I'd avoid hod-carriers wagons for the reasons stated.

Subaru (can you get the new STi? I think it's got (limited) torque-vectoring, of which I am a huge fan) but any old Legacy makes sense.

Or a PoS Volvo XC70. Excellent car, but keep the windows open all year, lest you fall asleep whilst driving it.

I'd still be terrified of a Failwagen Anorak, or anything else vaguely smelling of VAG. Unless it were warrantied to the hilt & your local dealer was slightly less crap than the average.

 

I was going on the basis that if you are financing the 86, then you are perhaps looking for a new lease / pc or something hence the R suggestion

I've yet to experience the VAG dealer network, but whilst under warranty, I don't realy care

fingers crossed it won't break

 

The main questions and opinions seem to be around the use of it.

I want something I can get out in pretty much any the weather. Seriously. Middle of nowhere now. Closest shop to buy milk is around 5 miles away. Roads are narrowing as mud is coming off verges people are having to put wheels in ditches and all those sorts of shinnanigans. Low ground clearance isn't confidence inspiring.

I need a load lugger too. I seem to regularly be driving the avensis with the rear suspension down on the stops recently. Boot space filled top to bottom and front to back with firewood, flooring and the like. Likely to be turning into stuff for tip runs, concrete flags etc for garden renovations. God knows what else.

Plenty of cars and SUVs out there and I know about most of them. I know advantages and pitfalls and if I start looking down that route I've a good idea of my usual suspects. Like I say though don't know much about pitfalls of trucks though. Driven a hilux before (was fine until you hit the a50 near Derby with a concrete poor surface and it felt like sailing on choppy waters) but that is about the limit of my experience.

 

BMW 525X or one of those huge volvo awd estate things.

What about a derv X5 with proper tyres?

 

All of which are possible and may be considered but I'm after info on trucks at the moment since those are the things I know least about

 

Navara / Warrior - MB ran one IIRC and quite liked it?

 

You know if there was anything in particular or just better to pm him?

 

It was an L200 Warrior IIRC
We had one on our work fleet hateful thing
Slow, noisey, low service intervals and poor fuel consumption it went after 3 months
Ironic as Mrs K had a Pinin at the same time and that was great, when the front subframe rotted I got here in a Forester 2.5XT
It is used for exatly what fluff is after recently has 125 6ft 4x4" gate posts in it

 

I drove a new mits shogun on test years ago. Absolutely feckin shite. Felt like a tractor. No poise . Wallowed all over the show.

 

Another Forester vote here. Ran them for 8 years until we cut back to two cars. Major upgrade 2008-9 but the older squarer one is just as good. Increase in rear pass leg room was the big change. Two gear ratios, one for normal one for off road. The older ones at least had a real spare wheel which I was grateful for on our roads round here. The space for this below the rear can be occupied by a LPG tank. This is quite common as these things can do high miles - dead reliable, hard to break. Cam belt change important at 50,000 miles iirc.

edit: just looked on Autotrader. £6k will get you plenty of choice.