johna's automotive blog

Another early Volvo V40 T4 for sale

2026-01-10T12:00:00+10:00

Spotted for sale on carsales.com.au in South Australia, a 1998 Volvo V40 T4 with automatic transmission and only 158,000km. A$3,690.

https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/volvo-v40-1998/sse-ad-19924741/

Early Volvo V40 T4 on Facebook Marketplace (NSW)

2026-01-05T12:00:00+10:00

Currently on Facebook Marketplace in Orange NSW, 1998 Volvo V40 T4, manual with 200,000km. Unregistered and requires blue slip. Listed as running and driving but key needs coding and stereo missing.
https://www.facebook.com/commerce/listing/2386189508478360/

Free online car repair manuals

2025-12-10T12:00:00+10:00

Operation CHARM is a website that has free car repair manuals for many makes and models that you can view online or download and use offline.

The website's tagline is "Car repair manuals for everyone".

I found a manual for my current Ford Focus as well as one for the Porsche 944 I had decades ago.

At least some of the manuals appear to be for the US market as there was no manual for my four-cylinder Mercedes W202.

https://charm.li/

One of the greatest coincidences in motor sport

2025-11-30T12:00:00+10:00

Up to 1999 I had been watching various forms of motorsport for a decade or more and I had never seen a pit lane incident where a crew member had their head run over before.

Then in 1999, I was watching a CART racing event, the Miller Lite 225 at Milwaukee. As the cars came in to pit lane the commentator mentioned that for the first time some teams had elected to have their pit lane crew wear helmets as Bell had supplied helmets free of charge to teams for the event.

Michael Andretti's crew were wearing helmets and within moments of the commentator mentioning this, Michael Andretti stopped and had his tyres replaced and was waiting for refuelling to be completed when, through impatience, confusion or malfunction, the car started pulling away before refuelling had finished. This resulted in the "Vent Man" getting knocked over by the car and – you guessed it – having his head run over by the rear left wheel.

I think it's safe to say that without a helmet this man would have been killed.

Even with a helmet he was injured, but he did not have any head injury.

His name is Ty Manseau and this has to go down as one of the greatest coincidences in motor sport.

You can see what happened on YouTube, including an interview with Ty a month after the incident.

New seats installed

2025-11-23T12:00:00+10:00

After cleaning my new seats with a carpet/upholstery cleaner and spraying them with upholstery deodoriser I fitted them to the car today.

Replacing the seats is quite easy, although I did watch a few YouTube videos first.

I replaced all but the rear backs as mine are clean and in good condition so I didn't bother.

When I have removed seats from past cars I have usually been disgusted by what I've found, but this car would have to be one of the cleanest. Okay, there was one french fry and a drink spill, but still better than most.

Vinyl-wrapping trim and repairing the centre vents on my Ford Focus LW

2025-11-22T12:00:00+10:00

I picked up a set of exactly the same seats for only A$50. My driver's seat has a hole in the fabric and I really only wanted the one seat but the new set is a bit cleaner than mine so I will swap over them all.

I also had a go at vinyl wrapping some of my interior pieces.

The first piece did not go very well and looks pretty bad. After that experience I actually watched a YouTube video on wrapping interior parts and saw all the things I did wrong.

To remove the old finish on the trim pieces I heated a small area up a lot and then I could use a plastic razor blade to scrape off the old finish. The parts of my trim where the finish had disintegrated were no longer smooth so I used 1200 grit sandpaper to flatten and then 2000 grit to smooth the plastic.

Even after the YouTube training, the second piece did not turn out much better. Maybe it looks better than it was but I'm going to look for some new interior pieces instead of wrapping any more -- wrapping is too hard for me. I can at least advise that the metallic silver trim wrap commonly available on Aliexpress is similar to the Ford colour, but will not pass for the same colour.

While the radio was out I discovered why my centre vents were not working properly. The little plastic pieces that move when the controls are turned were broken and not actually opening and closing the vents. I searched online but could not find a source of replacements so I looked at what I could do to fix this.

