Saturday, October 16, 2004
Buying a 4x4 in Calgary!
Another little update:
My boss has been off this week, so I've had some free time to do a bit of research on 4x4s / off-road vehicles, as we've been thinking about buying a second vehicle to use on the gravel roads which seem to cover most of the interesting bits of Southern Alberta / Kananaskis / The Canadian Rockies. There are certain places where our wee Honda just can't go, like the Sibbald Flats, the Powderface Trail, the Highway 40-Canmore trail and the enormously-long Foresty Trunk Road which runs east of the main Banff-Jasper Highway and goes north and south for 100s of kilometres on the slopes of the Rockies. Also, we've been thinking of getting something with 4-wheel drive for the extreme cold conditions and ice-driving we're expecting in January-March next year. Lastly, a second set of wheels means will give us a bit more flexibility in getting to and from work independently of each other, eg. when I'm starting early (06:30 or 07:00), finishing late in the OR, or when I'm stopping off at the University on the way home for my clarinet lessons. So anyway, we were on the hunt for a second motor.
We had looked at a large number of makes, and if money was no object we would have liked a Volkswagen Touareg, a Subaru Forester/Outback, a Nissan Pathfinder or a Honda CRV.
Tuareg
Forester
Outback
Trooper
Most of these new cost about 40,000-50,000 dollars with all the bells and whistles, and even secondhand ('pre-owned'), 2 -3 years old they're still in the 20,000-25,000 dollar bracket. We looked at all the online reviews (eg. here and here) and decided we didn't really want to spend more than 10,000 in the end.
We had a good look on the local online sales sites AutoHunter and AutoTrader to see what was available for how much, and narrowed our choices down to a 1997/1998 Ford Explorer or a 1997/1998 Jeep Cherokee. In terms of mileage, we would be looking at something in the 150,000 km range, as lower mileages than this ramp the price up a good bit.
Explorer
Jeep
I used my free time this week to make a few phone calls, visit a few dealers and take a few test drives and finally we located a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo with 150,000 km on the clock (about 93,000 miles) in good condition. The bodywork was very good, compared to other ones on offer (no rust visible, painted underbody), the inside and outside was in excellent condition, it was 4x4 with antilock brakes, with lots of room in the back and 5 seats. I took it for a spin, and yesterday so did P. It drives well, brakes well, good acceleration for an auotmatic and seems to handle better than most 4x4s I've tried out (a bit of wallowing and lumbering is to be expected, but not too much). Some of the taller 4x4s have a tendency to topple over if you take a corner too fast, but the Cherokee is a little wider and lower than normal and seems pretty stable.
The consumer reviews (here and here) of the Jeep Grand Cherokee were overwhelmingly good, apart from fuel consumption, which is always going to be a problem with the 4x4s.
To cut a long story short, last night we made the dealership an offer of just over 8,000 Canadian dollars (about 3,500 UK pounds) and it was accepted! The Jeep has had a full safety inspection and a full service, and will be coming with new winter-rated tyres. We're also going to look at buying a warranty to cover an major mechanical problems in the next 2 years, and we've got an insurance quote of 970 dollars (420 quid) for the year, which is pretty good (we get 20% off as it's a second vehicle).
Our wee Jeep
You can see the ad for our wee Jeep here until they take it off the site.
We'll be picking it up next week some time - now we just have to work out how to fit in in the garage!
J
My boss has been off this week, so I've had some free time to do a bit of research on 4x4s / off-road vehicles, as we've been thinking about buying a second vehicle to use on the gravel roads which seem to cover most of the interesting bits of Southern Alberta / Kananaskis / The Canadian Rockies. There are certain places where our wee Honda just can't go, like the Sibbald Flats, the Powderface Trail, the Highway 40-Canmore trail and the enormously-long Foresty Trunk Road which runs east of the main Banff-Jasper Highway and goes north and south for 100s of kilometres on the slopes of the Rockies. Also, we've been thinking of getting something with 4-wheel drive for the extreme cold conditions and ice-driving we're expecting in January-March next year. Lastly, a second set of wheels means will give us a bit more flexibility in getting to and from work independently of each other, eg. when I'm starting early (06:30 or 07:00), finishing late in the OR, or when I'm stopping off at the University on the way home for my clarinet lessons. So anyway, we were on the hunt for a second motor.
We had looked at a large number of makes, and if money was no object we would have liked a Volkswagen Touareg, a Subaru Forester/Outback, a Nissan Pathfinder or a Honda CRV.
Tuareg
Forester
Outback
Trooper
Most of these new cost about 40,000-50,000 dollars with all the bells and whistles, and even secondhand ('pre-owned'), 2 -3 years old they're still in the 20,000-25,000 dollar bracket. We looked at all the online reviews (eg. here and here) and decided we didn't really want to spend more than 10,000 in the end.
We had a good look on the local online sales sites AutoHunter and AutoTrader to see what was available for how much, and narrowed our choices down to a 1997/1998 Ford Explorer or a 1997/1998 Jeep Cherokee. In terms of mileage, we would be looking at something in the 150,000 km range, as lower mileages than this ramp the price up a good bit.
Explorer
Jeep
I used my free time this week to make a few phone calls, visit a few dealers and take a few test drives and finally we located a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo with 150,000 km on the clock (about 93,000 miles) in good condition. The bodywork was very good, compared to other ones on offer (no rust visible, painted underbody), the inside and outside was in excellent condition, it was 4x4 with antilock brakes, with lots of room in the back and 5 seats. I took it for a spin, and yesterday so did P. It drives well, brakes well, good acceleration for an auotmatic and seems to handle better than most 4x4s I've tried out (a bit of wallowing and lumbering is to be expected, but not too much). Some of the taller 4x4s have a tendency to topple over if you take a corner too fast, but the Cherokee is a little wider and lower than normal and seems pretty stable.
The consumer reviews (here and here) of the Jeep Grand Cherokee were overwhelmingly good, apart from fuel consumption, which is always going to be a problem with the 4x4s.
To cut a long story short, last night we made the dealership an offer of just over 8,000 Canadian dollars (about 3,500 UK pounds) and it was accepted! The Jeep has had a full safety inspection and a full service, and will be coming with new winter-rated tyres. We're also going to look at buying a warranty to cover an major mechanical problems in the next 2 years, and we've got an insurance quote of 970 dollars (420 quid) for the year, which is pretty good (we get 20% off as it's a second vehicle).
Our wee Jeep
You can see the ad for our wee Jeep here until they take it off the site.
We'll be picking it up next week some time - now we just have to work out how to fit in in the garage!
J
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