2020 Holden Colorado Pricing and Specs

There could be a complex, electronic, fuel-supply or engine-management reason for this, and if that's the case, having the vehicle scanned would be a good place to start. Or, it could be a case of human behaviour that is skewing your fuel economy figures.

By which, I mean that when you got the car brand-new, you gave it the kid-gloves treatment, understanding that the brand-new engine needed to be run in and would appreciate a slightly easier start to life. Then, as the novelty wore off and the vehicle began to earn its living, you subconsciously grew a heavier right foot. And it is this that's seen the fuel consumption creep up.

Failing that, you might have an on-board computer that has been silently recalibrating itself, perhaps in conjunction with software updates at the dealership which you may, or may not have, been made aware by the dealer. To be perfectly honest, I'd find 6.4-litre per 100km average on a Colorado borderline unbelievable, and the sort of economy only a dedicated fuel-saving driver could even get close to. Ten litres per 100km, meanw

Modern vehicles like the Colorado have lots of sensors to help prevent major engine melt-downs. One of those is the sensor that tells the car the engine oil level is too low for safe operation. If that sensor is sending bad information to the car's computer, the vehicle might be programmed to go into limp-home mode or even shut down altogether to preserve the engine.

But the oil problem the car is reporting could also be dangerously low oil pressure or oil that has become too hot. The farther and faster you travel, the hotter the oil becomes (up to a point) and the thinner it becomes, meaning it may not be thick enough to sustain safe oil pressure. This could also be caused by a dud sensor, but it could also be a real situation. And like the low oil level sensor, this can force the engine into shutting itself down as a self-preservation measure.

It sounds counter-intuitive that an engine would run at all with the crank angle sensor removed. Generally, without this sensor working properly, the fuel-injection system has no idea when to inject the fuel or fire the spark plugs. But sometimes – as in this engine – if the computer can't 'find' a crank angle input, it will take a reference from the camshaft angle sensor and use that to time the injection and ignition.

Even so, if the problem persists after two replacement sensors, it's probably fair to say this particular sensor is either not the root of your problem, or that or the engine's wiring is frying the new sensors as fast as you're changing them.

Either way, a trip to an auto electrician seems like the next logical step. Chances are a switched on sparkie will have seen this exact problem before and will know how to deal with it or at least take the logical steps to diagnose what's going wrong. Simply continuing to change bits and pieces is often an expensive way to solve a problem like this.