Durr

Hey guys, was wondering if i could get a few opinions here. I'm looking for a car that meets the following criteria:

Lots of leg room in the drivers seat, need to stretch and move around on longer distances. I'm 187 cm tall which translates to just over 6'1

Needs to be able to haul around 5 adults if needed

Needs enough cargo space to do store runs, transport music equipment, etc: i occasionally re-supply a small business that i run, whenever it doesn't pay to hire a van. This includes bulky music equipment that we occasionally have to rent or move around.

Should be diesel, the fuel economy on those is consistently better than a gasoline engine and the low end torque is really useful when towing or hauling around 5 people and their cargo. In addition, diesels can run forever if cared for properly.

Can't be anything new, I can't afford it. I'd prefer something used thats at least 10 years old. I work on my own cars so ease of access to parts prone to failure is a huge plus.

Needs to be widespread on the european market so no US or Jap imports

This one's optional: I track my hobby car, a 2002 STI, i've kept it street legal for now, but would love to modify the shit out of it and just have the ability to put it on a trailer and tow it to the track. Also, the STI is a pain as a daily driver, it wears you out to the point where you don't even want to think of driving. I walk to work 3-4 days a week because i can't stand driving this car in traffic. If i had the ability to tow, i could get a dedicated track car and sell the STI.


The only cars I can personally think of are larger german SUVs (Old MB ML, BMW X5 E53, Audi Q7 but it's pushing the price a bit and they're a bitch to work on), Toyota RAV4 and Toyota Land Cruiser. I haven't heard anything good about Jeep's diesel engines, nobody other than Toyota knows shit about diesels in Japan and I really dislike Volvos. I thought of an extended cab truck, but they can get expensive and the gf hates trucks.

OP Pic is a 2006 RAV4 which fills every criteria except the tow a car one.

The reason I'm asking Veeky Forums is because you can't exactly google this shit and forums and whatnot are worse than fucking /b/.

>This is my first Veeky Forums post in nearly 2 years.

Looks like Veeky Forums doesn't know much about practical cars..

>practical cars
>Veeky Forums

Veeky Forums is great if you just want someone to laugh at you because your vehicle doesn't do 0-60 in 5 seconds

Veeky Forums is fucking stupid

Used to be a bit different and it really is the only place i figured i'd get at least some discussion. Model specific forums are even more stupid than Veeky Forums when it comes to this.

I guess i gotta trial-error this instead

>my STI is faster than 5 seconds though.

>6'1" is "tall" for metricfags

Was I supposed to say i'm 6'1 short?

I'm quite surprised there hasn't been any retards yet sperging about crossover SUVs being practical and arguing the quote "diesels can run forever if cared for properly".
Personally, I'd recommend an early fourth gen Pajero if they're available in your local market. Reason I say fourth as opposed to third is the 4M41 diesel in the fourth is the first of the common rail motors instead of the third generation's electronic distributor type pump which can send you broke if it fails and is up for a rebuild.

>diesel is more fuel efficient
Unless you regularly drive on the motorway, there's no point in getting a diesel

Thanks, will check it out, they should be plentiful in my local market.
I do about 2k km per month, if an average diesel uses between 1-3 liters less fuel per 100 km, that translates to 20-60 liters less per month and up to 720 less per year.

It doesn't matter. It might be like that for the first few months, but if you are doing a lot of town or city driving and rarely go on the motorway, soot starts to build up in the engine, reducing fuel efficiency.
When a diesel runs at relatively high revs for an extended period of time, it's too hot for soot to build up meaning it stays fuel efficient

Most of my kms are motorway kms.

Agreed.
Add a Provent catch can, and delete the EGR. Never worry about carbon build up again.

Hey OP, my needs are pretty similar to yours. Not sure which country you're in?

>subaru liberty/forester wagon on diesel
>mazda 6 wagon, diesel
>hyundai i30 wagon, diesel
>ford falcon/commodore/camry/magna on LPG
>whatever car you have plus a trailer

Tbh diesel if under 10 years/150k, LPG or straight petrol if older than that. New diesels are great to drive but unreliable and hard to work on in old age.

>delete the EGR
Won't that make my emissions worse? We get tested annually for those
>LPG
Thanks for reminding me that that is a thing. I've heard of great fuel efficiency gains from LPG and it's about half the price of regular gasoline.
A forester for towing, though? I need it to tow just under 2T and I don't think it's rated for that.

>New diesels are great to drive but unreliable and hard to work on in old age.
As a generalisation, that's absolute nonsense. There's no reason a modern light commercial/4x4 based diesel isn't a half million plus kilometre engine the old fashioned diesels were.
Again, delete the EGR and throw on a catch can and happy motoring for the next quarter century.

Depends on whether they sniff for NOx gasses or not. If it's a diesel, they probably do.
Depending on the vehicle however, blanking or electronically deleting the EGR function is just as simple to reverse as it is to apply.

"happy motoring for the next quarter century"
>except when the turbo, injectors, and injector pump shit the bed around 200km
I'm not even going into EGR bullshit but OP is a yuropoor where emissions is a thing.

It's a common mistake to confuse a 13L mack truck diesel designed to last for 1.5 million km with a VW golf 2L diesel designed to last for 150 thousand km. Don't make that mistake.

>except when the turbo, injectors, and injector pump shit the bed around 200km
280,000km here and still purring away, getting just as good fuel economy and performance as it did new.
While these items are relatively expensive for what CAN be considered consumables, they're likely to be replaced once throughout the life if the vehicle. One of the reasons I previously recommended a common rail variant is because fuel pumps for these are usually cheaper to have rebuilt than the old mechanical distributor style pumps.
And no one's confusing a long bonnet Volvo with a bulldog ornament with a Volkswagon Golf.

Everybody with half a brain knows to stay away from volkswagens, no matter what.

Mechanic here. Owning a diesel if you do all your own work is insanely UNlikely to pay off, and even less likely if you pay others.
A mechanic should be smarter than that. Operation and maintenance cost is COST PER KILOMETER. Consumer diesels don't win.

Buy a gasser.

Here you go
Dunno exactly whe're you are but you can find these for 8/12k easy in good consition with 200k km but they can do shittons more than that.

I assume this is from an amerifag point of view. I know a few people that do upwards of 100k a year in what i can call a consumer grade diesel car and they do their own maintenance.
I thought the myth of diesels being impossible to work on yourself was busted years ago?

espace faggot.

the V6 version definitely can, not like a lifted truck but a sedan or a similar suv sure