Ians Turn

Apart from being House Husand, cook etc, I have spent most of my time trying to buy a car.

I wanted a big Yank Tank, just because we could. However, went and tested a few, and they were suitably tank like - not like that tiny little Nissan Patrol wagon we had. Spent a lot of time on the web looking a various sites - particularly what are known as gripe sites - anybody can post stuff about their cars, but naturally most of those posting stuff haven't had a good run.

Eventually it was obvious that the only sites where people were reasonably happy (remember it is a very biased sample) was owers of Japanese stuff. Ford diffs and rear wheel bearings, GMC gearboxes and inlet manifold gaskets etc have all been fought in the court recently.

Spent twice (!!!) as much as we were going to, and ended up with a Mitsubishi Endeavor, a soft duty all wheel drive based on a strengthened Mitsubishi 380 platform with Pajereo engine/gearbox and running gear. Best thought of Mitsubishi's version of a Ford Territory. It is a year old, has 20K km and is a nice shade of metallic red (which is very important according to Jen). I wouldn't buy one is Australia, but it should be good for what we want here. Second choice was a Toyota Highlander (Kluger), but for the same price the Toyota was many years older and had 80K km while Edwina Endeavor (yes, Jen again) had the 5yr/10 yr extended warranty.

Just got back from the first weekend camping and it was very good - comfortable, quiet and smooth. Did 700 km on an 80 L tank as were mostly at tourist speed dodging vicious grizzlies etc (guess who's paranoid).

So far so good.