1979 Holden HZ Ute review from Australia and New Zealand

This vehicle started life in 1979 as a government car. Then was purchased by a retired man to use basically as a trailer once every now and again, so it received very little use over the next many years, until I purchased the vehicle and used it as a daily workhorse.

I feel that most of the troubles were due to lack of use.

During the first few weeks of use the car used water at an alarming rate, but there were no leaks to be seen, suspected head gasket. This did not fix the problem, however, shortly after this I noticed under the rubber mats was wet, the heater unit had a leaky core, replaced for about $100.

The next problem occurred only a short time after, while I was 100km away from home! The harmonic balancer decided to split into two pieces, leaving me stuck on the other side of town. A quick (yet expensive) trip to a close by auto parts shop and I had everything I need to fix this (this includes buying tools!) 4 hours later I was back on the road, headed for home.

Not surprisingly the engine now ran a lot smoother,... for a week or so anyway. The car suddenly became horrible to drive, another trip to an auto parts shop and $30 later, new leads did the trick.

The transmission started to slip under load. $180 for a trans service and this was fixed.

An on going problems (for the 9 months I owned this vehicle) was trying to set the idle. No matter how it was set, or who, set the carburettor up it just would not run right. The carburettor probably needed a rebuild, but I was not going to spend any more money fixing the car.

This vehicle was in immaculate condition (body and interior wise) apart from one small rip in the drivers seat.

The seat (one bench seat) was like driving from a lounge suite, just don't corner too fast or you'll slide on the vinyl.

The engine (when running) had heaps of power, just not much acceleration and revved very high on the freeway, And like all old holden 6's, (and most of their owners), didn't like cold mornings.

A fantastic car to drive, with loads of character, unfortunately not reliable enough.