Your questions answered: where have all the wagons gone?

Roundabout rumbles, station wagon wonderings, and electric vehicle (EV) charging challenges this week in Your Questions Answered.

Got an automotive question but you don’t know where to find the information you need? Never fear, email us here at editor@carsales.com.au.

Hey guys, love your articles. I'm just in the market for a new car and want a new station wagon. The issue that I have is your application doesn't have new station wagons. All it has are SUVs. Do car companies still import new wagons to Australia? 

Thanks so much – Maria

Answer: Hey Maria, you’re preaching to the choir here! I currently have a station wagon, my next car will likely be an electric station wagon, my ultimate car is a station wagon (the Audi RS6), and my last car will probably be a station wagon.

While there are fewer new wagons on the market today than there was even a decade ago, they can still be found – if you know where to look.

The number one purveyor would have to be Skoda, which sells both the large Superb and the medium-sized Octavia in wagon form. In fact, the latest Superb bumped the previously popular Volkswagen Passat wagon out of the local market, given that both cars are now identical aside from a few panel changes.

The new Cupra Sports Tourer wagon is very closely related to the Octavia and offers a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) drivetrain option.

Audi also sells an A5 wagon if you’re looking for something in the premium space; likewise, BMW offers a 3 Series wagon.

If you’re after a real oddball, there’s a Genesis G70 wagon for sale on the site – that’s not a car you’ll see every day!

I would also bet that the latest crop of brands entering the market will be looking hard at a wagon body style – if for nothing else, to offer a point of difference from the sea of SUVs currently on offer. Zeekr, for example, is teasing the 7X GT wagon, which I reckon will find more than a few homes locally if it does make it Down Under.

You can narrow your search on our site by scrolling down the left column on desktop, or by opening the ‘Buy’ tab on mobile and selecting ‘Body type / Wagon’. From there, you can filter by price, location, size and even colour.

Can you help me with an argument please? I live in NSW where people seem to think the ‘Give Way’ signs on roundabouts are merely an inconvenience to speedy passage, no matter who else is approaching it.

A colleague of mine swears black and blue that drivers are only required to yield only to traffic on the right in a roundabout, and that the ‘straight-ahead’ (whatever that means) has right of way. He’s 100 per cent wrong, isn’t he? – Molly

Answer: Hey Molly, this is a great question. There’s a widely held misconception that, upon approaching a roundabout, a driver only needs to give way to traffic on their right that is already in the roundabout. This is actually incorrect.

Roundabout rules in Victoria and NSW, as well as all other Australian states and territories, expressly state that a driver is required to give way to all traffic already in a roundabout, regardless of direction. When entering a roundabout, a driver must give way to any vehicle – including motorbikes and bicycles – that is already in the roundabout.

Oftentimes, this does mean giving way to vehicles approaching from the right. However, a vehicle may have entered the roundabout ahead of the driver approaching from the left, and the driver will have to give way to this other vehicle to avoid a collision.

The sad reality is, though, that most people drive roundabouts in the same way your friend does; believing (wrongly) that they don’t need to give way to traffic on their left. The easiest way to think about it – and a way for people to potentially change their behaviour – is to remember that there is a broken white line and a ‘Give Way’ sign at each entrance to a roundabout that must be obeyed, whether it’s a roundabout or a side street.

I’ve driven in the United States a bit over the years, and the Yanks use four-way stop signs instead of roundabouts. Despite it sounding like a terrible idea, they work amazingly well, and they remove the notion of a right-of-way in any given direction. However, I’d advise treading carefully when it comes to fellow road users knowing roundabout rules – let alone obeying them.

Hi carsales team, I have a question about charging an electric car at home. I read somewhere that we shouldn’t use an extension cord when we charge the car from our trickle charger that came with our MG4. Is this true? I must confess I have done so, but only with a yellow 15-amp caravan extension cord I had lying around. I just figured bigger was better when it comes to electricity! – Tan

Answer: Hi Tan, that’s technically correct. The advice around trickle charging is to not use any form of extension cord between the wall and the EV trickle charger (also known as an emergency charger or granny charger).

But, as with most things, a bit of common sense means it’s not impossible to do so – it’s just going to cost a bit more. Please bear in mind that electricity is serious stuff, whether you’re charging a car or setting up Christmas lights, so seek professional advice if you choose to proceed.

Sustained heat over time from electricity transmission is the enemy here, so all elements of the charging loop need to work together to dissipate it.

First things first, your power point and wiring infrastructure need to be in perfect working order, and one outlet should be dedicated solely to the trickle charger.

Secondly, the extension cord cannot be one you’ve grabbed from the supermarket for ten bucks. Inadvertently or not, your 15-amp caravan cable is probably spot-on to use. It will likely be 2.5 square millimetre in diameter, rather than the 1.0  square millimetre (or even smaller) size of regular white household cables. Bigger-diameter cables equal much better heat management.

Keep the cable run as short as possible and as completely unwound as you can for optimum performance, too.

The views stated in this advice column are advisory only. Questions may be edited for clarity and length.

Got an automotive question but you don’t know where to find the information you need? Never fear, email us here at editor@carsales.com.au.

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