Articles by Marcus Craft

Jeep does two things well: it makes some great off-roaders (e.g. the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon) … and it hides a stack of Easter eggs (subtle design features, not chocolate) in its vehicles.

Most of the 2025 Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series line-up has undergone a recent comprehensive update - along with price increases to match - but while the third-from-top Sahara gets a $1119 price rise, it has received no updates this time around.Can the 300 Series stay viable in an increasingly competitive 4WD market? More importantly, is this Toyota 4WD wagon still an off-road champ?

Is BYD's Shark 6 all it's cracked up to be?

Can you use your phone while driving if it’s mounted?

Black ice is “a dangerous type of ice that forms on roads and that is so thin that it cannot be seen by a driver”, according to the Cambridge Dictionary.

The Premcar-boosted Nissan Patrol Warrior was an impressive 4WD wagon from its first appearance a few years back.Well, now the entire 2025 Patrol range - including the Ti-based Warrior - has undergone an update.Sure, the changes don't yield any performance gains and they are cabin-based but they do include a new bigger touchscreen multimedia system, wireless charging and an off-road monitor.

It's big, brash and in your face but is the gargantuan GMC Yukon Denali worth your consideration? General Motors Specialty Vehicles is banking on it. Packing a 6.2-litre V8 petrol engine, eight seats and a big features list, this top-shelf US 4WD has a price tag just under $175,000, making it a lot more expensive than most wannabe rivals in Australia. The Denali is here whether you like it or not.

Cars with a manual gearbox are becoming a rare breed on our roads as vehicles equipped with automatic transmissions now dominate the market. But, fear not my gearbox-loving friend, for there are still new cars with manual transmissions for sale in Australia.What is a manual car?Here's a super-simplified explanation. A manual car is a vehicle that has a manual gearbox, not an automatic transmission.A manual car has three pedals - from the driver’s point of view, left to right, a clutch, brake and accelerator.The clutch must be physically engaged/depressed by the driver (that is, left foot flat to the floor on the clutch pedal) before the gear stick can be moved in order to change gears and then the clutch must be disengaged/released in order for the car to then move forwards, via first, second, third gear etc, or backwards in reverse.A vehicle with an automatic transmission has two pedals. From the driver’s point of view, brake on the left, accelerator on the right.There is no clutch in a car with an automatic transmission because the auto does all of that aforementioned engaging/disengaging for the driver. However, the auto shifter needs to be moved to the ‘D’ (Drive), ’N’ (Neutral), ’R’ (Reverse), or ‘P’ (Park) position.Are they still popular in Australia? Yes, there are still new manual cars in Australia but they’re much less popular than in years gone by when manual cars dominated the roads, way back in those sweet pre-internet days…Are manual gearbox cars still being made? Yes, but there are fewer of them being made and cars with manual gearboxes are generally small, cheap cars or workhorse vans or high-performance sports cars.What has changed in the trends of manual car sales in recent years? When it comes time to decide manual or auto, people have increasingly favoured auto transmissions because these tech-advanced transmissions are generally smarter at selecting the correct gear ratios than the drivers themselves.What should you look for when buying a new manual car?Apart from any usual signs of misuse, damage or lack of maintenance of the vehicle itself, take the car for a test-drive and note any clunking or grinding noises emanating from the gearbox or if it slips out of gear, or if there are strong burning smells (transmission is overheating, low fluid level), obvious leaks (worn-out seals or gaskets) and/or the ‘check engine’ light comes on.Here are the top five manual cars available in Australia as new or, in the case of one particular vehicle listed here, near new.Read on.This all-wheel drive Rexxy has a 2.4-litre turbocharged, horizontally-opposed direct-injection 'boxer' four-cylinder, petrol engine (202kW at 5600rpm and 350Nm at 2000-5200rpm) and a six-speed manual gearbox.Punchy off the mark and gutsy on the move, this is a driver’s car, through and through, with the added bonus of Recaro front seats, Brembo brakes (with ventilated and drilled brake discs) and 19-inch matt-grey alloy wheels.The WRX made this list because what’s not to like about this Subie?Price: From $67,540 (MSRP)Small manual cars are still popular as they’re at the cheaper end of the market and so more budget-friendly than their automatic stablemates or rivals.This Hyundai has a punchy 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine (206kW and 392Nm) and six-speed manual. This neat all-rounder offers plenty of driver enjoyment in a modest package.This compact car made the list because of its bang-for-buck appeal.Price: From $50,000 (MSRP)This range of traditional workhorses retain its appeal – and its manual gearbox options across WorkMate, SR and SR5 variants.Manual utes are still popular in Australia, as is a manual 4x4 or manual 4WD or manual SUV. An SR5 with a six-speed manual gearbox and a 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine (150kW and 420Nm) is a solid mid-range choice in the HiLux line-up.This ute made the list because it’s a manual labour legend.Price: From $60,670 (MSRP)Manual hybrid cars offer a great compromise between driving an EV and driving an internal combustion engine vehicle; you get the self-satisfied smugness of knowing you’re helping to prevent the world from turning into even more of a natural disaster-riddled hothouse than it already is, and you can drive around without any EV-related range anxiety.The cheapest Suzuki Swift Hybrid variant is this one, with a 1.2-litre naturally aspirated three-cylinder petrol engine (with 12-volt mild-hybrid assistance; 60kW and 110Nm) and a five-speed manual gearbox.This Zook made the list because it’s an impressive little all-rounder in a hybrid package.Price: From $24,490, drive-awaySure, it was technically released last year, but how could we not include the Ford Mustang Dark Horse?This wild beast of a car is a driver’s dream; it’s like driving a go-kart which has ingested a heavy dose of some kind of illicit substance.With a 5.0-litre V8 petrol engine (345kW and 550Nm) and a super-slick six-speed manual gearbox, the Mustang in Dark Horse is a barrel of laughs to steer around.The Mustang made this list because it’s a shedload of fun.Price: $98,017 (MSRP)

Why is my car aircon not cold?

