Hi, any ideas?

Hi Everybody,
I am thinking about getting another 4x4 for around £5000. I used to have a Lada Niva many years ago and it would never break down. A few years later, I had a Ssangyong Musso which was quite good, but the door locking system drove me nuts!
I need a car that my disabled wife can get in and out of easily, so it needs to be quite high and also something that will pull a 1600kg cararavan.
I have a Nissan Qashqai at the moment and I will need around that size or bigger so I can get the wheelchair in the boot
I have been thinking about a Range Rover, BMW X5 and a Mercedes ML. As the fuel figures for the diesels are not much better than the petrol engines, I was also thinking about getting a big petrol engine and have it on LPG as LPG is around 65p a litre and even if I had to pay extra to have a LPG system fitted, it should pay for itself in well under a year.
Could anybody please tell me why I should or should not buy one of these cars.
Many thanks for your help,
Tony

Hi,
although they need to come down in price a bit more to meet your buget, a Discovery 3 has a bigger boot, with all the sets down wew magened to get my wifes 3 weeler bike in the back by just folding the handel bars down a bit, but if you juast have a fold up wheelchaire you would only neet the last 2 seats down and still have a great 4 person moter, I have seen them as low as £7000.00, but make sure they have had the 105,000 miles service that is the big and dearer on they have to chang both cam belts one at the front and one at the back.

How about something older but reliable, for that money you can still get a decent Daihatsu Fourtrak and have all the repairs done to get it pristine as they are terribly reliable and long lived and very economical for the type of vehicle if driven correctly; towing weight? 3.5 tonnes. Big wide doors as true 4X4's used to have and great off road, basic driving but cheap as chips to service and maintain.

Nissan Terrano which come as both petrol and diesel, again long lived mechanicals and very reliable, cheap to buy but some corrosion remedy will be needed, nice and comfortable and not as agricultural as the Fourtrak but better on road, petrol and diesel engines have little in economy difference on road if driven correctly, but towing and off road work hammers consumption with the petrol.

yes both good motors, we had a isuzu 2.8 once, and that was good of road used to go trialing with a club up here in Aberdeenshire,

what is your take on them. Assassin?

Isuzu were a funny one, they were either very good or very bad and the main problems were oil related, if the correct oil was used at the correct intervals then no problems, when they hit the second-hand markets owners skimped and they became unreliable; this also applied to Isuzu engined Vauxhalls of the day. Rebuilt many a top end on them.

Off road they were average, on road they were average but they were designed that way, remember they were designed to appeal to the moving mass market of the day which were the easy to use softer roaders and not hardcore off roaders. With a few simple mods they came alive off road as they had all the underpinnings of a good off roader and making them friendlier to use on road dumbed them down, fit a good set of tyres and a small suspension lift and they flew. Learn to drive them properly and they really excelled as power delivery was a slight issue and if a driver learned to overcome this then the sudden surge which came with the turbo and good off road tyres stopped them spinning their wheels. As the engines got older they naturally lost this power surge through age and a sorted model with a high mileage engine was a good off roader with decent road manners.