I ended up cutting off the little plastic pieces that clip onto the ball. I then drilled a 4 mm hole through the plastic part and amazingly this can now be pushed onto the ball and it stays there and the vents work well now. They probably don't quite turn as far as they did, but they work well.

Removing window tint from my Ford Focus

2025-11-16T12:00:00+10:00

The window tint on the rear window of my Ford Focus had bubbled and peeled and looked bad and was hard to see through.

I watched a few videos on how to remove window tint and, not having a steam machine, I opted to try the garbage bag method which involves wetting the window, applying a garbage bag and leaving th car out in the sun before peeling off the window tint.

I did try a garbage bag, but it was too small and kept blowing away, so I improvised and used cling wrap -- which stayed on well.

After an hour in the sun I peeled off the window tint but it left most of the glue on the window.

Fortunately, I found degreaser removed the glue reasonably easily, and then I switched to Windex window cleaner which did an even better job. No idea yet on whether my demister strips survived but they do look okay.

The end result was worth the effort.

I've also been making slow progress on removing the black paint from the wheels. I found that mineral turpentine applied to a rag and then squashed against the wheel with paper and left for a few hours made it easier to remove the paint with acetone. So my wheels looked like this at times:

I've done most of two wheels and the easy parts of a third wheel, so I am getting there. The car looks a lot better with silver wheels than it did with black wheels, at least in my opinion.

Aliexpress parts fitted to the Ford Focus

2025-11-15T12:00:00+10:00

I received a few of my Aliexpress orders so was able to install some new parts.

First up was a new gear knob. For A$4.61 you get a plastic knob, rather than a leather one, but it is easy to install and looks like the original one. You can see in my photo that I also need to install new silver wrap on some of my interior parts.

Next up was the A$4.92 roof trim wrap. I followed instructions online to carefully remove the trim pieces using a plastic trim removal tool and prying the trims upwards from the inside of the roof. There was plenty of mess underneath them.

I used a plastic razor blade to scrape off the black coating , which comes off fairly easily from the top, but some stayed on the edges and the rear. I then sanded the sides to feather them and sanded the bare metal to make it smoother.

I then applied the wrap, stretching it to match the curves. The wrap was 5 cm wide which was perfect and didn't require any trimming except at the ends. I bought 5 metres and that was more than enough.

The final result looks good but it does not appear to be stuck down too well. I did read that wrap is meant to be applied over paint, not bare metal though. I also don't think the wrap at this price point is very good quality and I expect that, for these reasons, this is going to last about a week before it starts to peel off.

I will update this post with how well it lasts, but if they don't last long then my next plan will be to paint them.

Updates to the "Aliexpress" Ford Focus

2025-11-08T12:00:00+10:00

As my new Focus was cheap and has done somewhere around 260,000km, it's not worth spending too much money on, so I'm calling it the AliExpress car because I will be choosing cheap parts wherever possible, often from AliExpress.

So far I have ordered a new rear wiper (A$3.93) and oil cap (A$4.14), gear knob (A$4.61), touch up paint (A$3.54) and also some wrap for the strips along the roof (A$4.92) and some interior panels where the original finish is disintegrating (A$8.35).

The new wiper and oil cap have arrived and are now fitted. I also bought a "Broadway mirror" as I found the rear vision to be pretty bad (A$10.66). I like to be able to see the rear quarter windows from the centre mirror. The new mirror, which is 300mm wide, gives me visibility of the passenger side but not the driver side, which is good enough.

I also had my first problem. I attempted to reset the multimedia system settings and it froze up. I eventually turned it off but now it doesn't turn back on. UPDATED: disconnecting the battery for a little while solved this but I also discovered that my positive battery terminal and cable are corroding away to nothing.

Getting back to my project of removing the black paint from the wheels, I finally finished one wheel. Acetone works reasonably well and quickly, although it requires several passes of each area. Mineral turpentine works slowly but was useful for cleaning off the residue after using acetone, and I also was able to soak the centre caps overnight which made them much easier to restore. With help from a neighbour, I also discovered that a wool polishing buff and cutting compound made quick work of removing the paint. I did burn through the original paint in a few places and cause a few scratches.

