2014 Holden Captiva Pricing and Specs

There’s a very real chance that in getting the headlight globe out and a new one in, you’ve somehow managed to bump the indicator light fitting and, perhaps, dislodged a wire or displaced an earthing point. The lights on the Captiva are housed in a cluster, so it can be a bit tight for space in there.

So give the indicator globe a wiggle and see if that restores things. If not, you need to look a bit deeper and start checking fuses. But if the rest of the indicators are working properly, it’s most likely that you’ve knocked a wire off or something similar. Either that or the indicator globe has chosen that exact moment to blow. It sounds unlikely, but it’s definitely possible.

This is a very contentious issue and occurs when the car decides it’s in mortal danger if it’s driven any farther. In many cases a car will go into limp-home mode with reduced power to get you home without further damage, but in the Captiva’s case, it can go one step beyond limp-home mode and simply shut itself down, lock the driver out of the equation and refuse all attempts at being moved. This has severe ramifications if it does so on a level crossing, for instance.

In any case, this condition is usually triggered by a serious fault to do with the engine and can include a lack of oil or a severe overheating condition. When things cool down after a while, the car will sometimes restart, but in the meantime, it’s not going anywhere. The suspicion is that you have a major mechanical problem on your hands, and continuing to drive the car (when it decides to co-operate) puts you in danger of a catastrophic driveline failure.

The black panels you refer to are nothing more than a styling touch. The idea is to make the panels black so they look like they’re part of the rear window, therefore appearing to make the window wider and the whole car wider and lower. Does it work on a Captiva? Not really.