Suitable 4WD

In would cast your net a little further and consider other makes as well.
Some owners even sing the praises of the Explorer for towing.

Thanks Jimbo, yoour mammy and pop sound as old as me, 56 now. Ihad not thought about petrol and gas as I have a rodeo on petrol gas and its very very greedy, thanks again I will look in to it, si gas easy to get every were

Gas cheap? IMHO questionable. Yes it is cheaper, but you need much more of it. Plus heavy gas usage does not make engine lasts. Plus gas is not available everywhere. Mileage from gas is ridiculous – when towing one need to stop at each and every petrol station! Plus by 2010 gas would be much more expensive (why do you recon they rebate gas installations now? Because they what to tide you up and when they lift levy they get everything back).
Gas has more power and torque then turbo-diesel? Do not like even comment this. If one plan just go around Australia in caravan, then buying cheap gas-powered vehicle and sell it immediately after exercise *MAY* have sense. But as long term project? Doubt it very much. And for heavy towing nothing can beat turbo diesel. I personally would vote for 4.2 “old tech” one – proven to be unbreakable.

Posted,
The excise on gas is going to go up to 12.5c/lt. This will raise the price of gas by about 10c/lt over what it is currently, which will mean gas will cost about 60c/lt in todays dollars or about 70c in 2010, allowing for inflation, versus petrol at ~$1.50 (+++) and diesel ~$1.60.

Still sounds like a bargain to me.

BTW, filled my Statesman with LPG this morning for 41.9c/lt :-)))
Happy Jan :-))

Hi John!
When gas was 18 cents and petrol 60 using gas on older vehicles was really proven economically. In my estimation (my in-law use to have gas powered Commodore for quite a while) gas consumption is about 50% more then petrol. Thus even 20 cents use to translates into about 30 cents in “petrol equivalent” and therefore twice cheaper fuel could negate extra wear (and money involve to fix) of engine, mediocre performance, necessity to refuel each second day, absent of boot space (or absent of clearance in 4WD case) and rotten egg smell to live with. But even now when gas roughly 2.4 times cheaper then petrol (120 vs 50) this “package” does not look so attractive to me anymore and when difference became only twice or less it start to make no cense at all.
Now keep in your mind that all this related to passengers vehicle and 4WD is a bit different story. Being heavy vehicle they require quite a bit of juice to shift them around and people happy to have sub-20L/100Km consumption in city for say LC. This became around 30L in gas currency (1.e. around $15.00) while diesel powered vehicle easy return below 13L even for old tech donks and modern common rail diesels can do 11L or even better. 13L became $16.25 @ $1.25/L. Mind you that I have not even discuss performance. Now start to tow something big and heavy and 20L of petrol became 30L while 13L of diesel became 14-15. Huge savings? I fail to see any.
To be fair diesel also has a lot of hidden costs. Main one necessity to dismantle and service injectors each 100K and diesels generally more expensive to fix, but still for big vehicles and especially for serious towing I fail to see much alternatives to turboed diesel. And gas is for sure not even on my list.
Just personal opinion.

Hi madfisher, nissen no longer makes a 4.2 lt patrol and a number of folk have said that the new common rail 3lt is great, but does it have enought grunt and sting to tow my van plus I will start looking for a low k 4.2, thanks mate

2GEES hi,
The 3ltr would have enough grunt, its the reliabity issues that would worry me. Small hi out put diesels working very hard do seem to lead to reliabity issues. We also have a 3lt d4d hilux at work, picked it up from kandos the other day and my mate in a sedan was having trouble staying with me on hills, a delight to drive.
Cheers and goodluck Pete

Hello madfisher, thanks for your follow up on the 3Lt, I spoke to a desil mechanic who owns a work shop here on the coast and bought 2 common rail nissen navera 07 models about 2 mths ago and has installed $1200 chips in each and said they are unbeleivable, but he does not tow 23ft caravan,so Iam still a little unsure, thanks again, Frank