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10 best hybrid vehicles in Australia
By Tung Nguyen · 16 Jan 2024
The sale of hybrid electric vehicles continues to climb as automakers prepare to phase out vehicles powered solely by internal-combustion engines and buyers around the world embrace more efficient, eco-friendly options.
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Car wrapping: Everything you need to know
By David Morley · 18 Oct 2023
It’s been around for quite a few years now, but car wrapping, or vinyl vehicle wrapping, is still a bit of a mystery to many car owners. What is it, what does it cost and why would you do it? They’re all topical questions, so here are the answers:
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How to check if you've been caught by a speed camera
By David Morley · 11 Jul 2023
We’ve all done it; you drive past a white or silver SUV parked by the side of the road and think, was that a speed camera? By the time you’ve looked down to check your speed, you’re past the parked vehicle and you discover, to your horror, that you were a handful of kilometres over the posted limit.
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How to remove tree sap from your car's paintwork
By David Morley · 01 Jun 2023
You’ve parked your car, come back to it and it’s covered in sometimes sticky, always visible little spots. Now look up. Are you parked under a tree? Then it’s a fair bet the stuff all over your car is what’s generically known as tree sap.
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How to disconnect a car battery
By David Morley · 26 May 2023
A typical car battery might produce 'just' 12 volts (the same as a torch) but it can also produce lots and lots of current. In fact, many a bush mechanic has used a pair of car batteries to weld metal back together, so there’s some serious power involved.
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What do your car's dashboard lights mean?
By David Morley · 11 May 2023
A modern car dashboard is a very complex thing these days. And car dashboard lights have really followed suit.
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How to clean cars seats: A step-by-step guide
By David Morley · 03 May 2023
It’s amazing that there are some people who wouldn’t dream of living in a filthy house, yet are quite content to drive around in a car that should be declared a bio-hazard.
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You're using roundabouts completely wrong... but keep doing it
By Laura Berry · 09 Apr 2023
Think you’re using a roundabout correctly? Well, there’s an almost a 100 per cent chance you’re not. But don't worry, everybody’s doing it wrong and that’s why it works.
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How to paint a car: Can you do it yourself?
By David Morley · 22 Mar 2023
Let’s get something straight right from the off: Painting a car at home is not something we – or anybody else – can teach you in an online article.It’s a huge skillset that takes years or even decades to perfect and it’s the reason having a car painted professionally costs as much as it does.But the reality is that many people have painted cars in their home garage or even car-port, and have been happy enough with the results.So, is it worth giving it a go? If you’re handy, know how a spray-gun operates, have lots of patience and a better than average dollop of confidence going in, you might, just might, make a decent job of it.This certainly applies in the case of a few spot repairs to bring a car body back to its more or less original appearance. But if we’re talking about a full car respray, then you’ve rally dived in at the deep end.So, having established that DIY car painting AND getting it right is difficult and getting it wrong is very easy, why would you still tackle it?Mainly because you’ll save potentially thousands of dollars as well as learning a new skill.On the flip-side, making a mess of it means you’ll then have to resort to a professional paint shop which will charge for undoing all your bad work before they start on the actual repainting job.So, with all that in mind, let’s look at the process in steps as we present our guide on how to spray paint a car step-by-step. (Oh, and let’s leave panel beating to another article, because getting the car’s body straight enough to paint is a whole other can of worms.)Are you going to paint the whole car, or just a panel or two? Having made that decision, you can then move on to buying your supplies which will include masking tape and paper, sand-paper, primer, undercoat, and colour coat.You’ll also need a compressor to power the spray-gun, thinners for clean-up and diluting the paint to the correct consistency and the relevant safety gear.Don’t forget the little things like clean-up rags and paper filters to prepare the paint for the gun. The pros reckon you’ll need four litres of undercoat and about the same number of litres of colour to paint the average medium-sized car.Throw in a few litres of thinners and you’re already looking at hundreds of dollars just in paint, so make sure your commitment matches your outlay.Sticking with safety for a moment, this advice piece is restricted to single stage old-school acrylic and enamel paints. Modern two-pack paints are just too dangerous to use at home and require a ventilated spray booth as well as forced-air breathing gear.There are simply too many OH&S dangers involved for us to recommend it to even