Advice needed which car?

[steelman]

Thanks guys,
am considering a 2012 petrol rav4  2.5 litre and also an Outlander similar age. Anyone know much on Outlanders?

[rockinj]

check the tow capacity of the rav, last year I was looking and the official tow capacity was only 750 braked or unbraked.

[steelman]

told it was 750 unbraked 1500 braked.

[rockinj]

Just be careful, it was 500kg I was told not 750, sorry. I am pretty sure some models have been upgraded to 1000kg braked but do your research. I ran screaming when told the tow capacity.

[Beefa Toyota]

told it was 750 unbraked 1500 braked.

This is definitely correct for the new model Rav 4
12/2012 on, 2.5 lt petrol
the diesel is only 1000 kg braked
and the 2 lt petrol is only 800 kg
Hope this helps
Cheers Beefa

[prodigyrf]

Thanks guys,
am considering a 2012 petrol rav4  2.5 litre and also an Outlander similar age. Anyone know much on Outlanders?

Well here's the lowdown on the Outlander-
http://www.carsguide.com.au/car-reviews/mitsubishi-outlander-used-review-2003-2012-13635#.VfA0mM7ovIU
and in particular 2012 -
http://www.caradvice.com.au/compare-specs/qu915a-mitsubishi-outlander/ojr12k-mitsubishi-outlander/
where you'll note the 1600kg tow capacity for the petrol and 2000kg for the diesel which means the chassis/body is doing it easy in petrol mode with 1600kg
Mitsi make strong motors and hence their 5 year 130000km warranty and 12 month/15000km service intervals and their motors have often been used under licence by other brands (Great Wall for example). Personally I'm not interested in 3 year warranty stuff nor Mazda's 6month service intervals and the like as that's yesterdays. I can vouch for Mitsis in that regard and their CVT transmission in the Mitsi Colt we bought new for the missus before the Zook (Mitsi gave it a 10yr/160000km power train warranty to boot).

So that's what I look at before I go test driving and picking the used car dealers brains (yes some are tossers but most know their stuff) and nowadays if I'm interested in a particular model I'll net search 'Mitsubishi Outlander 2012 problem' and see what I come up with. Now you'll always get the tosser owner griping but what I'm on the lookout for is any regular and major problems. Happy to say nothing to worry about with the Outlander but to be frank there's some common threads with the Rav4 which makes me nervous (oil consumption on the diesel and that ECU/AWD complaint)

I recall the BIL saying daughter was keen on a secondhand retro VW bug and he was looking at one so I googled it for problems. Bingo seems they had a problem with coolant bottle level sensor leaking back into the wiring loom and all sorts of electrical problems as a result. Even finds its way into the dash wiring and kills instruments and guess what the one he was looking at had? A dead tacho so he scratched one of those off the list.

Bottom line is there's lots of nice reliable cars to choose from and you need to spec them out and then drive them to see if they suit but then there's that net searching for insurance against known manufacturing problems and getting stuck with a lemon.

[steelman]

Thanks prodigyrf , gave the Rav a miss and got a 2013 Outlander.  Thanks to you and all the others for taking time to help out.