Toyota Problems

The Camry is a very good, under-appreciated car. It's locally made, great on resale and that price is very sharp.

The Holden is cheaper because more people are choosing the Ford. If it's close enough on features, and ahead on value, then park the dream for some reality. But perhaps also cross-shop the Mazda BT-50, which is a clone of the Ranger.

Toyota spokesman Stephen Coughlan says: “There is no plan at the moment (to bring back a Corolla wagon). There is a two-wheel drive RAV4 and Rukus as substitutes.” So that’s a no from Toyota.

Look at a Hyundai i30 wagon, which gets The Tick and is the closest thing now to your Corolla wagon.

The mileage is very low for an 11 year-old car, so make sure the odo reading is credible. A check of its service record should give you enough information to tell if it's correct or not. RAV4s of that era had quite a lot of trouble with the automatic transmission, so put the car through as many different driving modes as possible and look for things like reluctant shifting, hesitations, juddering, etc. Other than that the RAV4 is a decent car.

The HiLux is all new and should be here around the middle of the year, perhaps a bit later. It's definitely worth the wait and I'm certain the auto will handle a relatively light load such as yours.

On average I would expect it to be around 16.0L/100 km driven normally, but fuel consumption is affected by the type of driving, your driving style, the load you're carrying or towing, headwinds, tyre inflation pressure, roof racks fitted, all manner of things. If you're cruising on the highway without a load and not towing you might expect it to be a little lower, but if it's fully loaded, towing a caravan, and being driven on outback roads you might expect it to be quite a bit higher.

It's the LandCruiser every time if you're heading into the outback. The truck itself is just about bulletproof and gets The Tick from me. Toyota's service and support in the bush is legendary and could make all the difference if you strike trouble.

On seven-seaters, the Territory runs last, the Kluger is fine and reasonable value and the Audi is definitely the car to reward yourself, but the Q7 could get very expensive if anything goes wrong.

It's more than likely just bad luck that you copped a dodgy pump. There could be any number of reasons for it to fail, it's not a major issue, I would just cop it on the chin and get on with life.