Holden Captiva 2014 Problems

This sounds like a fairly simple case of the engine setting up a harmonic vibration through the car. It’s not an uncommon thing and diesels are worse than petrol engines purely because they vibrate more, particularly at idle. By revving the engine slightly, you’re changing the frequency of the engine’s vibrations and moving them out of synch with what’s called the 'natural frequency’ of the rest of the car.

Why does it manifest at the steering column? Because the column is a long, flexible (in a micro sense) shaft that is far more prone to picking up vibrations than a short, more solid part of the car. Why is it happening now all of a sudden? Probably because there’s some wear in the car somewhere. Your call to change the engine mounts was a good one as these can wear and cause this very problem. But, equally, the wear could be in the exhaust system or one of the points where it attaches to the car, a heat shield, the torque converter, or maybe even a piece of the car’s sheet metal that has come loose and is moving slightly.

The quickest fix is to bump the idle one or two hundred rpm and see if that moves the engine out of the vibration zone at idle.

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.

A check-engine light in a car like a Captiva can mean all sorts of things. Everything from a stretched timing chain (quite likely in this vehicle) to a dud oxygen sensor in the exhaust system (and about a million things in between) can cause the engine light to flicker on ominously.

The best advice is to have the car scanned electronically. That way, the scanning computer will 'talk’ to the car’s computer and the car should offer up any faults it has logged in the process of being driven.

You’re better off not driving the car until it can be scanned and fixed, as the problem causing the engine light to come on could easily get worse and may eventually damage other components. If it is something like a stretched timing chain that is causing the warning light, it could eventually break and reduce the whole engine to scrap.

Doing your own oil changes is a great way to learn a bit about how cars work and develop a relationship with your car. You might even save a few dollars, too, but there are caveats.

The actual act of changing the oil is relatively simple and requires just a couple of hand tools. Basically, you drain the old oil out of the engine via the sump-plug, remove the old oil filter, replace it with a new one and then add fresh oil via the filler cap on top of the engine. If that sounds simple, that’s because that is a very crude, thumbnail sketch of the procedure, but it does cover the basics. Whether you feel confident enough to take the plunge is the next question. A workshop manual is a great investment and will be invaluable down the track.

But other things to consider include the fact that a service is often not just an oil change. There are many other things (transmission, brakes, cooling system etc) to be checked and adjusted at the same time as a scheduled oil change, so doing it all at home requires a reasonably broad idea of what’s going on mechanically. Your service handbook should spell out what tasks are specified for each service (each service is not all the same, either, some are more complex than what’s called a minor service) so that would be a good place to start.

Don’t forget, too, that the old oil and filter has to be disposed of in an environmentally responsible way, something that a professional workshop service takes care of for you. But there’s definitely satisfaction to be gained from this maintenance job and it’s absolutely the best place to start learning.

Excess black smoke from a diesel engine is bad news as it can – among other things – cause the engine to run hot enough to cause internal damage. As for a cause, it could be anything from contaminated fuel to a block air-filter, a faulty sensor or a damaged intake system. Modern diesel engines like this one also have a habit of forming black deposits in their intake tract (a by-product of the engine’s own emission controls) and this can cause all sorts of problems including black smoke.

Another possibility is that the car’s diesel particulate filter (DPF) is blocked and the car is trying to regenerate it (clean it out) by dumping lots of fuel into the engine, and that’s causing the excess smoke. Either way, it needs to be fixed to avoid the potential for costly engine damage, not to mention the environmental havoc the car is causing in its current state. An electronic scan of the onboard computer would be a good starting point.

It’s hard to diagnose from a distance. As the engine appears to be running ok, the noise and black smoke might well be a particulate filter burn-off event, but you wouldn’t normally expect to see smoke or hear what sounds like an explosion. The dealer can check the filter and the burn-off history, so they should be able to see if there has been an event. I would think the transmission problem is a separate issue, and the transmission might need servicing.