How good can you expect a Prado SX be for under £2500 ... OK its well known the heads fail, so invest in a 3.0 head as part of your pre trip departure,

Someone else has the same idea
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/73354-ExPo-Project-1991-Land-Cruiser-Prado-SX-(LJ78)

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/3622092.htm

cheers
M

I look at this question from potentially another point of view, which is how much MORE reliable is a vehicle for which you drop 2-4x as much money?

If you test drive the car, identify issues, know what it costs to fix, replace, deal with, then you are in a good spot. If you can identify the high likely fail points and know the cost to mitigate them, then you'll know if it truly a good deal.

I did this last year with two Subaru FOresters. We purchased them, fixed them up (had to rebuild an entire engine) and shipped them to the UK and then drove to Cape Town.

Great news - they made it! Total cost for the vehicles and vehicle work was about $4,000 USD. So, you can definitely do it and can definitely save a lot of money by doing it.

One of the big things we saw is that a lot of people would "overbuy" as in getting more vehicle and more performance parts than they actually would use and of course not actually knowing how to utilize all the options (winch, etc.)

Plus, it is kind of fun taking a $1,000 beater you buy with 240,000 miles on it and driving it 15,000 miles across the globe.

Only started noticing these when I saw a couple in the Moroccan desert but how about a Dacia / Renault Duster as a bargain priced Overlander?

From £8995 brand new, buy do your trip and then sell on again?

there isn't a new vehicle on the market in Europe I would take on a long remote trip. Too much electronics, too sensitive to poor fuel, too complex.

Take a vehicle you know well, and have preferably worked on yourself, as above.

I agree on the electronics point to an extent. As far as fuel goes, you generally are okay as you can bring octane booster and cars these days have knock sensors and can regulate themselves in the event of poor fuel. I've gotten some terrible fuel in Africa and Central Asia in the past, but the cars kept on going.

The good news/bad news with electronics is that you end up with a highly efficient vehicle, but with a million sensors that can break or have issues. As long as you know where those sensors are, how they work, and you bring a code reader, you can generally diagnose and fix most issues.

When I've been on the road, we seem to always debat which is more reliable..the new car, or the 30 year old car. In the end it seems to always come to a stalemate! Each have positives and negatives and I think it comes down to the person behind the wheel and his/her knowledge and experience.

These two views are opposites (nothing wrong with that per se); if selling on a vehicle at the end of a trip then the particular vehicle does not become well known, although the vehicle model is known better. In any case, the depreciation will be "realised" in that the capital cost of a replacement vehicle has to be found (or the trips cease).
I think that quite a few motorcycle riders do sell on, but the capital costs involved are much less; having said that, recently I spent less on my 17 year old L/C than on buying most of the motorbikes I have purchased in the last 14 years.

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Dave

I first noticed Dacia in use in France in 2007; now they are being marketed in the UK, including the 4x4 Duster, but the price of £9K is for the base model i.e. 2 wheel drive - the 4x4 is priced at much more, but I can't remember how much more. The UK Renault dealers should be selling these if prices are needed.

Personally, I detest carrying the depreciation on any new vehicle.

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Dave

Couldn't agree more. Let someone else take that 20% or so hit.

Does the UK have a good market for certified used vehicles? ...or dealers that specialize in guaranteed/warenteed used vehicles? We have CarMax over here in the US and while theyre prices are hit or miss, the vehicle quality is extremely high.

It's too little information for me to hold an opinion: I would want to know much more about a specific vehicle, it's history and how it has been maintained.

As a short answer, yes. There is a strong market for pre-owned/second-hand, = two terminologies that are in use for such vehicles. There are also many dealerships for all standards of vehicles and it is possible to buy a warranty for up to, say, 3 years on pre-owned cars/bikes, while many dealers will offer their own warranty.

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Dave

Remember that you only take a hit if you buy brand new and actually sell the vehicle.

I bought my Defender 90 brand new tax free in RAF Germany in 1995 for 14,105.50 GBP

I still have it and I haven't lost a penny on it - Ive had the enjoyment of driving nearly every mile on the clock of a brand new vehicle, I know its been run in properly and used hard but serviced well, its never let me down in 18 years and I know it inside out and back to front

Even though it now needs an overhaul, like Moggy I can spend 6-8000 GBP (engine and drivetrain overhaul, new galvanised chassis, new panels, interior etc) and end up with basically a brand new vehicle as good for overlanding as any Tdci/Td5 juke box

If I bring it to Canada in a few years I could actually still make money on it as they are collectors items over here, there's an ' 86 D90 on Kijiji (gumtree over here) currently for $40,000 CAD! (25,000GBP)

http://alberta.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehi...AdIdZ480991663

But I will never sell it either!

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Cheers
Grif

'11 KTM 450 EXC
'09 Suzuki DR650
'00 Discovery Series 2 V8
'95 Defender 90 300 Tdi Overlander
http://gipperstravels.blogspot.ca

My point is that the amount some people spend on getting an old car up together is more that the depreciation on a brand new low cost model and then there is the fuel savings as well to factor in.

The base model is basic, but that's the point they are also built in India, Brazil, Russia, Romania and Morocco so are well known.

The base 4x4 is £10,995 btw.

they first came to the UK in the 80s, then disappeared without a trace. There's every chance that could happen again (as with the niva). Then, you'll really see what depreciation is!

The diesel problem is due to the low sulphur requirements of euro 5 engines. neither the vehicle electronics or octane boosters will help you there.

Honestly,

I'd definatly start from a cheap base vehicle that has good potential and spend the "spare" money on uprating/upgrading as you need it to be.

Because even a new car will need to be modified for what you're looking for and that means you're spending even more money than the new price + that the mods most likely invalidate your warranty anyhow.

As for the scenario of cooking oil mixed with the diesel.

On a petrol car, like the Prado, you could LPG convert it and maybe ensure, that you have an option to refuel from gas bottles, if LPG isn't available. Gives you a second/cheaper option for fuel. With a dual pickup on the LPG tank you could even also feed gas applieances like a cooker then.

/M

LPG is certainly worth while if you are going to eastern Europe. It's widely available and very cheap. Can't see the gas bottle idea working though. there are problems with the connections, they are extremely heavy and I would have serious safety concerns about them. Just fit an LPG tank extra to the main petrol tank. That's the standard way to do it.

I had that on an V6 Petrol L200 Mitsubishi, a 60L tank netween the chassis rails, was well tucked up so no risk of damage. Best MPG I got was 30mpg towing a motorbike on a trailer. With LPG at that time half the cost of diesel that represented the equivalent cost of doing 60mpg, not bad from a 3litre engine!!

When I had a landrover 101 ambulance made into a camper I had a 100 litre tank under the rear bed. Fuel consumption on petrol was about 10mpg, on LPG 8, so the conversion paid for itself pretty quickly.

If you go that route there are a lot of cheap big engine petrol 4x4s out there because people shy away from them due to the fuel costs. A good quality conversion (and it pays to have a good quality one) is £1400-2000

The other big incentive for older vehicles in the UK is road tax. A big engine vehicle (I now a Dacia isn't one of those!) can be eyewateringly expensive to tax, wheras a pre 2000 model is more reasonable.

Obviously my post wasn't clear enough then. Of course you need a LPG tank. You won't get it certified without that. As I specified a tank with dual pickup will let you feed engine and cooker.

The gas bottle idea was to fill/transfer gas into the tank, IF you can't get LPG on a normal filling station. An alternative to fill the car, not to carry around or as a replacement for the LPG tank.

/M