Auto Check

We drive a Nissan Pathfinder in Australia, built in 1995. With a displacement of 3.0 liters and a V6 engine, that sounds like a lot for German standards. But in Australia, that's apparently the norm. In general, an all-wheel drive car like ours is quite common for Australians who aren't exclusively driving in the city. Compared to others, our car is actually on the smaller side. You really see a lot of pickups here, big and small! And there's even an extra kangaroo protection on the front bonnet. Although no kangaroos or other animals have jumped and fluttered in front of our radiator in the first 2000km, considering the number of dead animals and skeletons you see by the roadside, it's probably only a matter of time. Today, I almost ran over a giant lizard, but even the kangaroo bar probably wouldn't have helped in that case.
It's also common to hang a fly net in front of the motor's ventilation. We've already caught a few swarms of bees and flies in it, if they didn't crash directly into the windshield and leave their sticky blood everywhere, so that the windshield wipers only helped moderately when it rained.
Another difference to German standards: the mileage... 300,000 to 400,000km on the odometer is not uncommon here. Our car already has 310,000km on the clock and is running great for its 21 years. Probably unthinkable in Germany, but since the maximum speed here is 110km/h, cars are treated much better.
With our 80l tank, we can cover about 600km, so you know what the consumption is. But since the fuel costs for petrol are around $1.20 - so 0.80€ per liter, it's still manageable. So one full tank costs us about €65. Quite cheap compared to German standards.

We also have a cruise control!! It's great for those stretches that just go straight, like the 1300km from Cape Jervis to Canberra, which we're currently bridging. Driving on those roads can be really tiring. It would be great if we could use the cruise control. Unfortunately, it's broken :(

Another advantage when buying a car and registering it in Western Australia, you only have to fill out a letter with the seller's and buyer's details and the car is supposedly sold - allegedly. It's probably not possible to make it any less bureaucratic.

Oh, and parking beyond the free parking period is very expensive, we learned that in Adenauer. We had to pay $50 for that. But they're quite advanced when it comes to collecting money, you can pay the fees through a website on the internet.