Car Servicing

I just bought a 2012 Ford Ranger privately. It seems that the transmission has metal fragments in it! It has 35,000km on the speedo. Is this a common thing to go wrong? It's six months out of warranty, so should I be paying $8000 to repair it, or should Ford do something here to help me out?

My daughter's 2012 Renault Latitude Luxe Diesel was taken 250km away to a dealer in Port Macquarie for repair, as there is no dealer in Coffs Harbour. Our Daughter has a disability and uses her car for her community program. Renault would not pay for a hire car as it was in our hometown, but there is no public transport. I was wondering what I could do to have Renault return the car back to where Renault's representative picked it up?

I had rust spotting on my 2013 Mitsubishi Triton within three months of buying it brand new in June 2014. I took it to my dealer and they admitted there was a problem. They put a clay bay over the whole car, but this did not resolve the issue. I took it back, but they assumed no responsibility, and said there is nothing they could do. Two years on I now have rust appearing on top of three door folds and the rust spots have become bigger and more numerous. Has anyone else had this same issue?

My 2009 VW Golf 118 TSI has just experienced compression problems and I have been told that the piston number four is cracked and the bill will be $7000 to rebuild the motor. It has only done 49,000km. Should I go straight to VW with this issue?

Re paint protection. Can you please advise the merits of a car bra as an alternative to a clear plastic protective covering? Appreciating that some of the cheaper car bras can apparently cause significant damage to the duco, I have ordered an Australian-made item for my 2015 Mustang with a price of $550. Noting the majority of the Stang's use is in and around Mt Gambier, the intention is to use this four to five times a year when travelling to Adelaide, Warnnambool, Ballarat or Hamilton. Your not mentioning the form of protection is of some concern, particularly the potential for damage during fitting and removal. Bearing in mind it will probably be difficult to find someone nearby with the expertise to apply the plastic protection, would I be better cancelling my order and having a protective coating applied?

I read in CarsGuide about Holden Cruze transmission faults. A friend has a Cruze with this problem. The dealer said the transmission didn't default and the car is under warranty.

I am getting conflicting information from service mechanics. A 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe Elite auto diesel with 30,000km is coming up for sale. It has been leased and I can buy for the residual price. My local mechanic who has been servicing my Corolla Seca for 10 years tells me Hyundais are very expensive to service and repair and diesels especially, and will need to be serviced often as I do short trips. Basically he hasn't one good thing to say about the Hyundai and tells me to buy anything except one.

I have been reading a lot of reports about problems with the Ford Focus transmission. My Focus is a great car; my only negative comment was the harshness of changing gears at low speed. But after the transmission software was changed at the last service it's now smooth, as it should be. I recommend anyone with a Focus to go and get it done free of charge.

My 2009 Mazda BT-50 is not engaging 4WD. What is the problem?

I had trouble with they satellite navigation in my HSV GTS Series 1, which was not picking up the Satellites. Recently, when I was in Gundagai it was showing Katoomba. When I booked it in I was told it needed a MY LINK update, but I was unable to do it on the day, as they needed eight hours to do. I booked it in again, but the update did not work and I was told they needed to order a new MY LINK unit and fit it.

After doing that it's still not working. I was then told they needed to do another complete wipe of MY LINK and then update it. This still did not fix the Sat-Nav.

Another Complete wipe of MY LINK, but again it didn't fix the problem. They then found it not to be connecting at base of the aerial, and they replaced the aerial base. Problem fixed, and they gave me extra year of warranty.

On one of our stops on our way home, the MY LINK screen showed INITIATE NAVIGATION, then went on to ask if I wanted to continue with the route. The first time I used reverse after this, I noticed that the screen, when coming out of reverse, would flicker from reversing camera to EDI back to reversing camera to EDI. I booked it in again, and the technician took a video of the problem and was getting onto Holden for a fix.

They are now telling me this is normal between two Analog units and it is all right. Holden customer service offered me my next service for free. I rejected this offer and told them I wanted my car fixed or they could give me my money back.

I then rang HSV, but was told it was normal in the updated MY LINK. I said I would go to a Holden Dealer and test it in a Series 2 HSV. The issue was my GTS is a Series 1 with Series 2 updated MY LINK. So the flicker does not happen in Series 1 or Series 2. I have requested to have the Series 1 software put back into my car, as I did not ask for the update, they did it when trying to fix the sat-nav.

I am still waiting for a fix and will not pick up my car until it is fixed.