What car to get for poor roads and dirt tracks?

luckylucky

My wife and I are emigrating to rural Portugal shortly, while the main roads in Portugal are pretty decent.

in the part we're going there are lots of poor little roads and dirt tracks.

I'm pretty clueless when it cars tbh, I would have thought a 4 x 4 would be a good option, I'm not a huge fan of 4 x 4s and my wife is even more anti them than me, not least of which is that they're expensive to run and more detrimental to the enironment, at least that's what I gather.

So basically we're looking for an economical car that's suited to driving on some crappy road surfaces.

Any help appreciated.

mike65

An old car maybe? Panda 4x4 or 2cv

Mike.

SoBe

might not be economical but if you dont want to go for a full sized 4x4 there is always the subaru forrester to consider,4wd and low range gear box.sounds perfect for the roads you describe

sdanseo

An aunt of mine just bought a 1.6l Suzuki Grand Vitara (the baby one) for the bad roads down in Galway where she lives. Sounds like it might be the perfect thing for ya. Niceness and newness depends of course on how much you have to spend.

Eg's:
€23,500 (1.6L)
€16,500 (1.6L)
€12,500 (1.6L)

NB: Noticed you'r ein the UK. Try Auto Trader

peasant

Buy a Suzuki Jimny or a Suzuki Jimny or maybe a Suzuki Jimny
1.3 l engine, cheap to run, ultra reliable, good ground clearance, as tough as the big 4x4's just a lot easier to maneuvre and keep. For the Portuguese climate I'd recommend the open top version

I've had mine for four years now and I can't say a bad word against it (once you get to live with the fact that by design it is small and not very comfortable)




EDIT:
another useful and economical alternative:
The Renault Kangoo. On the continent it's also available as a 4x4 or as the "Pampa" (2WD)with raised and strengthened suspension for bad roads.
Get it with the 1.5 Diesel (same engine also available on the continental LHD Jimny btw) and it will be very frugal

alias no.9

Unless you're talking about driving through mud, front wheel drive will be fine, you just need an extra bit of ground clearance. I'll probably get flamed for this suggestion but how about a citroen xantia, a diesel one should give you the economy you need, the newest ones even had the HDi engine, the suspension can be raised and lowered as needed from drivers seat and it should be fairly comfortable even on rough roads.

sdanseo

alias no.9 wrote:

I'll probably get flamed for this suggestion

alias no.9 wrote:

how about a citroen

:rolleyes:

Jimny seems a good option, forgot about that - although it's not exactly a very 'manly' car. Might get a bit of a slagging (although maybe not in rural portugal)

luckylucky

Cheers for the tips, we'll take them on board.
My wife has been doing some research on which.co.uk site.

She came up with the following, Any thoughts on these?

Mazda 2
Honda CRV
Mazda 5
Toyota Yaris-Veroo

sdonn_1 wrote:

Might get a bit of a slagging (although maybe not in rural portugal)

Lol yeah, there's a load of tiny cars that look like they run off a lawnmower engine, there driven by the older folks there, they'd even make a seicento look macho It hasn't gone so materialistic in that part of the world anyway.

peasant

luckylucky wrote:

Cheers for the tips, we'll take them on board.
My wife has been doing some research on which.co.uk site.

She came up with the following, Any thoughts on these?

Mazda 2
Honda CRV
Mazda 5
Toyota Yaris-Veroo

Surely the Mazda 5 is too new (and too expensive) for a daily hammering on dirt tracks ?

luckylucky

peasant wrote:

Surely the Mazda 5 is too new (and too expensive) for a daily hammering on dirt tracks ?

Blame the wife

I've just had a look at this one, 2005 the launch date for this, does seem a bit new.

It's not all dirt tracks, just some poor quality minor roads, the only one real bad dirt track that we will be using with any degree of regularity is the one to the house we are going to be rebuilding. Still i would have though we could do with something a bit more robust looking than this one.

peasant

Did you just say ....house ...re-building ...?

I can see sacks of cement, tiles, wooden planks, etc etc being dragged up that dirt track

Get a cheapo Kangoo van ...finish the building ...check remaining budget ...forget about new car

Terrontress

If you've got wads to spare, I would go for an A6 Allroad.

Raised suspension, 2.7 Diesel, Quattro 4x4, Audi build quality.

But I reckon the Kangoo 4X4 has loads of character, as does the Panda 4x4.

Neither of them should be expensive to fix.

How do Portugese prices compare with ours?

peasant

Still i would have though we could do with something a bit more robust looking than this one.

If you're looking for something rustic

Go look for an UMM

http://www.4wdonline.com/UMM/UMM.html


After all ...they were built in Portugal ...should still have some of them in running order

luckylucky

Terrontress wrote:

How do Portugese prices compare with ours?

Portugal is one of the dearest countries in the EU for buying a car, so we want to avoid buying there if at all possible. We're looking into buying a left hand drive in the UK, or maybe buy one in Germany, Holland or Spain where they're relatively cheap, we'll need to see if we can do this and avoid paying duty on the car.

Alun

luckylucky wrote:

Portugal is one of the dearest countries in the EU for buying a car, so we want to avoid buying there if at all possible. We're looking into buying a left hand drive in the UK, or maybe buy one in Germany, Holland or Spain where they're relatively cheap, we'll need to see if we can do this and avoid paying duty on the car.

AFAIK the reason for this is a hefty import duty, not unlike our VRT. How exactly are you planning on 'avoiding' it?

luckylucky

Alun wrote:

AFAIK the reason for this is a hefty import duty, not unlike our VRT. How exactly are you planning on 'avoiding' it?

we have heard a few conflicting things, one is that we can't avoid it, the other is that if you have a car that you have had for 6 months in your own country of residence that you are entitled to being that over without paying duty(or whatever the tax is called) and what we should do in that case is just drive the car over and after 6 months become 'officially' resident, my wife has been looking into it more than me, but that's the gist of what I have gathered.

Alun

luckylucky wrote:

we have heard a few conflicting things, one is that we can't avoid it, the other is that if you have a car that you have had for 6 months in your own country of residence that you are entitled to being that over without paying duty(or whatever the tax is called) and what we should do in that case is just drive the car over and after 6 months become 'officially' resident, my wife has been looking into it more than me, but that's the gist of what I have gathered.

That's a similar situation to here where you can bring a car over to Ireland from wherever you lived for 'free' and don't have to pay VRT if you can prove you've been driving it in your home country for 6 months. I don't know what the customs people are like in Portugal, but the general impression I get of their equivalents here is that they're no mugs, and have seen all the scams and tricks before, and will want to see definite proof that you've actually been living in Ireland and driving the car for that period. If they get any kind of whiff that you've been living in Portugal for that period of time, you're screwed.

unkel

alias no.9 wrote:

Unless you're talking about driving through mud, front wheel drive will be fine, you just need an extra bit of ground clearance. I'll probably get flamed for this suggestion but how about a citroen xantia

My thoughts exactly, as soon as I read the OP. Any hydropneumatic Citroen will do, depending on budget of course

As for importing a car within the EU - what Alun said. I can only imagine they are no mugs in Portugal either to let the opportunity pass to get a decent amount of tax revenue in