I broke down on the Nullarbor and learnt a lesson about tow trucks and insurance
It happened. My worst nightmare. Our car broke down in the middle of nowhere on a sweltering 45-degree day en route across the Nullarbor. Our panting dog relegated to the back seat, the roadside gravel too hot for her paws.
In the company of 40,000 flies for the first few hours, two passers-by stopped to offer help. Two tattooed, shaved-head men with hands like hammers emerged from their ute and could have passed as extras in 'Prison Break'. I was terrified we'd end up being a statistic, while my husband's accent become more ocker as he chatted engine troubles.
A bushy-bearded truckie was next, telling me that he did a u-turn further up the highway in his road train to come back to see if we needed water. We didn't. Our car and car fridge were fully stocked. We'd only left Perth about four hours earlier, embarking on our first road trip across Australia to see my parents who live 4,400 kilometres away on the Coffs Coast.
The ground was too hot for my dog's feet. Picture: Dianne Bortoletto
In somewhat of a blessing, I had two bars of mobile coverage, so I called RAC, grateful that we'd taken out the top Ultimate Plus roadside insurance. While waiting for the RAC assessor, the prison-break guys, who turned out to be diesel mechanics, plugged a computer into our Ford Ranger and confirmed that no faults were showing, but also that no fuel was reaching the engine.
When I relayed this information to RAC - 'it's a fuel pump issue, we need a tow truck, not an assessor' - that I learnt my first lesson of what you need to do when you break down.
RAC agreed to send a tow truck, but what RAC didn't tell me earlier, during business hours, was that we were responsible for finding a place to tow our car to for repairs. Also, we were responsible for finding our own accommodation. With country businesses well and truly closed and the sky getting darker, I was lucky to catch the manager of what I call the Murder Scene Motel who said that keys would be left in the key box for a dog-friendly room, ready whenever we arrived. Relief, we had a place to stay, assuming we could get there.
We eventually learned we had a fuel injector problem. Picture: Dianne Bortoletto
It gets worse. While waiting, a thunderstorm struck, freaking out the dog and soaking us as we tried to get the tight canopy back over the jam-packed ute tray.
Then, when the tow truck finally arrived, he wouldn't let our scared little westie sit in his cabin, so she had to stay in our ute on the tilt tray, on her own, during a storm, for the hour-long trip to the Murder Scene Motel.
The next important lesson is to know the difference in kinds of tows. The stay-and-repair tow is when your car is towed to a mechanic and insurance covers the cost of the tow and accommodation on a day-by-day basis up to the value of $180 per night, capped at $1,260. Which is fine if your car can actually be repaired. Ours could not. Despite waiting for parts and repairs for a new fuel pump, we were stranded in a wheatbelt town for five long, hot days immediately before Christmas, without a car.
Little did we know, after getting picked up our problems were just beginning. Picture: Dianne Bortoletto
If we'd chosen a recovery tow, our car could have been towed back home, or to our onward destination up to the value of $7,000 which must also cover the tow-truck's return leg. Where would that get us? Frustratingly, RAC could not answer that, but they confirmed it wouldn't cover 4,000 kilometres to the Coffs Coast.
After much arguing and guilt-tripping pleas of 'It's Christmas!' RAC agreed to change our tow from a stay-and-repair to a recovery tow and transport our car back to Perth with two conditions; we paid for our accommodation, and we organised an accredited tow truck driver because, two days before Christmas, the only tow truck in town had already knocked off for the year.
See also: 13 dumb mistakes Aussie caravanners make
AAA Towing came to the rescue, sending a quote to RAC straight away for approval and deploying a tow truck from Perth within the hour. AAC Towing explained that tow trucks generally charge $5 per kilometre for a recovery tow, so $7,000 of coverage is 1,400-kilometre return trip.
The final problem? A $20 fuse that the mechanic didn't replace when fitting the new fuel pump.
