New to Hilux!

[woods767]

Hi all,

Im new here on this hilux forum, im usualy a landy man myself.

Im off to Morocco in April with my Defender and a fiew others, and my old man wants to come too, hes after a Hilux. Looking at under £1500 realy, seen quite a fiew out there, what would be the best model/engine for this? Needs to be econimical and reliable, prefrably a diesel. Seen some 2.5 diesels, im guessing these are N/A. Any advice from you guys would be great, i know my way around my defender, but know nothing about the hilux!

Cheers, Rich.

[slobodan]

Economical and reliable. For under 1500 quid.

A fully laden Surf will probably return you around 25 ish, Maybe a bit more if you are traveling at Land Rover speeds.

You Can't just buy a reliable car, there has to be a bit of attention given before a long trip. especially for a car that is going to be over 10 years old, The 3.0 is generally considered to be the better choice of the diesel lumps, although the 2.4 is OK there is quite a bit of difference in power, with near identical MPG. They come Turbocharged.

You will have to thoroughly check over and service it (timing belt etc) before an African trip. And work out what spares to carry. Look around the site, the info is there.

I have owned a few 4x4's and the Surf is a great comfortable Truck. I have driven 1500 miles non stop in mine a few times and me and the truck are always OK.
(I done the same trip in a Land Rover and broke a shock, blew the exhaust manifold and used double the fuel.

Do your homework and I'm sure you will end up with a good Toyota Surf.

A good strong recovery strap would be useful too, for the Surf to pull out the Defender if the going gets too tough.

[woods767]

Ok thnaks thers some good info there, i will search the site and look around. And carry spares? If i thought i was gona have to carry spares for it i would tell him to get a 200tdi disco! Whats the usual failures? Wheel bearings, CVs and that kind of thing? Also Landrover speeds? I can cruse at 75mph and get 32mpg average. And towed out!?!?!?! Ok sorry i dident come on here to start an argument, so i think id better shut up.

[stormforce]

hi and welcome.Go for the 3.0l as its got more grunt but the fuel is about the same as the 2.4's
You should get a decent 3.0l for about £1500 but just shop around and you'll find a good one.See whats in the surfs for sale section also

[Smego2]

Welcome where in surrey are you from?

[surfenstein]

theres always the good old 2.8 n/a surf,if you can find one,it might be a bit slow but will return about 33 mpg,a bit less fully laden,but doesnt have any fancy electronic gismos,or turbo,these do not suffer from the cracked head issues you might of heard about.mine has done well over 310,000 ks and its still going strong and drives like new.