New car—hopefully, not a risky choice.

Ranger Caption: Won’t be long and this will be pulling our new home around this beautiful Country.

No cryptic messages here, or surprises for that matter—we have been quite busy and as the title suggests we have found ourselves a new car. It’s a used car, and it may not be the perfect choice, but it’s best, and most sensible option we could get for the money we have, but even so, I’m sure we’ll be schooled by people who know better and informed of the risky choice.

We had some limitations on vehicle choice, imposed by the size and weight of our caravan and, ultimately, finances. Our caravan is a 21.6 foot with a tare weight (weight of the van unloaded) of around 2700kg, and an ATM (the heaviest the van can be, fully loaded) of 3500kg. We certainly could have gone for a smaller caravan and there are many alternatives and options that could have seen us pulling less weight, such as an external slide out kitchen, a combined toilet and shower, and a single, rather than dual, axle. These were things that we didn’t want to compromise on and I think it’s important to understand that, provided you can manage the outcome of choices you make, not everything needs to be a compromise. All things going well, we aren’t just doing a lap of Australia, travelling for 6 or 12 months to then return to our “normal” way of living, rather, our intention is to experience travel at least until we need to consider schooling options for the kids.

There were really only 2 options for us, and I’ll probably discuss the reasons why in depth another time, but they were the Land Rover Discovery 4, and the Ford Ranger. We had our hearts set on a Land Rover Discovery 4 because, on paper, they’re the perfect tow vehicle and their off-road capability is outstanding. But when the local Land Rover club suggested that as much as they love their Disco’s, for what we’re doing, concerns over reliability can’t be overlooked. Still, undeterred, we found a Disco 4 about a 10-hour drive away and having been told by the owner that it’s been checked out and is an exceptional vehicle, we thought we’d found the one. We arranged a mobile mechanic to inspect the car before we made the trip down, due diligence and all that, only to find that the inspection report highlighted numerous issues, concluding with recommending NOT purchasing the vehicle. With that, it was clear we had to decide with our minds not our hearts as the Ford Ranger, for our situation, was just a no brainer—we’d just have to be extremely careful with our weights because it was not possible to legally upgrade a used vehicles GCM at that time, and finding a Ford Ranger on the market with those upgrades already done would be unlikely.

But once again, the planets seemed to have aligned for us as we found a GVM/GCM upgraded Ford Ranger for sale on Brisbane’s north side, only about 50 minutes away. Having been set up and used for heavy towing, we were, and still are, concerned that there could be some mechanical trouble down the track, particularly with the transmission, but we have had the vehicle inspected and it appears to all be in good order, so it will either work out…or it won’t. In the end, we’ve gambled and saved $30-40k by not buying a used Land Cruiser or Patrol, and if the transmission does destroy itself, then we’re up for around $10k for a replacement. And for all we know, we could have bought a Land Cruiser and the like for $70k plus, and still had a mechanical issue. We were also able to trade in Alicia’s car as part of the transaction which, while we didn’t get the best price, it made things a lot easier for us. That probably appears to be a contradiction given I have ranted enough about the need for us to save as much money as we can, but we just don’t have that time to waste—there’s waiting for people to turn up, trying to fit into other’s schedules, random people taking the car for a test drive and doing who knows what, making time for potential buyers to get an inspection done, getting the car in for a safety certificate (a requirement if selling a registered car), and all whilst hoping to find a buyer at a better price.

So, that’s what we’ve done and, hey, it may not be the perfect choice, but we think it was the sensible choice for our situation because, parking any potential and unforeseen issues, we have a vehicle that, whilst being a 2016, has enough features that make it a great choice, most notably a Lovells GVM/GCM upgrade from 3200/6000kg to 3500/7000kg. Any vehicle can give you serious problems, and I get it, if you buy new it comes with a warranty that will usually see those problems fixed, but we just weren’t in a position to purchase a new car. I mean, we could have, but that would mean putting aside a lot less money for when we decide to stop travelling. And so, we will do our best to stick to our plan which will be to take our time, drive easy, put the least amount of stress on our set-up and, hopefully, that will see us avoiding major breakdowns or issues.