2005 Suzuki Carry Pricing and Specs

Being a Japanese car (Japan drives on the left as we do) the indicator stalk is on the right of the steering column. Most drivers find this is a more natural place to have them, and this is probably down to muscle memory as generations of Australian cars had the indicators to the right of the column as well.

That said, many European cars place the indicators to the left of the column, but it's surprising how quickly you'll adapt to that. Many Australians had their first taste of indicators-on-the-left in early air-cooled Volkswagens. This was more of an issue when cars had manual transmissions and you needed your left hand to change gears while hitting the indicators with your right hand.

The first thing to know is that if the car is not presented for delivery in the condition in which bit was described in the contract of sale, you don’t have to accept it. Without knowing the exact circumstances, it sounds as though the car may have ben used as the dealership’s demonstrator model. If that’s the case, it should be sold as such and at a discount to your fiancée.

Check the date of first registration. That might give you a clue as to how long it’s actually been driven on the road. You would expect a handful of kilometres to be added as the car is sent for pre-delivery and detailing, but 800km seems a bit sharp. If you go ahead, make sure you ask whether the warranty will start from the day you take delivery or will be back-dated to the date of first registration.

You have at least two separate problems here. The first is the error code suggesting the camshafts are out of phase (retarded). This is often the result of the cam-chain having stretched and requiring replacement. Fundamentally, once the chain stretches, the on-board computer detects this and illuminates the check-engine light as well as logging the fault code. If this is the case, the repairs could easily run into the thousands. However, it could also be a fault with the sensor that reads the camshaft position or something else altogether, but the timing chain would be the prime suspect. It could also cause a slow idle such as you've noted.

The second problem is that the check-engine light was either broken or deliberately disabled to disguise the fault with the cam-chain. I'm certainly not accusing the seller of doing this, but it can't be ruled out. And yes, an illuminated check-engine light is a roadworthy item, so the car would (or should) not have passed a roadworthy inspection with the lamp illuminated.

Whether the roadworthy tester is at fault will come down to whether they knew the check-engine light was faulty or not. Of course, if the light was already broken when the car was presented for inspection, that would muddy the waters further.

I sincerely hope you bought the car from a licensed car dealer and not a private seller. If it was the latter, you'll have little to no chance of gaining compensation for what could be a very expensive problem. But if you bought the car from a dealer, then you should have some come-back, especially once you prove that the check-engine light was either broken or disabled at the time you inspected the car prior to purchase. That's partly because of Australian consumer laws as well as the fact that the dealer needs to provide the roadworthy certificate and is responsible for its accuracy.