the handiest DIYer.The one potential exception to this would be if you can hire a professional spray booth and breathing gear. Even then, you need to know the safety drills and be aware of how to make the most of the hardware.Even if you’re just going to paint a small section of the car, the surface needs to be prepared to prevent the new paint simply flaking and peeling off later.In extreme cases this will involve removing all the old paint via either a chemical paint-stripper, sand or soda blasting or just hours of hard work with abrasive paper.Even if the old paint is in great condition and you’ll only be patching a small section of it, you still need to scuff, or key, the area around the repair so the paint layers can overlap a little. A common Scotch-Brite pad is a popular way to do this.Before you can even think about spraying on any new coat of sealer or undercoat, you need to make sure the freshly keyed surface is spotlessly, fanatically clean.Use compressed air to blow away any debris and then use Prepsol (a specific solvent) to wipe away any grease, residue or even oil from your hands.Now (after masking up required areas) you can start to apply the new paint and in most cases, you’ll be starting with an undercoat/sealer product that provides a good surface for the new colour coats to go on to.The best advice seems to be to allow the undercoat/sealer at least 90 minutes in the spray booth to harden and cure before trying to apply anything over the top of it.Just when you thought you were done with the sanding, the cured undercoat needs to be rubbed back to eliminate any tiny flaws and to keep the surface smooth.Any imperfections in the undercoat will be covered but not hidden by the new paint. Instead, the flaw will be faithfully reproduced with every new coat of paint and will remain visible no matter how hard you try to bury it under new paint.Having smoothed the surface of the undercoat, you’ve almost certainly introduced a new layer of micro-filth to the surface. So it’s out with the Prepsol again for another cleaning process.Now, provided the undercoated surface is spot on, you can apply the colour coats. Let each one flash off (partly dry) before applying the next.How long between coats? The paint manufacturer will have a view on this, but ambient temperature and humidity also play a part.Most painters reckon at least three or four (or more) coats of colour is required to do the job properly.It’s also now, if you’re using two-pack clear-over-base that you can apply the recommended number of coats of clear.The final process is to cut and polish the newly painted surface. This is done with wet and dry sandpaper and is designed to flatten the paint’s surface, removing all orange-peel and imperfections before polishing the top coat and recreating the shine.How much does it cost?Although the above is a very much a broad-brush (excuse the pun) look at the painting process, one thing doesn’t change. It will cost.Bank on at least $1000 and probably nearer to $2000 for the paint by the time you’ve bought the consumables. And if you’re wondering how much paint do I need, the answer will vary from brand to brand, but figure on at least four litres of undercoat, and the same again in colour-coat and clear-coat.And that doesn’t include the painting hardware or the booth hire. Or the re-dos when you mess it up.Keep in mind, too, that the really high-end brands of paint are a lot more expensive than the cheaper ones and that even some pigments (colours) cost more to produce.Thinking pearl or candy-metallic finishes? Then add another zero to the cost and another huge degree of difficulty to the task.By far the best bet is to either do a TAFE course on automotive painting or sit down with an experienced painter and listen to what they have to say.If nothing else, though, at the end of this process, you’ll definitely understand why having a car repainted professionally is such an expensive business.Again we have to remind you that this is a potentially dangerous undertaking and not one that a few paragraphs on a website can ever prepare you for.The questions of panel repairs, how to prep and repair a surface aren’t going anywhere and you’ll need to address them, too.And what about the complexities of modern metallic colours and how to match them across different panels?Oh, and if you’re thinking about changing the colour of the car, be prepared for a whole lot more work as you’re now looking at repainting the door jambs, engine bay and underside of the boot and bonnet to get anywhere near a factory look.In fact, the whole topic of automotive refinishing throws up more questions than answers, and only experience can really answer them. Even then, ask 10 different car painters 'How to paint a car' and you’ll probably get 10 answers that differ in their details.How to spray paint a car might sound like a simple question, but it’s far from a simple answer. And for the majority of people out there, if we’ve scared you off the idea, we’ve probably done you a favour.
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Everything you need to know about car sharing in Australia
By Stephen Corby · 20 Sep 2021
‘Car sharing’ (or ‘carsharing’, if you’re more the compound word type) may bring about mental images of teenagers on their Ps desperately negotiating with their parents to be granted access to the family car on the weekend, but the truth is it’s something far more harmonious. 
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