So, after a fair bit of searching on autotrader and eBay, and trying to decide if an unreliable but full time 4×4 freelander was better than a reliable part time 4×4 on saturday we actually bought a car!
It felt a bit weird, buying a car for £520 from a nice bloke in chertsey, especially when I already have another car, but it actually looks pretty good.
We got a 1999 Honda CR-V, Mark 1, 2.0L petrol and it’s actually in pretty good condition, no rust, starts every time without fail, everything works (save for the electric sunroof) it’s even got a 12CD changer (old skool) and A/C!
The only possible fault I can find with it is a slight clunk when you hit a sharp bump, but I think that’s nothing major after some googling – could be a couple of things, mostly involving rubber bushings so that should be ok to fix.
Theory with the CR-V is that it will be reliable (japanese, v-tec), big enough for equipment for 2, modern enough to have some nice bits, old enough to be cheap, capable enough for some middle difficulty off roading (we’ll simply try and avoid any serious stuff), economical enough to not bankrupt us in fuel costs and easy enough to drive that we won’t be knackered. Pretty hard list but I think it’s the best bet!
Next is prep work.
Standard servicing is a must, a thorough going over to see if anything is likely to break, familiarisation for mechanical problems, how to change filters, where the main bits are, that sort of thing.
After that it’ll be fitting out. I’ve got an inverter to wire in, possibly in a semi-permanent way, the installation of some sort of rack/shelving structure in the boot to increase the efficiency of access and storage, that sort of thing.
Oh, and a kick ass paint job – currently to be determined!
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