X-Trail 2nd Car Advice Please

What about the 200kw Toyota Rav V6, at 200klms per hour, you would be gone and back before the other 1/2 new about it.

Cheers and good luck.
96

You could have a look at the Kia Sorento 2.5l diesel, which has low range, a nice engine, drives well, and is well built. Fuel economy around 9.0l/100

Definately more capable than the Civic, Xtrail, Outlander and Rav4, and starts from $35000.

Early next year there will be a Suzuki Grand Vitara 1.9l diesel in manual only, which is also a proper 4Wd with low range. A size down from the Sorento and guessing the price would be from $32,000. Fule economy around 8.0l/100

My wife bought a 2003 Xtrail because she liked the looks of it and as we live in the country we drive along quite a few grvel roads. She loves the little car to death....lol.

It is a very capable small vehicle, economical to run and powerful at the same time. I think that Nissan has sold over a million of them world wide and they are popular with all ages. The 'old' Xtrail has the speedo etc in the middle of the dashboard and this takes some getting used to. Our car had done 72,000km trouble free so far.

Another Member here on EO has 2 Xtrails in the family. Hopefully he will reply to your question as well

Cheers

HowdyDoody


One of the in-laws has an x-trail and she loves it.

Went out to a fishing spot with her at Derby and the x-trail handed some 4WD conditions after it rained with ease.

I was most impressed by it's performance as we were driving on wet clay.



Tjilpi

My hubby and I brought a new pathfinder. Like you I did not want a big car. The prados were way out of our price range, as we wanted new. LC and Patrols were huge for me to take the kids to school and take mum shopping. The x-trail was bit small for us, we have three kids the oldest is 15, but size of a small giant. It is also a seven seats, which means we can all go out and take my parents on some trips with out having to take two cars.

We have turbo diesel and fill up every 538km, depending who is driving it, I do generally and I get 13.7/100km around town, hubby has got down to 12.7/100 but that was a freeway run/country run.

Debbie

Howdy,
Just to add to the list of potential purchases, don't overlook the Subaru Forester, sounds ideal for your purposes.
Constant AWD, plenty of room, 5 star crash rating, good economy, brilliant car to drive on gravel and wet tar, great price around $32k for auto (less for manual).

Well worth a thought.

Good luck,

Disco.

Hi Howdy

Our research has always lead us to buy the RAV4's , the low loading height makes them great for shopping and sometimes we can fit things into it that won't go into our Patrol.

Did not like the current one because RAV's always had one great advantage which is that they are the only true geared constant 4wd in that size car, unlike Xtrails etc which are on demand.

The current shape Rav4 has gone on-demand as well which further reduces there 4wd capability in some areas.

Accordingly 1 year ago we got the very last of the previous model RAV4 , the third in a line.

Xtrails can be ok - but check them out throughly , some don't like the plastic mudguards etc.

Robin Miller

As Willem said, we have 2 X-trails in the family - my wife has a near new 2007 STS auto, and my son and his wife have our previous vehicle a 2005 ST manual. We think the Xtrails are great.

I'm guessing you're buying new. We had a long hard look at the new model which as released a couple of months ago.

The latest model (called T31) looks the same as the previous Xtrails (T30) but has some big features: The auto is now a CVT (constant variable transmission) that drops fuel consumption from 9.8 to 9.3 l/100k. All models have traction control. All models have 6 airbags. All have cruise.

We were very tempted to get the latest, but settled on the previous T30 model because: its 90kg lighter; we did a deal that was $6k cheaper (bought a demo); we really like the centre dash and storage; the older model has less overhang, and is 6 inches shorter; we got mags and sunroof thrown in (ST-S)

We looked at some different vehicles. Got turned off the small diesels, because they are all high-tech, and our fuel is not good. We get 8.2 l/100k on every trip with our Xtrail, so I don't think a diesel would do much better. The Tucson City is only 2wd. The Forester sits too low to the ground. The CRV and RAV - we didn't like the look of them - too smooth. We also have a bias to Japanese made.

If you're wanting a used Xtrail, be aware of the following:
- Models up to Dec 2005 have 132Kw. after that they were detuned to 123Kw for emission reasons.
- the Series 2 came out in Nov 2003 - it has cruise control on all models, and rearranged dash.
- There were a couple of recalls. (1) Early series cat converters could crumble and bits got sucked back into the motor, causing oil consumption. (2) butterfly valves in the intake could work loose and screws fell out and get sucked into the motor - in the US, this was worth a recall in May 2005 - In Aus, no recall. (3) some minor thing with a fuel pipe rusting.

If you buy a 2005 model T30 II, you'll bypass the recalls and get the full 132Kw. But the 2006/2007 models are the best sorted.

Just go ahead, pick your coulour and buy one :-)))

Howdy,

we bought our first x-trail in 2002.
we have averaged over 50,000km per year in them.
the one we currently have is a 2005 132kw one.
weve not had any trouble with any of them.

our original attraction to the x-trail
(in 2002) was the base model (ST) pretty much had what all the other cars called options. ie cruise,abs,traction control.

i get 500-550km per tank country driving for about 60litres.

i dont think were going to see a diesel x-trail in australia.

good luck