leaks never fix themselves and a small leak today could easily be a big leak tomorrow, leaving you stranded with an overheating engine. Meantime, you might be lucky and discover that the leak is not from the thermostat housing at all. These engines are also prone to coolant leaks from a pair of O-rings at the front of the cylinder heads which can allow coolant to leak through the valley and out the back over the transmission tunnel, making you think the leak is from the rear of the V6. Don’t rule out the water pump as a source of leaks, either. The trade seems to think about 100,000km is the lifespan for an Alloytech V6’s water pump.

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.