Originally published as My Nullarbor nightmare: I broke down on a 45 degree day in the desert
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Herald Sun
3 days ago
- Herald Sun
I broke down on the Nullarbor and learnt a lesson about tow trucks and insurance
It happened. My worst nightmare. Our car broke down in the middle of nowhere on a sweltering 45-degree day en route across the Nullarbor. Our panting dog relegated to the back seat, the roadside gravel too hot for her paws. In the company of 40,000 flies for the first few hours, two passers-by stopped to offer help. Two tattooed, shaved-head men with hands like hammers emerged from their ute and could have passed as extras in 'Prison Break'. I was terrified we'd end up being a statistic, while my husband's accent become more ocker as he chatted engine troubles. A bushy-bearded truckie was next, telling me that he did a u-turn further up the highway in his road train to come back to see if we needed water. We didn't. Our car and car fridge were fully stocked. We'd only left Perth about four hours earlier, embarking on our first road trip across Australia to see my parents who live 4,400 kilometres away on the Coffs Coast. The ground was too hot for my dog's feet. Picture: Dianne Bortoletto In somewhat of a blessing, I had two bars of mobile coverage, so I called RAC, grateful that we'd taken out the top Ultimate Plus roadside insurance. While waiting for the RAC assessor, the prison-break guys, who turned out to be diesel mechanics, plugged a computer into our Ford Ranger and confirmed that no faults were showing, but also that no fuel was reaching the engine. When I relayed this information to RAC - 'it's a fuel pump issue, we need a tow truck, not an assessor' - that I learnt my first lesson of what you need to do when you break down. RAC agreed to send a tow truck, but what RAC didn't tell me earlier, during business hours, was that we were responsible for finding a place to tow our car to for repairs. Also, we were responsible for finding our own accommodation. With country businesses well and truly closed and the sky getting darker, I was lucky to catch the manager of what I call the Murder Scene Motel who said that keys would be left in the key box for a dog-friendly room, ready whenever we arrived. Relief, we had a place to stay, assuming we could get there. We eventually learned we had a fuel injector problem. Picture: Dianne Bortoletto It gets worse. While waiting, a thunderstorm struck, freaking out the dog and soaking us as we tried to get the tight canopy back over the jam-packed ute tray. Then, when the tow truck finally arrived, he wouldn't let our scared little westie sit in his cabin, so she had to stay in our ute on the tilt tray, on her own, during a storm, for the hour-long trip to the Murder Scene Motel. The next important lesson is to know the difference in kinds of tows. The stay-and-repair tow is when your car is towed to a mechanic and insurance covers the cost of the tow and accommodation on a day-by-day basis up to the value of $180 per night, capped at $1,260. Which is fine if your car can actually be repaired. Ours could not. Despite waiting for parts and repairs for a new fuel pump, we were stranded in a wheatbelt town for five long, hot days immediately before Christmas, without a car. Little did we know, after getting picked up our problems were just beginning. Picture: Dianne Bortoletto If we'd chosen a recovery tow, our car could have been towed back home, or to our onward destination up to the value of $7,000 which must also cover the tow-truck's return leg. Where would that get us? Frustratingly, RAC could not answer that, but they confirmed it wouldn't cover 4,000 kilometres to the Coffs Coast. After much arguing and guilt-tripping pleas of 'It's Christmas!' RAC agreed to change our tow from a stay-and-repair to a recovery tow and transport our car back to Perth with two conditions; we paid for our accommodation, and we organised an accredited tow truck driver because, two days before Christmas, the only tow truck in town had already knocked off for the year. See also: 13 dumb mistakes Aussie caravanners make AAA Towing came to the rescue, sending a quote to RAC straight away for approval and deploying a tow truck from Perth within the hour. AAC Towing explained that tow trucks generally charge $5 per kilometre for a recovery tow, so $7,000 of coverage is 1,400-kilometre return trip. The final problem? A $20 fuse that the mechanic didn't replace when fitting the new fuel pump. Originally published as My Nullarbor nightmare: I broke down on a 45 degree day in the desert
News.com.au
5 days ago
- News.com.au
‘Locked and loaded': new ute coming to Australia
It took Hyundai Australia's new boss minutes to say what his predecessors spent years avoiding – the South Korean brand is getting a ute. It's a long overdue announcement from the company that currently has no answer to the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux, two of Australia's best-selling new vehicles. Don Romano, formerly head of Hyundai in Canada, has been tasked with turning around the South Korean brand's fading fortunes in Australia. He's only been in the job seven weeks but he's already well aware that Hyundai's lack of a rival to the Ranger, HiLux and more is its biggest problem. But thanks to his strong reputation with Hyundai's upper management for his successes in Canada, Romano is confident he's the man to make it happen. 'LOCKED AND LOADED' While he admits it could take until at least the end of the decade to have a ute in Hyundai showrooms, he will make sure the plan is in place before he returns to Canada in three years. 