Ex mining vehicle ?

It is not salt water they spray, its under ground water which is more corrosive than salt water at the mines as the minerals they are mining for is down below like coal etc....

As i have worked at mines i wouldn't touch it as it has been used like bull rider in a rodeo, and no one cares about it coz it is not there own vehicle.

Michael,

I work in the mining industry and in 2000 I bought a 97 cruiser trayback by tender from a BHP coal mine I was working at for $10000. It had 185000km on the clock and was still covered in mud andbleepe. I got the full service history (which included replaced diffs, transfer cases etc) and was just going to clean it up and make a few dollars on it selling it in the city. Well after I cleaned it up I got a compression test done and the motor was fine so I decided to keep it and sell my Rodeo. I spent a whole week completely stripping it down and removing all the coal dust and mud from the chassis rails and then rust proofing it myself. I then spent $1000 getting some minor rust cut out of the window and door sills. I had this vehicle for 4 years and had done some huge trips (it was completely set up for touring) until it was stolen last month (by some lowlife gutter trash!!) with 260000km on the clock. I had absolutely bugger all problems with it in that time. The electrical wiring was a nightmare as everytime something stuffed up electrically the mine must have just run a new wire - so that took a while for me to sort out. Now I have just bought another ex-mine cruiser to replace my stolen one.

The biggest advantage to an ex miner is the price. If you get it for a song (and by the way the one your looking at is far to expensive!!) then you have plenty of spare cash to fix up any rust/mechanical problems and then set it up (the market value of my $10000 cruiser was $28000). BUT you must know what your looking at!!! Yes mining vehicles cop an absolute flogging but they are serviced more regularly than any normal vehicle. Ensure the engine and drivetrain is sound as they have big $$$ replacment costs. And as mentioned earlier by someone else the dealer would have cleaned it up big time so its hard to see what condition it was in before hand and what it was doing on site (don't get a dragline ute!!).

The other advantage I found is that because the general condition of the body and cab isn't that flash then your not as padantic when it comes to driving down overgrown bush tracks.

Don't buy an ex underground vehicle as they will be absolutely rooted unless you can get it for maybe $3000 (and then the parts are usually worth more than that), and remember that the vehicle might have very low Km's on the clock but they spend their whole lives in low range and no higher than 3rd gear and many hours idling (to keep the A/C going)!! Generally you can tripple the shown km's to get an indication of the real km's. Underground = rust rust rust!!

So beware beware!! But if you know what your looking at then you can pick up a real bargain. Some people might call me lucky.....

Good luck champ,
Hughesy

They tend to hook the cable on anywhere really, tow bar is always popular.

And to add to the other comments above, most coal mines have high sulphur and acid contents in the waste water they use to dampen down the dust, hence the rust problems.