Holden Captiva (rebrand of Chevrolet Captiva) is extremely common to find at low prices, diesel or petrol, like many vehicles, it's often it's timing chain or belt.
Around one year back I bought a 2007 Captiva CG diesel, it had faulty master cylinder, and was disgustingly in need of basic service.
Funny point about driving it, the fuel filter came out black as night as though it were the oil filter.
While the engine went ok as I drove it back from buying it it committed no kick.
After the fuel filter it only doesn't get it's turbo thumping!
The transmission I was lucky about, all it's problem was, it was never checked or serviced, it didn't have 4th gear operating from bad fluid and level.
I drained it's fluid , it was a terrible froth off colour brown. So I flushed and re filled with new. It worked . My guess is it had "never" been serviced except when e.g. a low fluid level showed ! Really it was probably never serviced (nb found a good master cylinder at a wreckers and installed it).
A few months earlier I bought a 2007 Subaru outback petrol.
Hard to say if it was worth it at the price, like I told him, I only am paying his price because I want it "specifically" or I would not buy it at half its price, (but that would been fair in its true condition at half the price he asked i'd say). I bought it under his asking price.
After repairing them both, they only just made it through rego by a scratch!
Currently I require to replace all the Captiva brake pads, and the Subaru I have a slipping clutch, so I bought a stage 2 heavy duty "high torque clutch" (Bluesteele) because the 5MT dual range revised transmission in 2nd gear can do 60 Kmh at around 5500 , good for a single band of speed manoeuvring in city traffic without concentrating on gears (eyes on the environment).
NB you can blow an OEM clutch by high torque usage , the clutch housing stretches loosening the the spring lever clamping.
OEM are like tyres e.t.c. on the vehicle to get it out the door complete. Subaru dual range has that as a special problem.
Both vehicles are notorious for difficulties with their engine timing.



Engine mounts and transmission mounts are one of the most common overlooked problems, certainly in Subarus.
Rubber fails after 5 to 8 years, maybe half all vehicles on the road have failing rotted rubber mounts!

kato said..

Drop an LS 1 into it. Step brother has just done this with his.

An LS1 into what, a Volvo?

LS1 swaps were pretty common a while back because they are pretty compact for a V8. There is also a tonne of work on aftermarket ECUs so it should be relatively easy.

My Volvo has a transverse engine, so you can't do much. But the Volvo T5 engine is surprisingly good, except it starts splitting bores when you up the boost a bit. There are ways to fix it or even go nuts and replace the liners and run really big power.

I think I have lost interest in high HP engines. My falcon has a heap of power but its a bit boring. A small manual car that handles is far more fun to drive around town.

gavnwend said..
A friend of mine,has a Toyota starlet early 90s model.she inherited from a relative.same motor gearbox etc.serviced every year,never had a problem, except for a battery or two..they must be a good car.

My daughters first car was an old Holden Astra, she didn't change the oil for over 50000kms. Finally she gave it a oil change and it died shortly after.

My son bought a Ford XR6 off ebay, the electrical was horrific, indicate to turn and a head light would flash type problems, it eventually fell to bits but the motor (barra) was still going strong, they are a good engine. His siblings named it the xr sh#t.

FormulaNova said..

cammd said..
My son bought a Ford XR6 off ebay, the electrical was horrific, indicate to turn and a head light would flash type problems, it eventually fell to bits but the motor (barra) was still going strong, they are a good engine. His siblings named it the xr sh#t.

I wonder if the problem is the car or whether people maintain them before you get them? I have had 2 FG falcons and they were pretty reliable, but I am pretty good with fixing things that do go wrong. I have also had an AU, a BA, an XF ute, and the only thing that I was really annoyed by was when rust set in.

A year ago I bought a Honda motorbike from a dealer. Someone had added all sorts of electrical things to it, but none of it worked. I had to strip it down with the fairings all off to re-wire all the accessories and figure out what people before me had tried to do. Some people should stay away if they don't understand how to do electrical stuff well.

