Thread: Just bought a new hunting wagon.

Originally Posted by whanahuia

To be honest, Ive been told to avoid nearly every vehicle other than Hilux. Mitsi's have issues with shocks, Suzuki and Honda with trans- presume same type of issue, Ford... lets not go there... From what Ive seen the best thing to do is change the oil in transmission now, and then again every 40,000 ks. It's not going to be doing many long trips so 40,000 Ks is likely close to 3 years anyway.

And I can buy 3 or more of these for the cost of similar age Hilux.

Yep, we had dramas with the shocks in the wifes outlander - from brand new that was and a 2021 vintage. I suspect that part of the issue is those of us who are used to commercial and semi-commercial suspension get into those Auckland billiard table set up vehicles and think that they flop all over the road and there's nothing holding the wheels on!

I would not even recommend hilux to be brutally honest - you are paying a shitload for a reputation and they have their share of faults and dodgy bloody shark servicing outfits. Brakes, engine longevity, driveshafts and things like electrics/electronics and bits that bolt onto the engine have all given issues in the past.

Like anything, if you are attentive, get the thing serviced on time and also guide the technicians to investigate things as or if you become aware something has changed you stand the best chance of getting a good run out of whatever vehicle you end up with. Also you need a small amount of luck to get a good one and not have anything spontaneously disassemble itself at a critical moment...

There are always the things that go wrong that aren't related to the brand of vehicle, like my Ranger having the engine management computer (PCM) suffer a failing sensor 5V voltage output regulator that was surging and spiking everything that did something or had a CANBus hub in it that was required to pass a message to something else from an actuator or sensor. That wasn't a Ford (or Mazda) failure - that was damn Bosch and could have happened to any vehicle built with their control gear. Was an utter bitch to track down though, as the unstable voltage it was outputting was making the PCM think that every sensor was still AOK when it was not even powering up. Amazing the thing was still starting and running to be honest.