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It won't get used much, mainly weekend recreation/ holidays in summer with the odd motorway trip to family.
Mrs cycles to work, kids walk to school unless weather terrible. I cycle or drive the 4 miles to work depending on where I have to be afterwards.
I like how they look, they are cheap as chips and will last forever apparently.
When I was my kids age my parents had a SWB Landy 8)
Our MK2 got spendy about 60000 miles.
New water pump, clutch, DMF.
Maybe go for a manual?
I've seen a nice low mileage manual FS which is what got me thinking.
presumably a LWB one, the swb is pretty tiny?
I rented one for a roadtrip in Uganda and Rwanda. Seemed to be coping well considering the state of the roads, although we did do a wheel bearing during the 4 days we rented it, it was a quick repair by a guy in a shack..
as they're >20 year old japanese cars, I imagine you'll spend quite a lot of time constantly fighting rust
If you can live with the cheap plastic interior & if it has enough space for you all. My partner replaced hers (SWB) with a cashcow, cause there wasn’t room for her & two (medium sized) dogs 😉
Mk1s is getting a bit long in the tooth now? My Mk3 is 13 years old and I'm going to have to start spending on that soon, suspension bushes are starting to go, Toyotas are good cars though (I'm on my 3rd + a Lexus which is just a Toyota in drag), 60+mpg on a run, had over 70mpg on a recent trip from Wiltshire to Essex. I was glad my D4D had the engine rebuild by Toyota, they can be a bit of a time bomb if not done on the early Mk3s.
Mk1's aren't a bad looking bus, must be coming around as a Retro ride soon... if you can get a clean one and are happy knowing you might need to spend out on it they whey not?
Looks good in blue!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1998-Toyota-RAV-4-5-door-GX-Only-45-000-Miles/333712015682?hash=item4db2c94142:g:FOkAAOSwdvlfVNED
My sister has one, not as reliable as you might think and a bit thirsty, she loves it though.
That blue one is mint. I got outbid on a green one over the weekend.
Alternatives are something sensible like a focus estate c-max or poss qashqai. I quite like the mk1 qashqai.
Had a Mk1 Blue 5dr one when I lived in Oz around 2008, nice car as others have said interior is a bit low rent but they all were then, Boot on the 5dr one was a good size, not long but a fair bit of volume.
Mechanicals are durable but rust on a uk one will be the main thing to worry about now, and Road Fund aint cheap on them either.
Qashqais are just a bit shit and tend to be driven by imbeciles, Cmax(had one of them too) have a massive boot and are nice too drive but again can get a bit spendy the older they get.
I'd try and find a tidy, rust free Rav 4 out of the above options.
I tried a 2nd hand Mk1 1.5 diesel Qashqai from a Nissan dealer. I was surprised at how bad it drove. Seemed to crash over the road, was awful and I soon gave the keys back.
Thirsty the mk 1 petrols
we had a 55 plate 2.0 XTR 3 door turbo diesel that needed new coil over shock springs regularly after 100000 miles on clock however that saw serious country side use day in day out for 8 odd years at least!
turbo went just before chopping it in for new Skoda.
did they notice as a px’ing it at dealers- did they f’k
🤣
trusty driver and needs to be thrashed on straight road every now and again to blow out the diesel sediment to keep it going all nice.
can be had reasonably cheap too.
though deffo no family car.
best off in a Subaru Forester or Outback imho manual petrol ime.