1973 Honda 600 Pricing and Specs

The smart money says go with a Toyota. The RAV4 is popular but within your budget, you'll be buying a 12- or 14-year-old car with at least 200,000km on its odometer. Which still means it's probably a pretty good thing in terms of reliability, provided it's been serviced correctly up to now, but you'd have to buy carefully. A second-hand Kluger can also be a good deal if you can afford the fuel, but comes with the same caveats.

A Honda CR-V won't be much different to the RAV4 in terms of its price versus model year, but you stand a slightly better chance of finding a CR-V with relatively low kilometres. Don't be afraid to get a bit alternative and look at things like the Kia Sportage. Your ten-grand gets you into a Sportage of around the same vintage as the RAV4, but is likely to have as many as 100,000 fewer kilometres on board. Again, check for a full service history.

And given your usage pattern, don't be temped to stump up more for a hybrid SUV; there's just not the pay-off at the pump for a car that does mainly highway and open-road work.

The first thing to do is to make sure your phone has Bluetooth switched on and is in Discoverable mode. Then, go to the menu on the car's info-screen and select Settings. Then scroll down and select Setup and then Bluetooth. From there, touch on Add a New Device. The car will then search for nearby devices and display them. When your phone's ID appears, scroll to it and press the Select button. Make sure the code on the screen for Bluetooth Honda Civic matches the code shown on your phone and you're good to go.

There are also online tutorials on how to connect Bluetooth to Honda Civic cars, and these are worth watching provided the unit in question is the same as the system in Australian-delivered Civics. Some markets had different set-ups, so make sure you watch the right video.

If all that fails, the connection instructions are in the car's owner's manual which, hopefully, is in the car's glove-box.

This system of Honda Civic Bluetooth paring was introduced on 2018 and on Civics, but it's worth mentioning that those earlier cars did not have on-board sat-nav. So to get navigation on the RS or VTi-L model, you definitely need your phone connected to make use of your phone's nav system.

The recommended Honda Civic engine oil is a fully synthetic 0W20 oil. That’s what oil manufacturers say is best for any of the Civic engines sold here from 2017 onwards. That includes the 1.8-litre and 1.5-litre petrol engines as well as the high-performance Civic Type R model.

Like many Honda engines over the years, the Honda Civic oil passages can be quite small and narrow, so a good supply of clean, fresh oil is critical to these cars. That’s also why the Honda Civic oil type is a very light (thin) oil; so it flows easily and quickly.

If you know how to perform a service on any other modern car, then you already know how to change oil on a Honda Civic. It’s a DIY maintenance job for anybody who is an average mechanic and involves little in the way of tools apart from an oil filter wrench and the correct size socket or spanner to tackle the drain plug. You’ll also need drain pans and the car’s owner’s manual which will tell you things like how often to change oil, any other service interval info and specifications for how tight the drain plug needs to be tightened.

Failing all that, a trip to any service centre will be able to supply the oil and replacement filter, dispose of the waste oil and even reset the service reminder light as part of the process.