'I want it locked and loaded by the time I leave,' Romano said. The most obvious, and fastest, way for Hyundai to add a ute to its range would be creating its own version of the upcoming Kia Tasman ute. Kia is Hyundai's sister brand and they share vehicle underpinnings and powertrains across several models already. However, Romano is not sure that the unorthodox looks of the Tasman and its relatively small 2.2-litre turbo diesel engine would be the right fit for Hyundai's range. ' You know, it depends on what we want, it really does,' he said. 'If I were to go with a standard diesel I could probably get it in a few years, but is that really what we want for the market? And number two, how's that gonna fit into the government's plans for NVES [New Vehicle Efficiency Standard]? So we need to really kind of consider, do we just want another ute that everybody else has or what's distinctly Hyundai?' The other obvious option for a Hyundai ute is the South Korean brand's new partnership with America's General Motors. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding last year to work on a range of shared vehicles and that could include a ute. The General Motors portfolio includes several options for Hyundai, including the Chevrolet Colorado and Silverado, which are both bigger than the Ranger and HiLux. While a promising option, the deal is so new Romano admitted he's not sure if it could deliver a ute option for Australia yet. ' I cannot tell you whether or not that's feasible at this stage,' he said. 'I just know that we have the relationship now with GM and I know that we need pick-up trucks in a number of markets, and not just Australia. I would say this is probably one of the more important, but the US is no less important, it's much bigger. 'And so now what we're doing is we're assembling all the requests from around the world, and it's being done by a new group that [Hyundai global CEO] Jose Munoz has put together. Just to determine, what are the common grounds? What are the commonalities, what makes the most sense for the company globally? 'And I think that fits with the vision that we have here. Again, it's easy to say, 'Hey, we'll just take this vehicle and put a Hyundai badge on it', but I don't think that's what the market's looking for – something new.' Ensuring Australia gets the right ute is Romano's clear priority, even if that takes longer, but he insists a plan will be in place within the next three years. ' Honestly, I just can't give a timeline because I want something unique that's distinctly Hyundai,' he said. 'That's something we can differentiate ourselves with, not just another pick-up truck. 'And I'm willing to wait a little longer, but I do want it in the product plan before I leave and go back home to Canada.' After selling more than 100,000 cars per year in 2014, 2015 and 2016, Hyundai's love affair with Australia has faded. Last year Hyundai managed to sell 71,664 cars, a third of No. 1 Toyota's sales and none of Hyundai's models made the top 10 best selling cars of 2025.
West Australian
24-05-2025
- West Australian
Which electrified pick-up would you buy?
Utes and pick-up trucks form one of the most popular new vehicle segments in Australia, and it's also one of the busiest in terms of new models and technology development. We've seen numerous new utes out of China in particular, and a lot of them are pushing the boundaries in terms of cabin refinement and tech. Plenty of hybrid and EV utes have already started arriving too, and more are on the horizon. With that in mind, we've asked the CarExpert team which electrified ute they would buy if they were in the market. Hundreds of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now . To make things interesting, we've thrown it open to all utes with any form of electric assistance, which makes everything from mild-hybrids to fully electric utes eligible for selection. Some of these aren't yet on sale in Australia, so the team was also invited to speculate on models they think will be winners. Options include: Plug-in hybrid (PHEV) utes make a lot of sense in a country like Australia because they offer EV-dwarfing range to haul people and their cargo over long distances between fuel stops, and diesel-beating torque that makes them ideal for towing, off-roading and general driving duties of all types. The Ranger PHEV may have a higher price, a smaller battery and therefore a shorter electric-only range than the BYD Shark 6 and GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV , but it also has the biggest engine with the most torque, the highest payload, and a 3500kg towing capacity to match its diesel siblings and the GWM. Available in four variants to suit a wider range of buyers, it will also have the backing of 180 dealers nationwide, the engineering expertise of a 122-year-old automaker, and the unrivalled combination of design, technology, refinement, performance and capability that attracted more Aussies than any other new vehicle last year. Interested in buying a Ford Ranger? Get in touch with one of CarExpert's trusted dealers here MORE: Everything Ford Ranger The electric ute segment is essentially non-existent in Australia right now, with just the lame LDV eT60 . I'm excited to drive the new LDV eTerron 9 , however. Then there are the hybrids. The Tundra looks great, but it's not exactly a Prius when it comes to efficiency and I wouldn't pick one over the other American pickups for the price Toyota is asking. The much cheaper GWM Cannon Alpha has a plush interior, but its ride quality is average at best. The real centre of activity is the plug-in hybrid ute segment, and of the three either here now or coming within the next few months, I've driven just one: the BYD Shark 6 . Its interior puts most utes to shame, with slick tech, an attractive design and nice materials. The powertrain is also smooth and refined, with seamless shifts between petrol and electric power. But it still