Polishing the new Focus' headlight's and removing the paint from the wheels

2025-11-02T12:00:00+10:00

The headlights on my new Ford Focus were scratched and yellow so I planned on restoring then with the Cerakote ceramic kit I have seen good reviews for, or replacing them.

However, I found a bottle of headlight polish in my garage that I must have bought twenty years ago that I had previously tried and not had good results with. But as I had it I gave it a go.

Here is what the headlights looked like before:

Amazingly I started seeing instant results. Here is what it looked like part way through:

And here is it what it looked like at the end:

So I was really happy with the results, although I doubt it will last long as it is a polish only, and doesn't have a clear coat or anything to protect it long term. Not sure it's worth mentioning the brand as it probably isn't available any more.

Next job was to continue on with the removal of paint from the wheels. I wanted to take the wheels off to make this process easier but the wheel nuts were so tight I could not remove them by hand, and even with a long extension all I did was bend a tool. Fortunately my neighbour came to the rescue with a Dewalt impact driver which made short work of all but one, but needed the maximum setting before it could move them. The last stubborn one eventually came off too.

I had already spent a couple of hours with acetone and removed the paint only from a small part of the wheel. Now restocked with another litre of acetone, and with the wheel removed so I could work outdoors where I would hopefully breath in less of the acetone, I spent another hour or two and did all of the spokes.

I still have the inner and outer part of the wheel to do, which will probably take just as long as it is harder to access. Hopefully I can also save the badge too.

The paint is quite easy to remove on the inside of the spokes, presumably as there is not as much paint coverage there, but is difficult on the front facing parts.

I also made a discovery that mineral turpentine is great for cleaning up all the residue left behind after using acetone. That saves a lot of effort. It is also capable of removing the paint too, but works much slower than acetone. I plan to try soaking part of the wheel with mineral turpentine to see if that is more viable than using the more expensive and toxic acetone.

First work on my 2011 Ford Focus Sport

2025-11-01T12:00:00+10:00

I had some time to work on the new car, so first job was to remove the tacky aero add-ons -- the little spoilers on the front bumper, and the fins on the rear edge of the roof.

I did a little YouTube research and the use of heat and WD40 came up a few times so I went with that. Heat seemed to work the best and it didn't take long to remove the parts. Some were held on by double-sided tape which was the most difficult to remove, and the others were held on with what looked like the type of glue they used to attach things to magazines with.

I also gave the car a wash and saw it close up out on good light for the first time -- when I looked at it before buying it was dark and raining -- and discovered the paint is pretty awful. I knew it wasn't good so it wasn't a big surprise, but it is certainly worse than I expected.

I did do a quick light cut and polish by hand and it improved, but it doesn't look like it will ever look good like I hoped it might if I put some effort into cutting and polishing.

Next step was to see what it would take to remove the black paint from the wheels. They appear to have been simply painted over with spray paint, as I could remove some of the paint with my fingernail. Google AI suggested to start with acetone and amazingly that worked great and immediately removed the black paint which uncovered what looks like the original silver factory finish. It's going to take quite a while to do all the wheels though.

I also tried to reset the oil change due notification. I read that all I needed to do was turn the ignition on and press the accelerator and brake until the message came up that it had been reset, and this appeared to work but even after trying twice, the message keeps coming up again. Maybe I'm not doing it right, or maybe this has something to do with the fact that the instrument cluster was replaced by the previous owner.

Bought a Ford Focus LW

2025-10-30T12:00:00+10:00

I've been looking for a manual car for a few months now and settled on an LW series Ford Focus Sport as they seemed reasonably sporty, had some interesting features, and I didn't mind the way they looked.

I did plan to spend a bit more money on a car this time than I usually do and get something in good condition with low mileage so that it would last a while.

After looking at a few cars and a few failed offers I somehow ended up with an LW series one in black with high mileage. I wanted a series two as I prefer the wheels, bodykit and extra features, and I didn't want black, but the lure of a cheap car close to home somehow won me over.

