North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Ben Jam wrote:I love lamp

Lamp =cock ??

We all can't ride sawfish noses like you doug.

Ha Ben Jam, 60% of the time, it works every time.

Mate, I went through all the recent dual cabs before purchasing , going and pricing a driving latest offerings. Toyota's will always have a great reputation for reliability and I was also keen on the d- max ( new one). I settled on a demo ranger 3.2 manual for 40 k and spent a bit on aftermarket shocks and stuff. I have had 5 different utes and 2 models of cruiser and this ute is by far the best all round car I've ever owed. Tows my 6 m platey no worries, very respectable fuel and heaps of grunt. One of the other main reasons I bought it was comfort on the long drives, just so much room. Any way, have fun with your decision. Best money spent is on aftermarket fuel filter which won't let water into motor .

Suggest that you have a look at the Ranger. The 3.2 pulls like a train, is quick for a 4x4 and ours gets under 9L/100 around town. Great on the highway and gravel too.

For people who can't afford Toyota's. Pass me another beer please!

Got mine today (and yes - I could afford a Hilux)

Lock that one up at the boat ramp.

Good one

Have a D-max as a work car and I would honestly say I would buy one myself! Great car, I take it off road a fair bit and have not noticed it bouncing around on the dirt.....it does have air bags in the back which help with large loads too. It has been through some tough tracks, and sometime no track even there, and it has not missed a beat in 140,000 km. Great low range 4wd machine too! Went to Gunn point with a mate and his cruiser (80 series) could not get through two of the spots the D-max did. Could not recommend one more highly. That's just my opinion.

Toxic wrote:The main dramas with the Lux was the BS common rail injection, they've now gone back to direct injection. Still electronic just no common rail.
10 - 14 litres per 100km is pretty cr.p economy, my 95 Cruiser gets that (non Turbo) My mates 06 Lux gets 8 - 10 litres and 12 - 14 towing a 6.8m Haines Hunter, god knows what it weighs but it's heavy.

Hilux is still common rail and won't be changing anytime soon

I too are a recent DMax owner after trading in my 93 hilux (no turbo). After 350k kms it was due for an update. I like my hilux's but their injector problems worried me. Word is they have improved now from the 2006ish models but I don't think they ever acknowledged they had a problem, especially if warranty was mentioned. Bro in law down south had an injector problem on his new navara but claimed it under warranty. I can't find much bad stuff about dmaxs on the net. But plenty of praise for the engine which seems to be one of the better around. The current model dmax got rear springs on top of the axle (big plus for ground clearance) and went to electronic traction, stability, torque control on open wheeler diffs rather than open front diff and rear lsd. I don't fully understand the electronic stuff and in what situations it's better and when to turn parts off but in theory it should be better than open diff - lsd set up in many other standard utes. Just on the mention of airbag suspension, bro in law knows a few who have bent their chasis (navaras?) by over loading and pumping the pressure right up, putting most of the load on one point rather than the 2 suspension points or something like that. I took the dmax with no snorkel past the "snorkel recommended" sign on the Reynolds river track in Litchfield. Only to find a drowned great wall on the other side. Injectors out with water in the cylinders. Looking to get a snorkel soon! Growing number of people like the bt50 / ranger so there must be something in that. But for me the out of the box dmax LSM was good value for money...tows the boat nicely.