DAIHATSU FOURTRAK 2.8 TDX Independent 3dr (1993)

Strong 4x4, very reliable, fairly economical

It's over ten years old, it's done 120 thousand miles, and our Daihatsu Fourtrak is going strong, shows no signs of wearing out. We've got another Daihatsu, a Grand Move, and that's also been going forever. The trick is to just keep them properly serviced and they should go on forever.

Funny about the 4x4 though, cos I always associated Daihatsu with funny little cars. Even the Move is pretty dinky. But they really seem to know what they were doing with the Fourtrak. It's very competent off road, but also nice and comfy round town and on the motorways.

I wouldn't say that fuel economy is the strong point of the Daihatsu Fourtrak, but it's ok, I reckon we average maybe 25mpg. I mean that's ok for a 4x4, but I might have to rethink whether we can justify those sorts of costs just for the occasional off road use.

One cost i don't have though is repairs. It's invincible. I think I've had about two major repairs in ten years, and those were just a cylinder head and a clutch. Everything else is pretty well good as new. And we have really used it well, dragged all sorts around and taken it over all sorts of terrain.

About the towing, the Daihatsu Fourtrak loves to tow. Of course you pay in fuel but that's to be expected. What you don't pay in is parts, it doesn't suffer for towing, loves it.

I've got the short wheel base version so the boot is a bit pokey really, even if I've folded the back seats down. We sometimes use a roof bar but the only time we've got that much to carry is holidays and we take a caravan then.