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I am looking for another 4WD vehicle – used, under $10K. I am interested in people’s opinions – good and bad – about pick-ups and midsize SUVs. Any comments appreciated, related to the subject. 🙂
The following vehicles in my budget are currently in my area:
- late 90’s Ford F150
- late 90’s/early 00’s Ford Explorer
- early 00’s Ford Escape
- early 00’s Mazda Tribute
- late 90’s GMC Jimmy
Opinions on these, and any others that fit the category, are welcome. If you prefer to email instead of post, my address is bnbgeo at gmail dot com.
Thanks.
Ruth
We have a 2005 Mazda Tribute and really like it. Great clearance and good gas milege.
TE@bnb wrote:
I am looking for another 4WD vehicle – used, under $10K. I am interested in people’s opinions – good and bad – about pick-ups and midsize SUVs. Any comments appreciated, related to the subject. 🙂
The following vehicles in my budget are currently in my area:
- late 90’s Ford F150
- late 90’s/early 00’s Ford Explorer
- early 00’s Ford Escape
- early 00’s Mazda Tribute
- late 90’s GMC Jimmy
Opinions on these, and any others that fit the category, are welcome. If you prefer to email instead of post, my address is bnbgeo at gmail dot com.
Thanks.
Ruth
I can better offer an opinion if you post what the vehicle will be used for. If you are planning on doing some trail riding, some vehicle just won’t cut it.
No trail riding. This is a commute vehicle, but I desire another 4WD due to where I live. I have a 1/2 mile driveway with steep uphill curves. The driveway comes off of a town road, which is off a county road. We are never the first plowed out. We are 16 miles of county roads to my kids schools; 20 miles, mostly county roads, to my work. So, no off-road requirements, just traction on road. Also not needed for towing, since my Suburban could handle that.
This may also be the vehicle my 16-year-old son drives.
Hope this helps. I really do hope for feedback because I truly hate buying vehicles and anything that helps me make a decision is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ruth
If you like wrenching on them, pick the explorer. Otherwise I’d pick the f150 to put junior in. Big, lots of metal between him and other people. Other than it being a 4wd the insurance hit shouldn’t be “toooo” bad.
Depending on the year of the f150, make sure you look for blow by on the firewall, the modular engines had issues with leakage and is expensive to fix (is anything cheap to fix anymore?). I think it was the 97-99 model years.
–mike
Thanks! This is the type of feedback I’m looking for. I hate buying something and then, after the check is written, hearing lots of negative information about what I just bought. Even if I do buy something with negative comments, at least I’ll know what I’m in for.
As a pay back, if you are looking at a used Subaru Outback – pre98-01 – please look into issues with the head gasket. We had a 98 Outback, purchased new, with the intention of having it be the car the now-16-year-old would drive. Last year it died due to a cracked block. Previously we had suffered through the expense of a supposedly cracked head gasket, not knowing it was just the warning of the what was to come. The Subaru mechanic acknowledged it was a known problem; the official Subaru talking heads know nothing about it.
If it’s something your son is going to eventually drive as well, 4WD might not be the only thing to consider.
Consider what trouble a child can get into thinking they are invincible in a 4×4. The Escape and Tribute are going to be the most maneuverable of the bunch, and will no doubt have ABS and traction control, which for a beginner driver might be a necessity on the road types you are speaking of. Not to mention, both will be better on gas, and the environment.
Having had access to a Ford F150 4×4 as a 16 year old, I can say that I would NEVER let my son have one at that same age!!! Oh, I could tell you stories…
You didn’t mention a need for towing capacity, so maybe that’s not an issue. But if it is, make sure check out the capacity … I was surprised at how “wimpy” some 4×4’s are rated in that area.
In my case I wanted 4×4 for the same reason (we’re on a snowy dead-end to lake Michigan) … but I also need to be able to pull a heavy trailer … so I went with a 99 Chevy Blazer. I like the vehicle, except for the driver’s side window does not go down about 10% of time.
I have a 1997 Ford F150 4X4 with a regular cab, 8 foot box, 6 cylinder, and 5 speed manual tranny. They give these things away and it’s a great truck for me. Paid $6200 for mine several years ago with under 90k miles.
I also have a 2004 Mazda Tribute that is coming off lease in February that has been 100% trouble free for us, but that is a 2 wheel drive. Was never a problem in the snow that we get, and we take the F150 when we visit the cabin in the Winter usually.
Thanks for the feedback. Right now we’re leaning more toward a pickup. It makes more sense, at this time, to buy a vehicle that does more than transport people. There are a lot of used F150’s available – probably because they are an extremely popular truck. I’d still like to hear comments on the Ford Escape and Mazda Tribute in case my Suburban were to meet an untimely death.
Hi Ruth,
I had a 95 Explorer and loved it until the tranny went out at 240K. Thought I would get better mileage with an Escape (I am a Ford man, which limits my choices) and got an 05 Escape.
The Escape gets 20 MPG and the Explorer got 19. The extra size of the Explorer made it a much nicer and useful SUV, so if I could get a do over, I would go with another Explorer, and not the Escape, which feels small to me, and limits how much stuff I can take with me.
z
We’ve got a 2003 Trailblazer…I like it, gets around 17-20 mpg on the highway depending on the conditions…plenty of power in the straight 6…the year we bought it, we took it to South Dakota pulling a large pop-up….had no problems whatsoever, got around 15 mpg on the interstate…
Energysaver, not sure how you are with tools, but I’m willing to guess it’s the switch and it’s got crud built up in it…my Grand Prix had the same problem…well the switch assembly was big bucks at the dealer, and I couldn’t find a used one…I pulled it out, tore it apart, and cleaned it out…no more problem with my driver’s window not working….it would go down, but I had keep pressing it till I found a sweet spot for it to go back up…
Later
Phil
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