The GMC Yukon Denali is the latest arrival in a continuing US vehicular invasion of Australia. Imported here as left-hand drive and then converted to a right-hander, the Denali is a big 4WD wagon with eight seats, a petrol V8 engine and a standard features list as long as LeBron James’s arm.Brought to our shores by General Motors Specialty Vehicles (GMSV), the Denali is a premium-style vehicle; massive, comfortable and, as an eight-seat 4WD wagon, it has few rivals in the Aussie market. But it lacks a competitive warranty, its price-tag puts it way out of reach of a lot of 4WD buyers, and for a few distinct reasons it is a sterling example why US wagons and utes don’t belong in Australia.It’s too big.It’s big. Even the signature Denali grille – with LED headlights and chrome accents – is the size of a tiny house. The 2025 Denali is 5337mm long (with a 3071mm wheelbase), 2378mm wide, 1943mm high, and it has a kerb weight of 2813kg.The interior is great because it is big, roomy and occupant friendly, but the Denali’s gargantuan exterior dimensions simply mean it’s a beast of burden in busy city or suburban streets, and even on bush tracks, which can be quite narrow.The Denali demands to be driven with supreme consideration – and even more patience, more skill, and more experience than smaller four-wheel drives require – in order to avoid city- or bush-related damage, incidental or otherwise.Also, worth remembering is that fact that no matter how good a driver you are, there’s always a shopping trolley, key-wielding person who hates big vehicles, or someone who only parks their car by ‘touching’ the vehicle nearest to them out there, waiting to ding/scratch/dent your US behemoth. You’ve been warned.It’s not built for Australian conditions.The Denali is imported to Australia as a left-hand drive vehicle and then Walkinshaw's subsidiary company Premoso remanufactures the US 4WD wagons to right-hand drive at their facility in Clayton, Victoria. But the problems aren’t with Premoso’s work – they’ve done an impressive job – the flaws are in the vehicle’s original design and build.For one, as mentioned, it’s big. If you aren't used to steering a tank-sized 4WD around town then driving the Denali is going to be a very steep – and possibly very expensive – learning curve.Two, it’s built for open-road cruising on US freeways; it’s not engineered to cope with our punishing dirt-road corrugations of Australia, or our extreme heat, or our poorly maintained backroads and bush tracks.Thirdly, the Denali lacks the prestige fit and finish and build quality usually showcased in something at this price-point. Instead, there is hard plastic throughout, storage receptacles with flimsy lids, and lacklustre fit and finish.Also, this Denali is on 24-inch rims and paper-thin Bridgestone all-season tyres (285/40R24), which is not a wheel-and-tyre package suited to anything other than driving on the blacktop. These tyres don’t offer the grip of a decent all-terrain tyre and you can’t drop air pressures because there isn’t enough tyre there.The Denali has a naturally-aspirated 6.2-litre V8 petrol engine – producing 313kW and 624Nm – and that’s matched to a 10-speed automatic transmission.This is a great vehicle to drive on-road for general day-to-day driving duties – settled and composed – and it’s close to flawless on the open road, smooth and refined, but that big V8 – as great as it sounds – has the potential to drink … a lot.The Denali’s air suspension – which aims to level out even major imperfections in the road or track surface – and its special dampers aren’t as effective or as seamless a system as the Patrol/Patrol Warrior’s Hydraulic Body Motion Control, which acts as a sway bar and sway bar disconnect equivalent and is very impressive. Official fuel consumption is listed as 12.8L/100km (on a combined cycle), but on my most recent test of it, I recorded 16.2L/100km. Not too bad, all things considered, but you have to remember that I didn’t have much weight onboard and I wasn’t towing anything.The Denali has a 91L fuel tank so, going by my on-test fuel-consumption figure, you could reasonably expect a driving range of about 560km from a full tank. Once loaded up with real-world burdens (e.g kids, dogs, camping gear etc) then you’ll soon see the Denali’s fuel use climb.It’s expensive.The Denali has a price tag of $174,990 (excluding on-road costs), making it a lot more expensive than most vehicles that could be considered rivals in the Aussie market.Until now, if you’d been looking for an eight-seat 4WD wagon with a petrol V8 engine, you'd be limited to considering something like a Nissan Patrol or a Land Rover Defender 130, but at least the Patrol is almost half the price of a Denali.Another thing, as mentioned earlier, the Denali does not have the high quality of fit and finish and build quality usually associated with vehicles that cost this much – that’s disappointing.And maximum braked towing capacity in the Denali is listed as 3628kg (when it has a 70mm ball and weight-distribution hitch) – which isn’t that much more than other large 4WD wagons or utes in Australia offer (3500kg maximum braked towing capacity).US utes and wagons are big, bloated, overpriced and underdone – and they should go back from whence they came.Cue the hate mail...