1994 Holden CALAIS

In the Australian debate between Ford and Holden, I have always considered myself a Ford man. However, after the issues that I had had with my last two cars (both Fords), I was convinced that I should try a Holden for my fourth car, and so I purchased this VR Calais for $7,500.

The car certainly didn't get me to change sides, but it was a good vehicle for the time that I had it. I managed to identify early on that the vehicle had been repaired after a front-on collision and that seemed to be the source of any problems I had with the car.

When I first got the car, there was an issue with the climate control where the unit would always read the external temperature as -30 degrees. Therefore no matter what temperature it actually was, or what you had it set to, it would simply pump out the hotest air that it could. I managed to identify the wiring for the temperature sender in the front bumper and found that it was severed. I repaired this and the climate control came good. This was the first time that I had fixed an electrical issue in one of my vehicles.

Later the car developed a problem where it would inexplicably overheat. When started, the car's radiator fan would be spinning, but later on it would just suddenly stop and the engine would overheat. I took the car to two mechanics and both charged me a few hundred dollars to tell me that they couldn't figure out the problem.

So, I took the car to a Holden service centre. They straight away diagnosed the issue - the VR Calais had a multispeed fan (controlled by different circuits with different resistance values). When the front end of the car had been repaired, the repairer had only wired up the slowest fan circuit. Once the car got two hot for the slowest speed, the car would click over to the next circuit (which was not connected) and the fan would stop. Holden resolved this issue for me for $70. I made a commitment to myself at this point that I would only ever use manufacturer service centres in the future.

This car went when I moved in to a role which provided me with a company vehicle.