1990 Holden Shuttle Pricing and Specs

The alarm you’re seeing is the car’s way of telling you that it’s been working hard and needs attention sooner rather than later. The on-board computer will be monitoring all sorts of parameters including the engine oil level and condition and the state of the air-filter element. Either of those things (and a large number of others) could be the trigger for the alarm you’re seeing. But it could also be due to the transmission being heated to a point where the computer says enough, or even an actual problem somewhere in the driveline such as a low coolant level.

The best thing to do is have the vehicle serviced as per its own request. The workshop might be able to tell you the cause of the alarm, but either way, maintenance is due. Towing a caravan places a lot of extra stress on the engine and transmission, while hot and dusty conditions also take their mechanical toll.

The black panels you refer to are nothing more than a styling touch. The idea is to make the panels black so they look like they’re part of the rear window, therefore appearing to make the window wider and the whole car wider and lower. Does it work on a Captiva? Not really.

A manual car that jumps out of gear is usually a case of a worn gearbox. As the internals and gear selectors wear over time, they become loose, allowing the vehicle to jump into neutral.

The first check would be to see that the external linkage to the gearbox (a cable in the Barina’s case) is correctly adjusted and not about to fall apart. If that’s the case, you might find that the selector is not fully engaging each gear, and that’s why it’s jumping out of that gear. But beyond that, the problem is likely to be caused by wear inside the mechanical bits of the transmission.