Vehicle
Vehicle Specs:
- Toyota
- Landcruiser
- 80 Series
- VX
- 1994
- Manual
- Diesel
- 138,000 miles
- £3,800
After three months of scouring the countryside we have finally found our (t)rusty. I think all up we inspected well over 50 vehicles and viewed hundreds on the Internet until this one popped up. As with most things it came down to finding the best compromise between price, reliability and comfort.
Although we did look into sourcing a vehicle from Japan, UAE and South Africa, when it came to price and spec, the UK was hard to beat.
Vehicle Preparation
Vehicle Choice
This really was an unexpected minefield. Having lived in Africa for so long, I was obviously more familiar with the Toyota Landcruiser then any other make and for this reason was probably a little biased to begin with. However, I did speak to many people and read a lot of info before deciding to limit my search to the 80 series Landcruiser. I won’t harp on about the faults of other makes, but below are some of the reasons I chose this make and model:
- Mechanical reliability is unmatched
- Availability of Toyota spares and mechanical expertise through Africa
- High load carrying capacity
- Simple mechanics
- Cost
Other considerations
- Diesel is more available then petrol and the quality is generally better through Africa
- UK spec 80 series have three diff locks as opposed to the Japanese vehicles
- All 80 series models have factory issues with the electric windows and are easily fixed. So don’t let this affect whether you buy a vehicle or not.
- Although there is nothing wrong with the reliability of an automatic gearbox, the manual provides more options and is just much better to drive off-road
- 1994 models and below have been known to have ‘Big end Bearing’ issues. However, these are straight forward to replace
- 1995 and above models have 24 valves as opposed to 12 valves. This is unconfirmed, but I have been told the 12 valve has more power in low range but less on the open road.
- Anything below 170,000 miles is a relative baby. I have known many of these vehicles to do well over 350,000 miles, so don’t be scared off by a high odometer.
Paperwork
Whoever is going to drive will need an international license. A Carnet de Passage should ideally be all that is needed to travel through all the countries. Some countries will still require paying a small fee for a foreign vehicle permit or the like (around $40USD). Even with a CDP, most countries require that you have at least third party insurance. For the CDP we are planning to have full insurance anyway. But some countries won’t recognize that. So it will be best to have COMESA yellow card insurance, which all countries recognise.
We will need to have the original registration papers and country of registration stickers with the vehicles at all times.
