Definitely not a BMW...

[gjm 3258]

With the planned sale of the Baur, Mrs M was in need of a new set of wheels. Sh'ed kind-of enjoyed having a Mazda Tribute 10 or so years ago; I was less enthusiastic.

Doing some hunting we did decide that a medium/large SUV might be the answer. One of the issues we've been having is that on those rare occasions we want to tow something, we encounter a problem. Borrowing a ute isn't an issue but I don't like asking for the same thing over and over again.

So, the hunt begins.

X5? Too big. (Or so I'm told.) The 3.0 diesels have held their value well and until recently, were more than we planned to spend. (Been offered a couple at under $3.5k in the last week!)

Explored numerous Mercedes MLs. Older W163 270CDi is solid-as, reliable, economical, and easy to work on. The W164 320CDi is another good'un, very economical and huge scope for tuning (although that was a very minor consideration). Doing the sums though, a W164 ML500 (lovely car) works out very little more expensive to run over 12 months than a diesel... Regardless, prices for all of the above have gone up considerably in the last 12 months.

Land Rover Discovery? Range Rover? Too expensive (for what they are) and while easy enough to fix, do seem to turn up a large number of issues. They also tend to be treated like sh!t.
Land Rover Freelander? Maybe... But insufficient towing capacity. (Not a bad vehicle though, despite online reports.)

Big Nissans and Toyotas are just silly money.

Smaller Toyotas and Nissans lack the towing capacity, or just don't seem available (for sale) in a spec to suit us. (Did seriously consider an XTrail diesel.)

So... We bought a Lexus RX350. NZ new, 2 owners, full service history, 12 months WoF, 6 months rego, 3 months unconditional warranty. Cheaper than an older LR Disco TDi or TD5, or (at the time) any similar spec BMW X5, and barely more in price than a 5-year-older and much higher mileage Merc ML.

It's really quite nice. Takes some getting used to but that's to be expected. Rides well, handles well, very comfortable.

I suggested to a fellow forum member (who knows about these things) that if we look after it, it should be good for at least 400000km. I was advised that if we only wanted 400000km from it, we needn't bother looking after it.

[Eagle 1662]

6 minutes ago, gjm said:

Big Nissans and Toyotas are just silly money.

A co-worker seems to love his Terrano with the QD32 engine. Just convinced another co-worker to buy one for 4k, mainly for off road use so assume they tow ok. 

[gjm 3258]

48 minutes ago, Eagle said:

A co-worker seems to love his Terrano with the QD32 engine. Just convinced another co-worker to buy one for 4k, mainly for off road use so assume they tow ok. 

We did consider a Terrano and looked at a few. All in our <$10k price range were pre-2000 (not a deciding factor) and all (that we saw) either had big mileages, or something fairly significant wrong. Or a manual gearbox - Mrs M needs an auto because of a back injury. An older Pathfinder would be the same age as our RX350 but costs nearly 50% more.

[Gaz 1060]

Plenty of value in those and their toyota cousin, Highlander as no one wants to deal with the fuel bill on them. We just grabbed a 2012 Highlander for $7500 including shipping

[gjm 3258]

23 minutes ago, Gaz said:

Plenty of value in those and their toyota cousin, Highlander as no one wants to deal with the fuel bill on them. We just grabbed a 2012 Highlander for $7500 including shipping

A lot of vehicle for the money.

[Gaz 1060]

10 hours ago, gjm said:

A lot of vehicle for the money.

Just need to teach the Mrs how to drive efficiently 😄

[GorGasm 563]

A fine choice.