quietest and smoothest soft roader

Isn't Willie looking for a new 4WD. Maybe his old one will suit your wife to the ground......

Always happy to keep a relationship in tip top shape ;-);-);-)

Sparkie(IE not Y) ;-)

G'Day Joe,

Glad to hear that you get the Prado to yourself! Nice work buddy.

I would recommend the Forester as the pick of the softies. Depends of course on the budget and the body style you are after. The XT Forester at $45K was actually my main alternative before I settled on the Prado myself. Performance plus from the turbo 2.5 (o-100 in 6.6 sec! same as a V8 SS). Would be a good alternative for dirt road only use and would also be a practical roomy vehicle round town. If you don't want the turbo power of the XT then the XS model has a low range which is more than can be said about many in the class!

I think it would be surprising how far it would follow the prado as well if you have more people tag a long as you say. You can then always put the snatch stap on it to get it through!

Just my thoughts.

Muddy

My 20cents worth. Tube-a-Glue and Mister'bishi use mainly 50/50 torque split on their 4wd systems rather than relying on electronics to apply brakes and distribute torque, so for my money, would look at these first. Of the bunch would probably go Forrester or (I know they look damn ugly, but a facelift is close by), Outlander. Very different inside so your wife will soon tell you which one she hates. Wait if you can for the updated Outlander, the front is far more conventional, even though the interior is much the same. For what it is worth, if you are going somewhere in these where you need low range, then you probably shouldn't be going there, auto will be far better off road in these than manual
Rolande

Joe,

My 2 bob's worth. I traded my GU tdi on an auto Xtrail.

Xtrail is quiet, powerful and economical. It has an unbraked towing capacity of 750kg - which is better than all of the other awd - and same as Outback which costs at least $10k more. If you don't mind the guages in the middle of the dash - and I haven't found them hard to live with - it's a great unit. Forester would have been my next pick, but tow capacity is too low. Intend to use it to tow my boat all over the place, so unbraked tow cap is very important to me.

Wife can get into it very easily. rear loading is a cinch - no lifting up from the shopping trolley ;-). Heaps of room in the back for the kids. Turning circle is great, visibility is very good. Reversing the boat is a breeze ( I can even see the thing now).

It's completely computer controlled. Amazed to see that it doesn't even have spark plug leads - showing my age I guess. Whether that's good or bad I can't say yet.

The front mudguards are plastic. I couldn't think of any reason why they shouldn't be so I bought one anyway. Steering is very light. Maybe too little feedback. Heaps of grunt. I leave it in awd (auto) permanently. Too easy to spin the front wheels when taking off in 2wd.

Don't know how well it'd go in real rough country. Not at all - I suspect, and I don't intend to find out. But they seem to get around pretty well on "mild" bush tracks.

It's a big change from the Patrol though. Nice to be able to talk at normal levels while driving - though I do hear every rattle from the tool kit now.

Haven't bought the mountain bike or the hang glider yet ;->

Good luck whichever you get...

We own both a RAV4 (2001 120k) and X-Trail (2004 7k). RAV4 has been the cheapest car to service, run, ultra reliable - brilliant. One of the best handling cars I have ever driven, fantastic city car. But, it has a lot of road noise (especially on coarse chip bitumen), and interior space is a little tight. Doesn't have centre child restraint point, and convertible restraint doesn't fit behind the passenger's seat unless you like having nose in windscreen.

The X-trail is a whole different car. Haven't had 10k service so can't tell you how cheap that is yet. It has a lot of grunt, tows well, heaps and heaps of interior room, very comfortable ride, good boot, and three child seats fit across the back seat. But, the steering wheel doesn't feel connected to the wheels, and it isn't the best handling car around. You get used to centre instruments pretty quickly. It also uses less fuel than the RAV.

Two totally different cars. I highly recommend both of them, but if you are touring, go the X-Trail. It is so much quieter on the open road, and the extra grunt really helps in overtaking (remembering my RAV is a 2L against the newer 2.4L).