terracan diesel vs xtrail

The Terracan Diesel is a 4wd whereas the XTrail is an all wheel drive. The TC has an excellent engine, good fuel economy and is an excellent tug. Ditch the 3rd row of seats, get an aftermarket suspension upgrade and it's a fantastic vehicle. I have the V6 and wished I'd waited 6mths for the CRDi. Check out the Terracan forum at http://forum.australia4wd.com for full details of the vehicle and many happy owners.

Yep neighbour across the road has the td terracan and is a brilliant vehicle, heaps of get up and go (leave the prado) great in the sand, good low range, great on the fuel (again better then prado) only down fall is ground clearance (prado wins) but as mentioned above with a lift and some either a/t tyres or muddies if need be very underated 4wd, the only thing my neighbour has 2 gripes about with his is the front seats not overly comfortable, and he ordered the so called off road pack from hyundai when he bought it new and its still quit soft when he loads it up, he has since updated the springs to tow his camper but is not bothering with upgrading the seats, I sat in them and thought them quit comfortable but he said over long periods of driving he gets a bit of a sore back other then that great vehicle. The xtrail is also a great vehicle, plenty of power, good on fuel, issues with the transmissions either auto or manual in the sand, overheating auto's which I have seen for myself, the manuals I havnt seen but some one on here has/had a manaul and said also had issues with that as well. You can lock the xtrail in either 2wd/awd/auto so gives you that extra traction etc but not a true 4wd, no low range. You do mention muddy tracks and desert so maybe low range will be some thing you might need. Good to know you have it if need be. Regards Steve

g'day,
we looked at both these vehicles ,when we wanted a tow vehicle because the Honda crv was not big enough to tow any thing, the x-trail does have bigger towing capacity than the Honda but did not have much more internal room,so with two growing kids we crossed it off the list, it was a nice little car to drive and pretty well priced for a car with not many km's on it.we then looked at the terracan it had more room and even better towing capacity and was nicely finished.In the end, only the fact that they didn't keep making them and maybe the parts might be hard to get down the track put me off.I ended up buying a prado 90 series which ticked all my boxes ,but i really liked the terracan.
Cheers.
John.

If it were me I would go for the Terracan. There are a number of accessories on the market that make it into a good vehicle to go touring with. I only wish we kept ours, apart from the upgraded suspension from Hyundai, (it's softer than the original suspension) it was a great vehicle. If you are going to upgrade the suspension I would look at a complete setup including torsion bars (Ironman I think still do them). I went for the OME kit (Ironman were not out at the time) but it didn't come with torsion bars.

Like I said great vehicle if you don't need all the room, and great fuel economy. I got ours down just below 9L/100km's.

Good luck with your purchase.

crd

Terracan...hands down in this comparison.
OK I'm biased. Not as good as my Jeep XJ off road, but more room, more comfort. good fuel economy and great tow vehicle. But like the others say, please do yourself a favour and upgrade the suspension.
Know issues: (but no more than other 4x4s)
- rear diff mostly early (pre '06) and fixed under warranty
- fuel pump - usually fixed under warranty

Dunc has done more bush traveling than I, but we have comfortably done the Simpson and frequent the Border Track and Vic desserts.

Just out of warranty after five years.
Very happy.

Accessories available:
snorkel - TJM
front bars
Suspensions - variety of suppliers - Ironman are the only ones who do the front torsion bars.
and you could probably talk Jim from Best of Road into supplying a set of drawers...Jim had a 3.5 petrol for a while.
Milford do a cargo barrier

Cheers
Brad

No Brainer Jim,

Terracan easily. But don't discount the V6 and you'll probably pick one up for a bargain price. As you'll recall, we used to tow our Jayco Eagle (same size, different floorplan to Hawk) with ours. It used to use anywhere between 17 and 20 L/100 km with the boot firmly planted.

Cheers,

Jim.

I would say go the terracan, I reckon in good hands they are more than capable.

A couple of years ago we crossed the simpson with one and the tc made it easy.

Last year we went with 2 different terracan's and they both struggled at times.
Multiple boggings on both the french and waa lines to the point we had to backtrack and head for easier terrain.

Both trips highlighted how the same vehicle can perform so differently in the hands of both experienced and inexperienced drivers.

A friend of ours has an xtrail which he has pushed to the limits and those limits are nowhere near what the tc will do.

Cheers