1995 Holden Barina GSi from Australia and New Zealand - Comments

Hey my mum owns a 1995 Barina "Joy" model which I drive sometimes, I was recently driving it and all of a sudden there was no power I was confused, but when I came to a roundabout and put in to 2nd then turned there was absolutely no power at all, I came to an intersection then took of in first and once again basically rolled along the road for a while, until I got home, I checked my dashboard no check engine light, but the temperature was almost 100 c, (note only been driving for under 5 minutes), I checked under the hood, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, so reved it in neutral, but still very slow to gain rpm. I turned the car off let it sit then cranked it again, and it started, but had very low rpm (500) and was constantly fluxuating between 500-1000 before evening out after 30 seconds, what could the problem be, maybe cylinders not firing? There is also this constant rattle when accelerating above 3000 rpm.. Please help..

Also drivers side rear tail light has blown 3 times and air con also has gone 3 times.

I have owned at 95 Barina Swing for 9 years have had constant problems with the car stalling while driving. I was not aware that there were so many people having the same problem.

When I got the car it had a Holden use car warranty. The dealer I got it though had 9 goes at fixing the problem (including replacing the emu and sensors) without any luck. Holden denied that they have had this problem before. Eventually when the Holden warranty ran out the washed their hands of the problem.

I have just had an interesting problem occour with the fuel injection system though. The Fuel flow diaphragm that controls the flow of fuel to the fuel return line on the TBI injection body failed. It was spraying fuel into the air box and flooded the car. I contacted the local Holden dealer and the said that Holden have never had one of these fail. It cost $140 for a new one.

We have owned a 1995 Barina Joy since 1997. It has now done 290,000km, until recently mostly without problems.

Our experiences with the car in recent time however has proved trying to say the least. It started by breaking down in peak hour traffic on the motorway. This was diagnosed as no spark due to a dead hall effect device on the distributor.

Towed it to our usual garage who replaced the distributor. It wouldn't run properly, so the coil, ignition unit and spark plugs were replaced. After this it almost ran properly.

It died again approximately 1 week later. Replaced the original spark plug leads as well. It was much better for a week when once again it refused to start. No spark. Replaced the coil again, only to have it flood and burn back through the throttle body.

Towed it to our local garage who was able to identify that the hydraulic valve lifters had too much pressure and were holding the valves open even when they were supposed to be closed. This can be due to either the wrong grade of oil being used or the wrong filter being used. Changed the oil and filter and the car could then be started, but it was still excessively rich.

We were fortunate in that this garage used a mobile diagnostic serviceman who had worked on these vehicles in Germany and the UK. With his diagnostic machine and a card he had brought with him from the UK he was able to quickly determine that the temperature sensor was faulty. This appears to have cured this ailment although occasionally when returning to idle the engine almost stalls on occasion. We are presently making notes to see if there is any pattern to this ailment.

Other work we have done on the car includes replacing the frost plugs as one was weeping, a new clutch at 280,000km, replaced rear brake cylinders 281,000km.

Overall it had been a reliable car, but at its present mileage I will probably be looking for a replacement.

I have a 96 barina swing. I have had it for 6 months and have had some major reliability problems. So far, I have replaced the alternator ($600) the timing belts, (general maintenance at 100000km) the water pump, the radiator pipe, the thermostat switch and thermostat.

It has now only done 103000km and despite these replacements in the cooling system I am still experiencing overheating when I stop at traffic light or driving slowly around the car park. I am now seriously considering selling the car. I am student and just can't afford these continuous and expensive repairs.

On the other hand I admit that I will be hard pushed to find another car of similar age with such a modern interior. Top Marks there. The dual airbags are also a feature which isn't available in any other small car of the time that I have seen.

I have a 1994 barina and its been with the auto electrician for almost 2 weeks now. they changed the ignition coil and it will run OK for 1 day then the next day it will start its stalling I pull over wait 15 minutes then it starts and drives and breaks down again. it simply just cuts out I still have power just no spark at all. now he is replacing the distributor??? has anyone got any ideas what it can be the engine runs beautifully and does not overheat.

Hi.

Our Barina Joy (290k mentioned above) is still giving us issues (to the extent that we also purchased a new Toyota Yaris) and still stops every now and again. After 3 weeks with our local garage we have discovered that despite the orange engine light coming on, no error code is recorded by the computer. It turns out that there are many problems that are not recorded! We have also discovered that this usually indicates a problem with either the distributor, ignition igniter module or a bad connection (most likely on the igniter module).

At this time I haven't replaced either part to fix the problem as it usually restarts without an issue and we are no longer using it as our primary vehicle, however, our local mechanic recommended replacing the ignition module first as it's a brand he hasn't had great experiences with. At around $250, it's cheaper than replacing the distributor.

Hopefully this will help you.

Hey

thanks for that and finally success, it was a part of the distributor after the electrician went through every single bit of the car he finally found the problem by simply replacing parts with second hand parts and seeing if it worked poor guy I think he is hoping I never bring the car back to him again he had it for about 3 weeks in the end and drove it everywhere, including dropping customers home.

Now my little barina is going perfect again. thanks for your reply.

For those who have had problems with overheating when stopped at traffic lights etc, I too had the same problem & after speaking to a mechanic I found out that (& don't quote me 100% on this) the car has more than one fan.

It has thermofans (?) which don't do a lot & one big fan (if you open the bonnet it's right at the front) which does all the work of keeping your motor cool BUT... it only kicks in once your car is already quite hot.

You should find that if you were to sit with the engine running on a hot day for quite a while (longer than a traffic light change) you can hear the fan kick in & then slowly watch the temp go down.