I also prefer to have unmodified cars but this one has an exhaust, the wheels have been painted black, and it has a few tacky "aero" parts stuck on with double-sided tape.

Despite the mileage -- somewhere over 260,000km and unknown due to an instrument cluster change -- it actually drives well and is in reasonably good condition compared to some of the other cars I saw for sale.

First tasks are to find a stock exhaust and either replace or repaint the wheels. Removing the tacky add-ons is also a priority.

Registering an unregistered vehicle in NSW

2025-09-30T12:00:00+10:00

Here's what you need to know if registering an unregistered vehicle in NSW, whether the car was previously registered in NSW or another state.

Ensure that you have a receipt from the seller that states their full name and address, your full name and address and license number, details of the car including year, make, model and VIN number, and the sale price, date of sale and mileage at time of sale. This must be an original signed receipt. You can use download a suitable form here.

You will need to obtain an authorised unregistered vehicle inspection (blue slip) report. Only certain inspection stations are accredited to do these, so the usual place where you get an annual safety check (previously known as a pink slip) may not do blue slips. The current cost of these is $80. You can search for one here - look for the AUVIS accreditation.

You will need to buy a green slip specifically for an unregistered car, based on the VIN number. If you are planning on doing this immediately after purchasing the car note that you will need a physical copy of the green slip, even if you print it out yourself. So if you are out on the road and buy it online you will need a way to print it. If you are far from home you might be able to get it printed at a post office, newsagent or maybe you might find a kind RMS staff member that will print it for you.

Green slip prices can vary a lot, so it's worth using the government price check service to find the best price. Even if you usually find one company cheapest, it's worth checking as prices can vary based on many factors.

Once you have a blue slip and green slip you can visit Service NSW, wait in a queue, and then attempt to register the car. You will need an Application for Registration form which you can prepare in advance or obtain one and fill it out when you are there.

You will need to pay stamp duty based on the price paid or the market value. Some people illegally write down a lower amount on the receipt in an effort to save on this. The amount is $3 per $100 value.

You also need to pay the registration fee which varies based on vehicle weight and whether the vehicle is for private or business use. It ranges from $270 for under 975kg to $1,481 for 4,500kg (private use). Most small to medium cars fall into the 1,155kg to 1,504kg range ($380) or larger cars from 1,505kg to 2,504kg ($579).

Lastly, you need to pay for number plates. Even if the car still has number plates (the seller should have handed them back to the RMS) you must hand in the plates and buy new plates. This seems ridiculous and wasteful but maybe there is a reason. Standard black on yellow plates are $57 or slimline black on white plates are $165. You can also pay more and get different styles and custom plates if you wish to help out the government financially.

You can use the online calculator to work out what the total cost will be including stamp duty, registration cost and number plates.

As an example, a small hatchback I recently registered cost $1,127 all up including all of the above costs and just the basic black on yellow number plates.

• Find a safety inspection provider
• Greenslip price check service
• Application for Registration form
• Vehicle registration calculator
• Sample receipt

Prices correct as of 29 September 2025.

2000 Volvo V40 T4 Manual for sale on Carsales

2025-08-20T12:00:00+10:00

Spotted for sale on Carsales in Victoria is a MY00 Volvo V40 T4 in manual.

Most of the 2000 models are Super Tourers but this is the regular model.

It's silver and has the nice BBS wheels. Has done 265,000km.

https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/volvo-v40-2000/sse-ad-19374427/

Nissan Dualis (J10) 2007-2014 Review

2025-07-12T12:00:00+10:00

Attractive styling but the Dualis is a bit cheap and nasty and best avoided.

Nissan CVT transmissions are well known for not lasting long and being expensive to replace. The cost of replacing the CVT could exceed the value of the car.

The manual is not without problems as there are reports of premature clutch failure, some requiring replacement in as little as 30,000km.

Also reports of vibration at certain road speeds and headlights globes constantly failing.

Image credit: OSX, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons