Haval Reviews

The HDC refers to the Hill Descent Control feature that allows the vehicle to crawl down a steep slope off-road without the driver applying the brakes. This function uses the car’s braking and ABS systems to operate, so any fault with it has serious implications for the vehicle’s overall safety.

You may have a dud sensor or something wrong with the wiring, electronics or even the hardware. Either way, an electronic scan should give you a few clues as to what’s causing this fault message to show up. Sometimes something as simple as a battery with low voltage can cause error messages like this to appear. But don’t ignore it; these are important safety systems and you need to know they’re working properly.

Any time a mechanic sees an illogical pattern of faults like these all at once, their suspicions are always drawn to the body computer. This computer controls all the functions you’ve mentioned as well as hundred more, and when it goes on the fritz (as computers are wont to do) you can suddenly get all sorts of weird behaviour, just like you’re reporting.

Take the car to an auto electrician who might be able to make sense of what could be a complex wiring issue. But the smart money says body computer every time. These can be replaced by a new computer, second-hand ones from a wreck and sometimes even fixed by very clever people. If the auto electrician can’t offer any advice, get online and see what help is out there.

Whether this is a problem or not all depends on how much oil you consider to be too much. There’s an old school of thought that says an internal combustion engine shouldn’t use any engine oil. That’s not actually accurate. A small amount of oil is scraped past the engine’s piston rings and burned every time the engine turns over (which it typically does at anything up to 7000 times a minute). So some reduction in the level of oil in the sump is pretty much inevitable.

Some modern engines also use low friction internal components to make them more fuel efficient and, in some makes and models, this has had the effect of increasing oil consumption. Again, this is perfectly normal and the pay-off is you use less fuel.

Rather than just a drop in oil level, you should be looking at the drop compared with the kilometres you’ve covered. A car that consumes, say, a litre of oil (or even two litres) between its 10,000km oil changes is not a problem at all. Some manufacturers even say a greater level of oil consumption than this is still within acceptable tolerances. Anything up to 1.5 litres per 1000km can still be within a car-maker’s specification.

What you’re really looking for when checking your oil level is any change in the engine’s oil sipping habits. A sudden increase in the amount it normally consumes is when you need to start looking more closely.

That said, if the car is using too much oil, then it’s either being burned in the engine (suggesting worn engine parts) or it’s escaping the engine somehow (otherwise known as a good old-fashioned oil leak). A big patch of oil on the ground where the car is normally parked means you need to go hunting for a leak.