Need help buying my first car (off-road & daily drive)

[Gaurav]

41 minutes ago, taz911 said:

Plus please recommend a trusted garage for a detailed inspection before I move forward.

That's the only thing we cant recommend here, but you can quickly google various options and read the Google reviews to find competent places.

[taz911]

19 minutes ago, Gaurav said:

That's the only thing we cant recommend here, but you can quickly google various options and read the Google reviews to find competent places.

Got it! Thanks! I'll update you guys how it goes down from here.

 

Thanks for the help so far. Hopefully I can join some drives before the season ends! 🤞🤞

[taz911]

Update + Next queries for the pros: 

So I went for a comprehensive test, we found a few issues:

• Rear diff mounting bushes broken/cracks
• EGR packing rubber/leak
• Engine mount broken
• Engine Wall cover packing (leak, I think)
• Transmission shift to D didn't go through and both N-D lit up in the dash
• oil leak (engine)

According to the mechanic, most of these are normal issues except the oil leak. He suggested me to get a compression test before closing the deal because it could be a deal breaker or the price should be reduced. What do you guys suggest my next step should be? Is this a deal breaker, should I look for other cars? @Gaurav @GauravSoni @Frederic

Edit1: We floored it multiple times on the 1st gear and the shifting didn't happen before 6K RPM 

Fun fact: the mechanic also recommended getting the xterra, pathfinder or the FJ LOOL  feelsbadman

Edited April 3, 2023 by taz911
adding details

[Gaurav]

Look for another one, u don't wanna buy lemon and start on wrong foot. Engine mount broken tells an offroad use or very rough road usage tbh. Same for engine oil leak can point in 10 other directions, if it was minor he would have fixed it before selling it, this alone could be huge deal breaker.

[Srikumar]

Isn't this a 2012 car driven 220K km. I believe chances are there for engine mounts to go bad or become dry after such a long time even with normal road usage

 

 

 

[Srikumar]

One trick to check if a Pajero LWB has been offroaded is to see if it has a rear bash plate. That's the most basic upgrade you need to do on a Pajero before taking it on the sand.

[taz911]

Yeah, there is nothing installed. And the mechanic mentioned its cracked. 
 

the mechanic also mentioned that the car has never been offroad or anything  when we saw under the car. 🤔

[GauravSoni]

Tbh… 220k car at 30k is a little overpriced… however, get a quote from Habtoor to fix the mentioned issues and try to get that deducted from the deal.. value should be around 24k… on the other side , 3.8s are rare

[taz911]

@GauravSoniI've been actively looking for more than a month, the market is full of agents overpricing these cars and there's like maybe 3-4 proper 3.8s that I got interested in viewing. Then there are 2014+ models that are priced at 40+ which doesn't make sense for my budget and purpose. The moment I put offroad mods the car's price will plummet 

I looked at a few fj cruisers at the garage, I haven't looked into it at all. I know its a better off-roader compared to a pajero from what I heard and its a toyota so.... should I look into these?

Meanwhile I am contemplating getting the engine compression test + will ask for 24-25ish if the compression test goes through. Feeling lost at this point

[ASAD.]

30 minutes ago, taz911 said:

@GauravSoniI've been actively looking for more than a month, the market is full of agents overpricing these cars and there's like maybe 3-4 proper 3.8s that I got interested in viewing. Then there are 2014+ models that are priced at 40+ which doesn't make sense for my budget and purpose. The moment I put offroad mods the car's price will plummet 

I looked at a few fj cruisers at the garage, I haven't looked into it at all. I know its a better off-roader compared to a pajero from what I heard and its a toyota so.... should I look into these?

Meanwhile I am contemplating getting the engine compression test + will ask for 24-25ish if the compression test goes through. Feeling lost at this point

Not to confuse you but if you are looking at a toyota then check the prado120 (pre 2010) or fortuner. Both come with a 4L engine (there is a 2.7L V4 variant as well but dont bother with that). Toyota reliability and much better offroad capability, for your purpose i would recommend these two more than the FJ.