Prado TX 00-03 v Outback MY04/5

I had an 04 3litre Outback and it was a good car. It chewed through a few tyres and the economy wasn't great, about 11 l/100 km. It was pretty ordinary off road. I traded it on a Freelander 2 diesel, a much better car in every way in my opinion. It drives and handles every bit as good as the Outback did and its also tops off road. No regrets after 95k kms, mine's been everywhere including into the Simpson. About $40k second hand with low kms. Don't confuse them with the old Freelander nightmare, no real issues with the Freelander 2. Mike

G'day Rich! I'd be having a drive of a TD Prado, only way you'll get to know. I reckon you'll find it a better unit than the 2.8 one. Will it do 400,000k's.......will any of the current diesels? Guess we'll have to wait and see the final results.
I've only owned 2.4D slugs and a current 2.7 petrol Hilux and I'd prefer to drive the TD Prado over those ANY DAY, for both power characteristics / drive-ability and comfort.
There has been some issues of cracked heads reported but there are a hell of a lot never had problems including ours (2000 model)

I have a 2001 GXL TD Prado Auto 205,000km ....& I drive an X-Trail for work so bare with me will I explain a few differences between the two....here we are using the X-Trail as being closer to the Outback/Forester.

On the road the X-Trail wins hands down. Stability, acceleration, braking but the Prado is acceptable on a longer drive if you consider the drive as the start of your trip & not your destination. It takes more time, you feel the road more. But it will be better than your Hilux in terms of comfort but not as 'good' as the suburu's.

If you need to load up a roofrack, again the Prado will take longer & you will require more planing when overtaking.

Empty in the Prado I have gotten 10.4l/100km & on the freeway 11.4l/100km. Average is around 12, but remember that the Prado's have 2 fuel tanks totalling 150 odd L. The X-Trail is around 9.2l/100km (more than a commodore), the suburu's should be less than 9l/100km I would have thought.

Offroad, you will be limited by the accessories you can fit, your tyre choices will be more limited than the Prado, snorkels for dust etc. Can you get light truck tyres for a suburu? Is that important?

For me it comes down to priorities. Do you look at a track & say if it rains can i get out & it can be a simple as the grassed area of a football oval, to a heavily rutted track out west to a stretch of black clay in the high country. Perhaps a tree is down across the road, can you drive around it?

I've only fitted BFG MT's to my Prado & a snorkel. Between these two items I have improved its offroad performance perhaps by 50%. The tyres also last 100,000km even when driven 99% of the time on tar.

Rich, you may need to work out how much you would save in a year by choosing one vehicle over another, this perhaps will give you a better indication of how much that is a factor or not. In addition, you don't want to have a medium size 4WD if a soft roader will do.

I started with an '85 HJ60 & yes I took it everywhere it would go & some places it didn't. The Prado is not a match for articulation & traction but is miles ahead on the bitumen roads...

I hope I haven't confused you more...I may have rambled a bit....

Cheers

Hi Rich, I have owned a LN106 sold it with 300thou on it and never missed a beat, best reliable vehicle I have ever owned. Gutless ? yes, good off road in the rough stuff, and i mean rough ??yes brilliant and the best low range transfer I have had as well, but at then end of the day I know where your coming from, we sold ours mainly due to wanting more power and comfort, We then bought a V6 97 prado grande, worst thing I did was convert to LPG so sold it due to safety reasons (was a great car otherwise) due to the LPG and bought a 01 turbo Diesel Grande, had 103 k on it when the head cracked, serviced by the book and always ran genuine, coolant,filters etc never had any after market filters etc fitted even genuine wiper blades. Is it common ?? from what I have read, yes. They dont just blow a gasket they crack the heads which are non servicable and anyone that tell you it can be repaired properly for under 3g is kidding them selves unless your a mechanic and do the work yourself. The manuals are heaps better then the auto to drive in terms of making use of the turbo motor. Round town I was using roughly 14L per 100, long runs (freeway) roughly 11's will crack the tens if you sit on 90k. If its a hot steamy rainy day it would climb to 13's on the freeway (they dont like humdity)I found mine to be gutless to most turbo diesel engines before and after the head went (no difference) Would I buy another prado with a 1kz diesel in it ?? no, the D4D in the 120 series (06 upwards) yes totally different design. As mentioned in the above post the V6 3.4 in the 90 series (96 to 03) is not to bad on fuel. Round town yes around the 15's the best I ever got on the freeway was 12.2L per 100 but this was sitting on the set speed limits 110k etc loaded. I have gone back to petrol prado 120 series with the 4L motor, If i had another 10g to spend I would have got D4D but didnt want to borrow. The petrol in these are a pearler, similiar fuel figures to the old V6 round town and about to go away so will get some true figures for freeway running when I get home but Im expecting around the 11,s as many others get, but I dont haave any mods on it yet only bullbar. I think you will miss the height and ground clearance your used to with purchasing a subi and those days you might just look at a track or want to go over some thing and not been able to do it will possibly have you thinking ""I should have got some thing with more clearance and off road ability"" maybe not but some thing you really need to think about before outlaying your hard earned $$...........