Economical yet Capable 4wd?

Dont jump in. It is hard to believe at the moment but there is more involved in running costs of a vehicle than what is pumped in at the bowser. Change over costs can take time recover if the only issue is fuel economy. Sometimes, especially with second hand cars, its better the devil you know than the devil you dont.

Having said that I once had a 2-8 TD Rodeo and got 10kms/Litre from day one until I traded it 6 years later. It took me everywhere without any fuss and was a simple reliable engine. You'll get one of those for bugger all if you look around.

Hi Tukka,
At significant risk of being shouted down by the Toysan brigade, have you considered a LandRover 300td orTD5 Defender.
They are in your price bracket.(Top end though for the TD5)
The Defender will go anywhere your cruiser went and do it more comfortably as well.
Fuel consumption should be around 10-11 litres/100km under average speed and road conditions.

Don't rule them out till you have driven one.

You may be surprised.

Disco.

Maybe a deisel Jackeroo (I know it's not aute) good fuel economy a lot more comfortable than a ute and a capable 4WD and within your price range.

Put yours on LPG... Petrol or diesel, they both will go

Hi Tukka,
Might be a case of 'better the devil you know'
The cost of running the old girls is becoming a worry.
Last time I went to Brizzy, I can understand why you don't see many of them running around the city. I was blown away by the bad fuel economy in the go, stop, go traffic. I'm happy to be getting about 9l/100km. I can live with that.
Have you considered a gas conversion for her? I was talking to a bloke near me that did it to his 96 TD Troopie and tows a 22 footer from northern NSW to Vic quiet often He loves it. Cost just over $4k he reckons.
It only uses the gas when it needs to.
He's pretty happy with it.

Just something else to chew on.

Hi Tukka,

I average 11 - 12L/100kms in my 1994 troopy with a 1HZ normally aspirated motor. You should be getting something similar?
In which case, why bother with the hassle of changing over to something else that gets you not much better consumption?
Stay with what you've got I reckon.

Cheers,
Tim

Hi Tukka.
I have just gone through the process of changing to a smaller more economical vehicle and have a few mixed feelings about the decision.Although the new Triton that replaced my cruiser is a great little ute and uses about 2.5l less fuel every 100k i doubt very much it will stand up to serious off road use like the cruiser. Time will tell.For around 20k change over with accessories i could have purchased enough fuel to drive my cruiser around 80000kilometers.
If i could go back i would stick to the cruiser.
Cheers.
Tony

Mate put extractors and two and a half inch exhaust on his 1hz troopie and slowed down a bit getting 11s regularly. The old hz is one of the most reliable motors ever built you are going to trade that off to gain 1l/100ks.
What are you getting out of yours now?
Ches Pete

LPG is very very very cheap.

Jim.

Dunno about where you are but in Vic you are looking at atleast $720 in Stamp Duty without the other costs involved in setting up another fourby.

I'm going the other way at the moment from a Courier to a Patrol 4.2 and I'm pleasantly surprised at the relative economy of it on the highway.

Smaller motors hauling heavy utes aren't that economical compared to bigger more powerful motors hauling not much heavier vehicles.

It's the Magna 4 cylinder vs V6 issue. The bigger 6 was actually more economical than the 4 cylinder which defied belief but was actually the case based on our company fleet.

You are only saving the difference in fuel consumption remember. So if you are only likely to save say 3-4 ltrs per 100km - and it may not be that much - you are only saving $6-8 per 100km tops.

At 20000 km per year thats $1200-$1600 per year - or $100-$130 per month.

It's not a lot really compared with the costs of setting up a new vehicle.

Running costs run to 70-80 cents a km on four wheel drives if you include depreciation, insurance, servicing, registration, tyres & fuel etc.

Fuel is actually a fairly small part of the 70-80 cents.

At 20,000 km a year real running costs on a reasonably recent vehicle - say 04 Patrol 4.2 would be about $14000 a year.

Fuel though is only $4080 at 12ltr/100km and $1.70 a ltr for diesel.

Change vehicles if you like but you aren't going to save an astounding amount - especially if prices of big trucks are taking a hit and you wear higher than average depreciation because of fuel prices.

If you still want a really good tourer my Courier is all set up and ready to go - listed in the Trader pages.

Dave

Also someone once told me that it could be my Injector pump timing, when car idles at around 550rpm but when air con gets turned on revs drop to about 530-540rpm instead of increasing to 900-950rpm like the manual says it should. What would cause this, air con works fine.

Please dont let it be the Injector pump, worth more then a new car one of those.

We get 650km per tank from our 2000 1Hz Troopy at 100kph with about 10 liters left in the tank. (12 to 13l/100km). That gives us a range of about 1200km with about 20l in reserve in both tanks. Ours is a completely standard Troopy incl 750.16 tyres, 230,000km, serviced at 10,000km intervals (Toyota recommendation for our model). The engine has never been looked at other than cam belt replacement and tappet adjustment.

Why bother to change unless you are going to a really small 4WD as you should not get much better fuel consumption to make it economical to change. If you have a non-turbo diesel Cruiser and using heaps more fuel, then you have something wrong.

We have also found that our Rangie 4.6L petrol (15l/100km from the trip computer over 25,000km) is cheaper to run than the Troopy these days as diesel is so much more expensive than petrol and the servicing (10,000km intervals) is cheaper than the Troopy as filters are cheaper and half the oil that the Troopy has in the sump.

The other option is to buy a small cheap economical car for day to day running and leave the Cruiser for the Trips.

SteveS

Same, same. We were running two 4wd's, a newish '79 series ute and a modified 80 series cruizer. So like yourself we decided it was time to turf one. Well the ute is Hubby's baby and recently purchased so it was out with the 80 series. It was pretty heavy, however the V8 Chev made it a lot more economic compared to the standard engine, and certainly better economy than we get from the '94 Ute.
Yeah we lost a heap of money (we have to sell the camper to recover the shortfall) but being realistic with our usage I think we'll be happy with the Subaru Forester which replaced it.

If you've got $20k to spare, perhaps consider putting a Brunswicks Chev in your current ride? More economic because you end up with more power than you need to pull whatever your vehicle weighs. Hubby is planning on putting one in the ute later down the track (well sooner if he had the money, but I won't let him till the house is built - I'd rather a house than a great engine!).

Yeah spoke to three other mates all with 75/78 series with the 1hz with varying kilometres. Two Troopcarriers (92 and a 01) and a Trayback (96Model), all standard apart from bullbars, spotlights, All Terrain Tyres (2 with 16x8 other with 33'' 15s), snorkels and dual tanks. No work done to any K's vary from 80,000 to 370,000 and all said that they get not much more then 1000kms (1150 absolute max) out of both tanks doing between 100 and 110kms an hour. Have checked other forums too and this seems to be about right with 75 series. Obviously people claiming they get 11l/100k must be sitting on under 90km/hr, there is no way i can sit on that speed when i travel 1100 kms in a day every couple of months. Real life estimates should be taken at the speed limit so you can get a real idea of what they drink. I really wish i could get 11l/100km doing even 100k/hr. Seeing as i pay 190.0 a litre for diesel and it takes me 180 -200 litres to do the 1100k (one way)route i regularly travel it would save me alot of money. All these figures are based with the air con for 75% of the time too, as i live in the Kimberleys and there is no way you could go the whole day without some comfort.