You still see Fords from the 60's and 70's on the road but rarely from the 80's. I cant remember the last time I saw an XD falcon on the street.

FormulaNova said..
My theory is that you need to wait till the generation that grew up with that decade of cars needs to then get old enough where they get nostalgic about the cars and can afford to rebuild them.

Here in WA I have seen a few of XD, XE, and XF cars running around. Most are restored.

I know someone who is restoring an XD in NSW now and it fits with my theory.

All of these cars go through a period where they rust away or get too expensive to maintain and people just send them to the wreckers. I think it is very rare for someone to keep hold of one car until it becomes collectible. I think most of the cars I had in my 20s are collectible models now and at the time they all just got too old, unreliable and rusty. Yet the same type of cars have been rebuilt by people.

I'm a bit nostalgic for my customized FC panel van.
But there's noway I'd want to drive a 3 speed column shift with only 2nd and 3rd syncrod

cammd said..

FormulaNova said..

cammd said..
My son bought a Ford XR6 off ebay, the electrical was horrific, indicate to turn and a head light would flash type problems, it eventually fell to bits but the motor (barra) was still going strong, they are a good engine. His siblings named it the xr sh#t.

I wonder if the problem is the car or whether people maintain them before you get them? I have had 2 FG falcons and they were pretty reliable, but I am pretty good with fixing things that do go wrong. I have also had an AU, a BA, an XF ute, and the only thing that I was really annoyed by was when rust set in.

A year ago I bought a Honda motorbike from a dealer. Someone had added all sorts of electrical things to it, but none of it worked. I had to strip it down with the fairings all off to re-wire all the accessories and figure out what people before me had tried to do. Some people should stay away if they don't understand how to do electrical stuff well.

You still see Fords from the 60's and 70's on the road but rarely from the 80's. I cant remember the last time I saw an XD falcon on the street.

This is because owners were sick of climbing through windows when the door handles fell off

At this point it would be fair to assume after after throwing this issue to philosophers the only rational outcome that truly expresses an unreliable car is the statement.

.."The only known version and model of car is truly unreliable is the car that you own or use (or both own and use)!"...
nicephotog 2025

This is neither about unreliable cars or unreliable drivers, but a whinge about some modern cars.

I have been driving an MG recently. The controls are driving me bonkers.

Want to increase the AC fan speed; just glance over at a hard-to-read screen and try and figure out where the fan speed button is and then try and move it to where you want it. Want to change the temperature, do the same.

Then, try and figure out how to get back to android auto so that you can see the maps again.

Why are these cars so reliant on a screen that is just as bad as looking at a phone when driving? What happened to controls that you could just turn and know roughly what you were doing without much of a glance? I can't even figure out how to change the brightness of the screen itself so that I can see things easily.

I guess at least they have some buttons so its not as totally focussed on screens as other cars. But even the cruise control requires me to try and understand something that is different to pretty much standard use of cruise buttons.

I don't even like FG falcons where you have to look at the buttons and increment or decrement the temperature. Give me the old-style temperature knob from the old cars where you just turn it until it gets to the right number,

Do designers think about this stuff anymore or are they in a race to make everything more feature-rich but complicated at the same time?

Self-driving cars? I just want a car where I can turn the AC on easily and not have to spend a minute looking at a screen to do it.

decrepit said..
I feel your pain FN, our MG has no knobs at all, it's all that screen.
It's handy to have a passenger to operate it for you, if you're prepared to wait for her to figure it out.
Either that or wait until you're stopped at the lights.

We've had the car for about 18months and I've only just figured out how to adjust the slow wiper speed, instead of twist knob on the end of the stalk, there's a 4 position switch half way along the stalk that's hidden by the steering wheel.

At least you have the EV. This thing is a 1.5L I think and it goes from 'I don't really want to move' to 'oh no, I want to rev my rings out'. It's hardly smooth with its power delivery.