rides like a ute – a decent one, but a ute nonetheless – so don't expect it to feel quite like an SUV as some have. If you're buying a ute, though, don't you want maximum capability? For example, the 3500kg braked towing capacity and off-road capability of the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV and Ford Ranger PHEV ? But I come back to that point about unladen ride quality – no matter how much you use your ute, I doubt you always have something in the tray. These are often used as family vehicles, and they need to be comfy. The regular Cannon Alpha isn't exactly smooth, so I wonder how it fares with a big, heavy battery. The regular Ranger is the ride quality benchmark in its segment, but we haven't driven one yet and these Chinese rivals significantly undercut it on price. One of these three would likely be my pick, but I'll need to drive them all to make up my mind. Having not yet driven the Ford, the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV – based on our drive of a pre-production prototype – is the best example yet of how to maintain a dual-cab's desired capability with an electrified drivetrain. With a huge battery offering heaps of EV range, the Alpha PHEV can realistically be driven as an EV for over 100 kilometres for regular commuting, while also offering 3.5t towing and a proper mechanical 4WD system to do typical 'ute stuff'. Even better, the GWM's cabin is luxe and its PHEV system puts out plenty of power and torque to get this 2.8-tonne beast moving with surprising gusto. It'll be interesting to see if my mind changes as more options arrive in Australia over the coming months. Interested in buying a GWM Cannon Alpha? Get in touch with one of CarExpert's trusted dealers here MORE: Everything GWM Cannon Alpha This isn't a tough decision at all for me. Which of these has a stellar reputation – the kind of image and success greater than the brand it's from, even enough to hold up that entire company for some years now? Which has off-road credentials, safety tech, predictable servicing costs and a proper dealer network? And which is a handsome, rugged yet practical ute – the PHEV seeing it lead its segment rival and the only other vehicle on this list I'd seriously consider, the Toyota HiLux . Like the Toyota, it's also less of a risk when it comes time to move it on, too, given it promises best-in-class dynamics with the 3500kg holy grail towing rating. Plug me into a Ford Ranger PHEV . Interested in buying a Ford Ranger? Get in touch with one of CarExpert's trusted dealers here MORE: Everything Ford Ranger I've been a staunch advocate for the BYD Shark 6 since it arrived in Australia, but over time it's become abundantly clear that the lifestyle-oriented marine predator doesn't do ute things as well as rivals. And it's not only old-school internal combustion engine (ICE) utes that have the wood over the Shark 6, as the new GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV represents a compelling alternative in the electrified space. With a bigger battery, more torque, better towing capacity and superior EV range, the Cannon Alpha Plug-in Hybrid brings more capability on-road and offers a proper four-wheel drive system with front, rear and centre locking differentials for when the tarmac disappears. The Cannon Alpha PHEV effectively blends traditional workhorse traits with the flexibility of plug-in hybrid power, and it's not even that expensive – pricing starts from as little as $61,490 drive-away for the base Lux, while the flagship Ultra comes in at $67,990 drive-away. Buy either for a modern, well-rounded ute experience. Interested in buying a GWM Cannon Alpha? Get in touch with one of CarExpert's trusted dealers here MORE: Everything GWM Cannon Alpha I'm aware that saying I haven't decided seems like a cop-out, but there's actually a lot I want to consider before choosing one of these cars. To get it out of the way, I wouldn't go for a fully electric ute, because I don't think it makes a lot of sense in Australia. The mild-hybrid and hybrid Toyotas are old and expensive respectively, so they're off the cards for the time being too. I was a little underwhelmed by the JAC T9 diesel and therefore maintain a conservative mindset regarding the incoming Hunter PHEV . That leaves the BYD Shark 6 , GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV , and Ford Ranger PHEV . After having driven the Shark for a week earlier this year (review coming soon), I was impressed by its on-road composure and general upmarket presentation. It also presents well and has a mostly competent suite of driver assist tech, but its off-road shortcomings make it difficult to pin to the top of my wishlist. By default, that gives the Cannon Alpha an edge with its standard inclusion of low-range gearing and locking differentials. It may still suffer from similar driver assist inconsistencies seen on other GWM products, which is why I'm cautiously confident about its success. Then there's the Ford Ranger PHEV, which has a lot to live up to. The Ranger is still the segment benchmark with diesel power, so Ford at least has a strong foundation to build upon when implementing PHEV tech. It starts to look less appealing when you consider the price, and then the fact that its claimed EV-only range is half that of the BYD and GWM. Still, good interior tech and otherwise solid construction could make up for that. At the end of the day, it's really between the Cannon Alpha and the Ranger in my eyes. There should be a fair indication of what ute buyers prefer by the end of the year, once owners have had time to mull their vehicles over and after they've both been on sale for a few months. We're also due to drive the Ranger PHEV for the first time very soon, so time will tell. Let us know which you'd pick in the comments below!
