So this week we were off to tour a bit of Victoria for a
week to give Daryl’s and his new Prado a bit of a shakedown. The plan was to
head from Sydney down to Bright, spend a few days in the High Country before
ending up in Mansfield, then slogging across to the Grampians. But alas this
wasn’t to be. Heading up Blue Rag Range on the first day I had the coolant
error light blink at me on the dash. I wasn’t really sure what this meant; it
definitely wasn’t overheating, so either a sensor was broke or the coolant
level was low. Popping the bonnet I didn’t see anything wrong; the coolant
level seemed fine. I figured there was an issue with the angle we drove on that
gave a false low coolant reading. This wasn’t going to be the case.

We continued on to camp in Talbotville for the night. The next day we had a bit of wheeling planned, including Billy Goats Bluff and guess what happened. The light popped up a couple of times more, so now I knew there had to be something wrong – my mind shifted to worse case being a buggered EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation System) cooler. A quick call to Dwyers VW in Bairnsdale, they said they could do some diagnosis that day, so we headed out of the high country and made it there by 3:30.

Long story short, they tested the system, the cooler was leaking .2 bar over 10 minutes which isn’t good. If I didn’t fix it, coolant ends up in the motor, the hole gets bigger and before you know it, time for a new motor. Glenn quoted up the repair for $900 in parts and labour, the price wasn’t really a surprise, but the fact they had the parts in stock AND could do the repair the following day blew me away.

So after spending a day fishing around Bairnsdale, at 4:30 we drove out of the dealership with a repaired Amarok and a new found faith in VW service – I couldn’t recommend Dwyers enough! We b-lined it for the Grampians, camping in Wombat forest park before continuing on to the National Park the next day. Now I’m enjoying a cold one, getting back to nature. Keep an eye out for the Grampians trip in Unsealed 4x4.

Talk soon.

Tobey