I know a lot of manufacturers have moved to small capacity engines with turbo or superchargers or even both in order to get efficiency, but this thing annoys me. Although its also impressive how much they can get out of a small engine.

The controls; I haven't worked out the wipers yet other than basic on an off and I hope I don't need to. The tiny writing on the cruise control stalk has me fearing that I will need a usermanual to figure out how to use it.

I can understand why people buy these as they are cheap, but I think they need someone to go over the controls and give them some hints about how a driver should be able to use them. It's a worry when a 1978 falcon has controls that are easier and more intuitive to use.

I had a friend tell me that a Tesla has all the controls through the screen interface. How is that a good thing?

FormulaNova said..

I had a friend tell me that a Tesla has all the controls through the screen interface. How is that a good thing?

Took me about a day to get used to it when we first got our Tesla last year. Haven't had any issues with the controls in 18 months of ownership now (apart from the hard right turn signal).
Recently got back from a long trip overseas and got into the Tesla and was momentarily clueless again, but then the memory of where everything is came flooding back.

philn said..

FormulaNova said..

I had a friend tell me that a Tesla has all the controls through the screen interface. How is that a good thing?

Took me about a day to get used to it when we first got our Tesla last year. Haven't had any issues with the controls in 18 months of ownership now (apart from the hard right turn signal).
Recently got back from a long trip overseas and got into the Tesla and was momentarily clueless again, but then the memory of where everything is came flooding back.

Is the Tesla interface good? You would think that a car would have really big icons to touch so that you don't need to look too hard at the display. Nope, the icons and slider bars on this thing are tiny and not really what you want to think about on a car when you are driving.

FormulaNova said..

kato said..

Drop an LS 1 into it. Step brother has just done this with his.

An LS1 into what, a Volvo?

LS1 swaps were pretty common a while back because they are pretty compact for a V8. There is also a tonne of work on aftermarket ECUs so it should be relatively easy.

My Volvo has a transverse engine, so you can't do much. But the Volvo T5 engine is surprisingly good, except it starts splitting bores when you up the boost a bit. There are ways to fix it or even go nuts and replace the liners and run really big power.

I think I have lost interest in high HP engines. My falcon has a heap of power but it's 240a bit boring. A small manual car that handles is far more fun to drive around town.

Yes 240 Estate . 400 hp to the wheel

Honda i30 , 6 speed manual, engine under a litre!
Only good for Cambodian women drivers inside, not six foot beer gut mechanics with steel caps on!
Cannot see to judge the location of the front corner for reverse park, at least it can near reverse into a motorcycle space!
Genuinely requires six gears!

Buster fin said..

nicephotog said..
Honda i30 , 6 speed manual, engine under a litre!
Only good for Cambodian women drivers inside, not six foot beer gut mechanics with steel caps on!
Cannot see to judge the location of the front corner for reverse park, at least it can near reverse into a motorcycle space!
Genuinely requires six gears!

Ah yes. The Hondayundai.

Also under a litre? Makes me wonder what it actually is...

I remember now, worst car we had was a 2013 I20.
We wanted a manual, but the salesman had an auto going cheap.
He reckoned modern autos were really good and talked us into it.
BIG mistake. felt like it only had 2.5 gears. This gearbox may have worked in a grunty V8 but a 1.3l No Way.
Just going up a small hill would slow down, easing the go pedal down had little effect. It had to be stabbed to the floor to induce a change down, then you got up the hill OK but engine revving it's head off.
The other bad thing was the consumption read out. It agreed almost exactly with the specifications, 5.8l/100km. However we were putting more petrol in than that.
So I started a record, distance traveled, fuel used, display l/100km.
When the display said 6 we actually used 7.
Took this into the dealers and got the runaround, all sorts of excuses, anything they could dream up. They did put it through a thorough tune up but that made no difference.

So my real beef, is the consumption display was rigged to show the claimed figure, not the actual.
I'll never buy another Hyundai again,