Ask The Guide

This is the problem with just replacing parts without knowing the actual cause of the problem. If the third alternator and third battery haven’t solved the charging problem, obviously you need to look elsewhere. If a brand new alternator and a brand new battery aren’t talking to each other, you clearly have a break in communication somewhere in the middle.

Start with the battery terminals and cables. Are they tightly connected to the battery and not frayed or broken beneath the plastic insulation? Sometimes there’s a fusible link (a fuse, basically) built into the battery terminal that will break to protect the electrical system if there’s a short circuit somewhere. That’s worth a check too. The fusible link is usually contained within the battery terminal itself.

The next step is the check all the fuses and relays that connect the battery and alternator with the rest of the car. These can accessed via the fuse-box which is usually located under the glovebox or behind the kick-panel in the footwell, but there’s often also a second fuse-box under the bonnet. Sometimes the cause of non-charging can even be as simple as the little red warning light on the dashboard that has blown its globe, although that’s not often the case with more modern cars like yours.

If you still can’t figure it out, an auto electrician is your next stop, rather than simply throwing more new parts at the car which may or may not fix it.

I’d start by talking to a transmission specialist. There’s a fair chance they will have seen these exact symptoms before in this make and model and will know what’s wrong without wasting any time or money on guesswork. It’s probably also worth going back to basics and checking the transmission fluid level, as low fluid can cause all sorts of drive problems. If, on the other hand, the gearbox is worn out internally, you’ll either need to rebuild or replace it, but don’t rule out something less expensive like an internal selector fault or even a torque converter problem.

Forget about the male/female thing and go for something that has a good reputation for reliability and, above all else, good safety equipment as standard. Younger drivers are seriously over-represented in crash statistics, and a car with the right safety equipment is the only way to go.

Don’t forget, there are two types of safety; active and passive. The active safety gear refers to things like stability control, autonomous emergency braking and blind-spot monitoring. Passive safety, meanwhile, deals with the equipment needed when the crash has become inevitable, so things like airbags.

Because safety gear has become more and more important in recent years, the rule of thumb is that a later model car is going to be better than an earlier one which might have missed out on some of the equipment. As a bare minimum, however, don’t even consider a car without side airbags and stability control. The good news is that these pieces of safety gear have been around for a long time now, so they can now be found in even cheaper second-hand cars.

It certainly sounds like you could have a fuel problem and a fuel filter can definitely get clogged over time, becoming worse and worse. But you might also have a fuel pump problem or even a fault in the injection system that is causing the issue. Don’t rule out a random ignition or electrical problem, either, as these can cause the same symptoms.

So, go back to basics. Check the fuel volume and pressure and have the car electronically scanned to see if the computer throws up any hints on what’s wrong. Even if the fuel pump is delivering lots of fuel when you test it, don’t rule out an intermittent pump problem.

Sometimes, as fuel pumps wear, they can cut out when they get hot or sometimes when they simply feel like it.

If neither the key nor the central locking will lock the hard-tonneau, it’s likely the latch is not engaging properly. Which in turn means you most likely have an alignment problem between the tonneau and the rest of the tray.

I’m not sure if you have the factory tonneau (probably) or an aftermarket one, but these are big, fibreglass panels that can sometimes shift a little on their hinges and fixing points, leading to the misalignment that won’t allow the latches to line up and engage.

The factory HSV tonneau for this car has a quick-release hinging system allowing it to be removed easily for carrying higher loads. Perhaps removing and refitting the tonneau via this feature will return everything to its correct alignment.

A poor earth is often the cause of this sort of misbehaviour and it’s a good place to start looking. Check the earthing points in the engine bay and around the area where the tail-lights are earthed in the cargo area.

You might need to lift some carpet or trim pieces, but when you find the earth points, make sure they’re tight and clean and not covered in corrosion. Don’t forget to check the tightness and cleanliness of the battery terminals, too.

Beyond that, these symptoms point to a problem with the car’s body computer which controls all these functions and many more.

When this computer starts to die, all sorts of weird and random flaws can occur. But try this first: Disconnect the battery of the car and let it sit overnight. Reconnect it next morning and keep a close eye on what happens. Sometimes this simple trick will reboot the body computer and normal service will be resumed. Best of all it’s free.

You need to be strategic with problems like this one, and not just throw new parts at the car which may or may not fix it.

That means the first thing to do is electronically scan the car to see if the on-board computer knows what’s wrong. Hopefully this information will lead you to either the ignition or fuel system and, from there, you can home in on the fault.

Ignition-wise, you may have a computer, wiring, spark plug issue or about a thousand other things on a modern, electronically-controlled car like this one. If the fuel system's at fault, you need to check things like the filter and fuel pump delivery pressure and volume and even the age of the fuel. Modern fuel doesn’t like to sit around for any length of time, and many’s the car that has been sidelined through petrol that has lost its mojo.

While the G35 Skyline is not a common car on Australian roads, its driveline is pretty well understood. Even so, finding a workshop that specialises in this make and model would be a good idea.

Australian dust is pretty amazing stuff. In some locations, it’s so fine, it can get past even the best rubber seals and into a car’s cabin. Problem is, once it's found its way into the heating and cooling plumbing on your car, every time you turn on the climate control or open the vents, you’re going to smell dust.

Cabin filters can help reduce this, but once the dust has entered the car, there’s very little chance of ever removing it completely.

However, if the smell is only present when you’re travelling on a gravel road, it might be that there’s a more obvious leak that is allowing the dust inside at that point in time. Check all the door and window rubbers, not forgetting the tailgate as the rear of the car is where the dust often enters.

If there are no rubber seals showing damage (or a tell-tale trail of dust) make sure each panel is properly aligned and that the weight of a spare-wheel rack (if you have one fitted) hasn’t distorted the tailgate hinges.

The other thing to do is to put the climate-control on recirculate and switch on the air-conditioning as this will pressurise the cabin and help keep the dust from being sucked into the car. It’s amazing how effective this can be.

Technically, the Captiva operates in all-wheel-drive all the time. But there’s a centre differential that apportions the drive between the front and rear axles to allow individual wheels to rotate at different speeds. If that centre coupling isn’t working properly it could cause the noise you’re hearing, possibly from the tyres that are skidding or skipping as they turn, or mechanical noises caused by what’s known as 'axle wind up'.

The Captiva normally operates much as a front-wheel drive vehicle and only engages the rear axle when the computer detects any wheel slip or loss of traction.

That’s a great question and suggests you shouldn’t take no for an answer in this case. Plenty of modern cars use a bit of oil (actually, all engines use some oil) thanks to the low-tension piston rings fitted to improve fuel economy. Swings and roundabouts. But 600ml of oil in 1000km is not something you can ignore.

Had the car always used this much oil, there’s a chance that this is 'normal' oil consumption. But the fact that the consumption has suddenly jumped up to the point where the engine ran out of oil makes me think that there might be a problem. Some oil consumption is normal, but it’s when the engine’s drinking habits change that you can have the beginning of a problem.

The fact Kia has admitted some engines had been fitted with poor quality piston rings, would make me think your car is one of the affected ones and should be fixed at Kia’s cost. I’d be curious to know what inspection the dealership conducted to assess your engine. One possibility would be to have the engine independently tested and assessed in terms of its cylinder compression and what’s called a leak-down test. This will give a much better idea of the condition of the engine’s internals and what’s needed.