Advice on new not too soft 4wd

Submitted: Saturday, Mar 20, 2004 at 12:26
ThreadID: 11407 Views:2975 Replies:12 FollowUps:8
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Hi everyone this is my first post here although I've been lurking a bit over the last month reading old posts and stuff and I've already learn't heaps. I'm buying a new car to replace the old ford mondeo which has been a nice onroad car but I'm killing it everytime I take it on a dirt road. I live in the blue mountains west of Sydney and I do lots of mountain biking, hiking, canyoning, kyaking, camping etc and have been fairly limited in where I can get to with my current car.
However my job involves driving 800+ ks per week all on tarmac so I need a car that will be nice to sit in for the 5 or 6 hours I spend in it most days. My friends - who don't use there cars for work own old Landcruisers and Vitaras and I've done some good off roading with them and I'd love to have a car that could fulfill my weekly work needs and my outdoor lifestyle on weekends.
I don't need a long travel suspension long range land cruiser or patrol - I could'nt afford the petrol for a start, so I'm looking at compact 4wds. The car will be used mostly as a work vechicle and I need to buy new (or near new) so I can get the benefits of depreciation (theres an oxymoron).
So before looking here I had thought an X-trail or something similar would be a good compromise however I want to be able to do slightly more serious off roading that what they appear to be capable of. As an example I would at least like to be able to head down the kowmung track from kanangara and across the river to the camping ground and back up again - I'm not sure what grade that is but I think I'd be pretty scared without low range.
So the contenders I have come up with so far are a Suzuki Grand Vitara aprox 35k a Jeep 4cyl Cherokee aprox 37k or the Cherokee extreme sport 6cyl (auto) aprox 41k I'm guessing a Subaru Outback wouldn't cut it off road due to ground clearance but its sort of on my list at 40k - I really didn't want to spend over 40k if possible.
Is an auto transmission a big dissadvantage off road? are there any other cars in this price range with similar or better capabilities that I should look at? remember I need good fuel economy + good on road handling and comforts + reasonable off road ability. Thanks heaps any advice is greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Jools
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