Thread: Isuzu Bighorn or something else?

I’m wanting to get a 4x4 diesel of some sort & have been looking around for a while.

I’m not wanting to get into serious 4x4 driving, just to have the ability of driving a bit off road down farm tracks when need to with the kids as we have a bigger need for a 4x4 now that we’re here in the south.

I’ve been looking at a few Isuzu Bighorn 95-99 models as I have $5,000 at hand & not too keen on getting into finance although I don’t have a problem getting finance for $15,000 or so I’ve just never owned a vehicle over $9,000

One Isuzu with 260,000 km I’m looking at has an oil leak of some kind underneath & without getting it into a mechanic I won’t know what the exact issue(s) are so I was wondering to those who have owned one... is there a common issue with them for oil leaks? What to look out for... recommendations etc when looking at the Bighorns?

I’m open to ideas... thinking of others options like a Toyota Prado as another option or a good ol double cab Ute of Toyota Hilux, Mitsubishi L200

Anyone recommendations of vehicles & if anyone’s seen one lately then feel free to PM me

Older autos can be hit and miss with them good units but tiny filter and never gets changed. Also something about injectors apart from that they go real well.

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For the record. I have a 2004 mitsi challenger with 262 km on the clock. Not serviced as much as it should be, but I do keep up on oil changes etc .
LWB, so can (and has) given a couple of headaches, but with good rubber it gets me where I want to go and then some.

Originally Posted by Pengy

For the record. I have a 2004 mitsi challenger with 262 km on the clock. Not serviced as much as it should be, but I do keep up on oil changes etc .
LWB, so can (and has) given a couple of headaches, but with good rubber it gets me where I want to go and then some.

My SWB Pajero is 11 years older than yours, been drowned in a river (Ashburton) twice by its owner and still goes ok but it aint new or tidy. I would buy another in a second,

The Bighorn is a great 4x4. LSD's are built the same as Safari/Patrols and from the same factory, much better than the Nissan and Toyota offerings of the same era/class. The engines and gearboxes are well proven. Oil leak could come from anywhere, you'd need to clean it up and find out where.

we had a bighorn, but the isuzu mu beat it hands down offroad

Originally Posted by gonetropo

we had a bighorn, but the isuzu mu beat it hands down offroad

Pretty much Same running gear and half the weight....

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Originally Posted by gonetropo

we had a bighorn, but the isuzu mu beat it hands down offroad

Had an old mu, brought for 1000 spent 200 getting on the road and then thrashed it for a couple of years, got good at replacing cvs and bearing.... Well worth putting LWB leaf springs in and winding the front up for a bit more clearance. Was a 2.8 and had plenty of get up and go, the 3.2 would have been impressive.

I notice you left Terranos off the list??? we've had a good run out of ours and touch wood it continues.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

I notice you left Terranos off the list??? we've had a good run out of ours and touch wood it continues.

They had a bad habit of rusting out under the back seat. The engines were god though.

Originally Posted by gadgetman

They had a bad habit of rusting out under the back seat. The engines were god though.

No rust in my Regulus

Originally Posted by gadgetman

They had a bad habit of rusting out under the back seat. The engines were god though.

The D21s yes, the R50s weren't bad, the zd was a bit of a pig though. Had a 3.2 r50 for a while as a company car for a while, reliable comfy, prob wouldn't do anything more than a bit of gravel though

Originally Posted by Tommy

The D21s yes, the R50s weren't bad, the zd was a bit of a pig though. Had a 3.2 r50 for a while as a company car for a while, reliable comfy, prob wouldn't do anything more than a bit of gravel though

I was warned off the D21's because of the rust from a lip behind/under the back seat, and ZD was a lemon of an engine, the R50 was a shiny 'soft roader' that had lost it's predecessors off road capabilities. They all suffered the same relatively weak LSD setup, along with the Hilux. They worked for a while but were always being shimmed to get them to work after not many km.

I had a Mu 3.1, intercooled it and put 33s on it and with open diffs it was near unstoppable, certainly embarrassed a lot of higher spec'ed and higher priced rigs.
with the 3.1 and the intercooler a little extra boost it was bloody grunty as.
I would have another in a heartbeat if I didn't need the extra seat as it only seats 2 in the back

now that I am in the older car owner category the one thing I have learnt is that all the older diesels (pajeros, surfs, nissans and isuzus) all start to give you dramas when they get up to 300000k's.
Mitsi's 4m40 and Toyota ikz are bad for cooking heads once the cooling system is neglected and people tow with them when they are nudging the 3 coin mark
I've heard the 3.2 Isuzu diesels are more problematic than the earlier 3.1's.
Same goes for the Nissan 3.2. Go like the clappers but they can cause expensive dramas but I cant remember what it was.
best old school diesel was the 2.7 Nissan with the cast (not alloy) head. Very hard to kill. Once every manufacturer went to alloy heads they just don't last as long compared to the iron head units.
3.2 mitsis need the egr system thrown away and the intake cleaned right out. They clog up with crap form the exhaust soot and oil mist from the breather. This is probably indicative of all of them probably. EGR is a PITA.
the 2.5 mazda/ford engines are also as bad if not worse than any of them. Some of them have metallic layered gaskets. Once things get hot and they lose a little tension
its no good.
I do know that the older 3.5 Toyota diesels didn't like getting hot either. Acquaintance had one years ago. If they got hot the lip on the top of the liners got weak and could break then they went up and down with the piston causing all sorts of dramas. he did it twice.
Cant say I've heard issues about the bigger 4.2 Nissan and Toyota engines but if they are a cast not alloy head maybe that's the reason.
I own a 2.8 94 Pajero. Done the head gasket and then a year later a whole other timing case, cam, timing chain and some gears, couple of valves and guides after a timing chain went on me and put a whole in the case.
If I didn't get a bunch of stuff for basically nothing and do all the assembly work myself (engine reco mob did the head repair work) it would've been a throw away.
Cost more to fix than practical.
Had a 3.2 v6LWB bighorn years ago. very comfy wagon and went well. Geez did it like a drink of petrol if you give it the jandal though.
I was told they are only 200 kilos lighter than a Nissan patrol/safari. They had a very heavy and strong chassis.