I’m thinking of getting a dual cab for stuff like beach 4WDing, camping, gardening (picking up landscaping stuff), transporting bikes (potentially motorbikes in future) and potentially towing a caravan, boat or camper trailer in the future.
Early days into research and thinking we could afford about $15k-$20k. A carsales search shows a lot of 2008-2012 Navaras (heard D40 is the bigger one) with a couple of Tritons as well. Are the Navaras any good or should I be looking at something else?
It will be my daily commute (short drive though) with rare highway drives, and it will be our family car for beach 4WDing/camping.
I own a 2007 d40 and an 2010 r51 pathfinder. Have been happy with the performance, size and features of both. The ute has played up a bit, but once I found the problem has now been running well. It could have been an expensive process to find the problem had I used a mechanic though, but this is typical with modern diesels.
If you are getting an earlier d40 be aware that the clutch is a bit soft and that the single tow timing chain wasn’t a good idea. The later models (from 2010 I think) solves these issues.
I’ve had it on the beach and some fairly serious trails in stock form, except AT tyres and it has performed well. I haven’t really towed with it as the pathfinder is our family car for holidays, but same drivetrain in it towed our 1500kg caravan to cairns and back at 100km/h with no issues.
At the time I bought my ute it was the best option for my relatively low budget. It was up against the older model small ranger and Colorado, the hilux was too pricey (Toyota tax) and they had beaten the triton too hard with the ugly stick.
Your budget should now get you the option of all the current size dual cabs, so have a look at what is available in your budget and check out the diffeeent models. I have driven the current shape triton, Colorado and rangers at work and the d40 is pretty close to all of them for on road performance and economy.