Ask The Guide

This mightn’t be too hard to figure out as the GU Patrol used a purely mechanical engagement system for the transfer case and four-wheel-drive system. Unlike newer designs with rotary knobs and electronic control, there’s really not to much to go wrong with the Patrol’s setup assuming it’s a selector problem. Make sure the selector rods are all connected properly and that they’re not binding or loose under the car.

However, if the lever is engaging and the front drive-shaft is not turning the front wheels, then you may have a hub problem. Free-wheeling hubs are great for saving fuel, but when they go wrong, it can often mean the drive doesn’t reach the front wheels. At that point, you have a bigger job on your hands. The same symptoms could also be a result of a broken front differential which is not sending the drive out to the front wheels. Finally, the transfer-case itself may be at fault. If it’s not sending the drive forward, there’s no way the vehicle will achieve four-wheel-drive.

Also, to maximise your chances of engaging four-wheel-drive, make sure the vehicle is stationary at the time and the transmission is in neutral. In fact, this is essential for moving between two and four-wheel-drive in many types of off-roader.

This era of Australin Fords had a bit of a habit of having their body computers go on the blink. When that happened, a whole bunch of things could start acting up, but the central locking was a prime suspect.

When a car thinks it has a door, bonnet or bootlid opened, it will often refuse to lock, preferring instead to warn the driver that the car is not secure. And when the body computer is confused, it can interpret a closed door as an open one. But before you take it to an auto electrician to be sorted, try this: Take a can of lubricating spray and apply some to the little door sensor inside the door jamb. This is the micro switch that tells the computer what’s going on, and if the switch is full of dust or jammed, that won’t happen. Sometimes freeing the switch will make the problem go away.

The other thing to try is to disconnect the car’s battery and leave it overnight before reconnecting it. Sometimes this will actually reset the body computer. It doesn’t work every time, but sometimes it will do the trick.

This is a curly one isn’t it? You stand a decent chance of returning the info screen back into English, only if it’s already in English so you can drill down into the menus in the first place. You might be able to flick through the menus until you find the word 'English' (start in Settings if you can decipher even that much). Perhaps the owner’s manual gives some insight into how the language is set.

But, honestly, the quicker way is likely to be to take the vehicle to an LDV dealer and have somebody familiar with the menu system sort it out for you.

It’s tempting to think that this might happen every time you change or disconnect a battery, but who knows? Equally, it could be a glitch within the car’s body computer that controls the dashboard and many other functions in a modern car.

This engine has a reputation for failed EGR valves which are part of the emissions control system and live within the rocker cover. Without this valve working properly, the car’s tailpipe emissions can be higher than they should be, as well as causing the oil leak you’ve noted. And any time you have oil hitting a hot exhaust system, there’s the potential for a fire.

In some cases you can simply change the EGR valve, but experience suggests that with some engines, the solution is to replace the entire rocker cover which will incorporate a new EGR valve. The parts can usually be bought online.

Something, somewhere in the vehicle (probably the driveline) is causing the car to go into what’s called limp-home mode. This is designed to limit speed and power and, therefore, protect the vehicle from further damage due to the original problem.

You may have a fuel problem or an exhaust problem or maybe there’s something wrong with the emissions control system, or even a simple electrical sensor that’s faulty. The point being that you won’t know what the actual problem is until you scan the vehicle to see what the computer has seen going wrong. Until then, you’re just guessing and the vehicle will continue to go into limp-home mode. These problems don’t fix themselves.

First things first: You new-car warranty is set down in Australian law, and the ACCC has pretty firm views of how warranties should work when conflicts arise between owners and car companies. So that’s one less thing to worry about.

But I would definitely recommend finding some way to ensure the service handbook is filled out correctly as this will directly affect the resale value of the car when you decide to trade-up. As a rule of thumb, the new-car warranty (and whatever roadside assistance is offered) should start on the day the car is registered. Usually, that’s the day the car is delivered to its new owner or, in the case of your car being an ex-demo, the first day it was registered as the dealership demonstrator.

I can understand why LDV is staying a bit quiet on this one. The fact is, you’ve modified the vehicle from standard, and LDV has absolutely no idea of the exact changes you’ve made. That makes it very difficult for LDV to comment. You’re probably going to get a more informed opinion by talking to the company that carried out the camper conversion. They may have seen this happen before and have a solution ready made.

As for the actual problem, even though you’re still within the Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) limits, you might find that the weight of your conversion is not evenly spread across the front and rear axles. Placing heavy stuff at the rear of the van will inevitably compress the rear springs. It’s just a question of how much. Don’t forget to weigh the vehicle with all your camping and gear on board and the fuel and water tanks full, too, as this is how you’ll be travelling. Which means loaded up like that represents your real GVM.

Possible solutions include a firmer set of rear springs that will cope with the load better, or even a set of helper springs (possibly air bags) to assist the standard springs. Either way, these modifications need to be carried out by a specialist and may even need engineering approval to remain legal on the road.

The problem here could literally be a thousand different things. You may have a different fuel problem than simply a blocked filter (injectors, pumps etc) or you might even be looking at an electrical or electronic problem with a sensor or computer module. What you need to do is have the vehicle electronically scanned to see if the on-bord computer has logged any problems that will guide the mechanic to the cause.

The other thing you could try would be to run the car on LPG and see what happens. If it runs perfectly on LPG but still struggles on petrol, you’d be very tempted to think the problem is indeed in the petrol fuel system.

A VW dealership can carry out a test that will reveal whether there’s wear in the transmission’s clutch packs. Based on the result of this test, the question of whether the transmission is within tolerance or not should be pretty black and white. If you’re still not happy, have the vehicle independently inspected (your state motoring club is a good place to start) for a second opinion.

While you should not be fobbed off by the dealership, it’s true this type of transmission can take some acclimatisation on the part of the driver. We’re not saying you should have to learn how to drive again, but these dual-clutch transmissions can take a little technique if you’re to get the best from them. However, when a characteristic transitions into an actual problem, you need to be on top of it.

This problem is more common than you might imagine and applies to a lot of different makes and models. It’s a simple cases of physics, in the end: The petrol is being pumped into the filler neck at a decent rate, sometimes enough for some splash-back to occur as the fuel hits the side of the filler neck and bounces around.

The problem will be much worse if the filler neck can’t 'breathe' (air has to leave the tank for fuel to get in - physics again) so make sure there are no blocked breather lines or holes inside the top of the filler neck.

Beyond that, the best advice is to try turning the fuel nozzle, say, 45 degrees each way from vertical to see if that lands the fuel in a more agreeable place in the filler neck. Either that or you’re stuck with trickling the fuel into the car at a slower rate (the rate of flow of the nozzle is adjustable according to how far you pull it).