Need a new wagon- any recomendations

[FROSTY:Me]

A couple of other possibilities are the honda accord wagon--2.2l
and as preveously mentioned the cefiro wagon
My personal favorite in the wagons is the nissan primera wagon.
Not the biggest by any means but I love that 2.0l chain drive motor.
and the motor is very little different from the origonal motor from 1990
-goes well and for a wagon actually handles.

[Motu]

A stainless shaft pivots in an alloy housing,the alloy 'grows and binds the handbrake shaft,overheating the pads.Ultimatly the caliper housing wears and the shaft jams.It's the left side because it gets more road grime,worse with mags too.

SR20 Tony? A good motor alright,one of my favorites - but very prone to sludge if they don't get regular oil changes,then they destroy camshafts.Take a look inside the oil filler cap,if it's black with sludge walk away,it's gotta be clean alloy or it's a problem child.The new motor I don't know about as we don't see them yet.

[James Deuce]

1981 Mazda 323. Indestructible and gutless. You'll never get a ticket, and it'll carry a coal range without complaint.

[Hooks]

Mate !! ................ It's a shame you don't want auto .... I have had my crappy old (EA) falcon s/w (with a bench seat) for yonks ... approx 200,000k's ... and apart from redoing the radiator at 180,000 it has been as good as gold !! Takes all the shit I throw at it and just keeps on going ..... the damn thing will out-live me I reckon !! It's just topping the 280,000 mark now and will be getting a new battery for xmas but other than the usual tyres as needed but not as often as you would think, it just won't give up .... cheap motoring as I only paid $3,500 for it !!! ... :spudbooge

[TonyB]

Mate !! ................ It's a shame you don't want auto .... I have had my crappy old (EA) falcon s/w (with a bench seat) for yonks ... approx 200,000k's ... and apart from redoing the radiator at 180,000 it has been as good as gold !! Takes all the shit I throw at it and just keeps on going ..... the damn thing will out-live me I reckon !! It's just topping the 280,000 mark now and will be getting a new battery for xmas but other than the usual tyres as needed but not as often as you would think, it just won't give up .... cheap motoring as I only paid $3,500 for it !!! ... :spudbooge

Our current car is an 89 Bluebird wagon with the basic as 2.0 motor and 5 speed. Bought it as a stop gap for $3250 thinking if it lasted 1 year that was good, if it lasted 2 years bloody fantastic. Over 4 years later and she's still going 260,000 k's on the clock. Relaiable as the sunrise and with the good shocks the last owner put in, not a bad drive either. But it is using a bit of oil now, and I no longer have confidence in it to do a long trip with the kids. It will become my workbomb and prabably live forever!

[What?]

A bloke came into our place a couple of days ago in a Camry with a burnt-out clutch (his own silly fault...)
The towie, on arrival, looked stunned and said "Kin'ell - Camrys don't break down!".
Good enough for me.

[geoffm]

The "sensible choice" is a Toyota Camry wagon. Economical adn run forever. The 2.2l is reliable, but could do with more poke if you have a load and/ or towing. the 3l V6 costs a bit more to buy. The subarus handle better, at least with standard shocks.
I like Subarus, but they are best when young, esp if turbocharged. Hired one (2l non-turbo 4WD manual) for Easter around the West Coast from Christchurch. Went pretty well, and handled well. Pretty impressed, but some of the bills I have seen for them for repairs (esp WRXss etc) are eyewatering. Also it pays to ring your insurance co before you buy one and check out if they will cover it, and for how much. Lots of them get nicked
We did the research recently, as I was leaving my job and would no longer have the work car - Nissan Avenier 2l diesel wagon. In the end, they gave it to me as the golden hadnshake, as it was pretty old. I have spent $1k on it since (brake disks, new front shock, fixed oil leak from cam shaft), but still a cheap car. The mechanic said it was wrth hanging onto, and it has been dead reliable in the 5 years or so I had it at work. - 280,000km, and 50mpg of diesel
Friends bought a Honda Odyssey 4WD, and the love it. Worth a look if you have to cart kids around. Lots of space, and build on the Accord running gear. the 3l V6 has had transmission problems in the US, and are pretty dear as well. We will probably get an Ody to replace the Nissan in due course.
Geoff

[JohnBoy]

This is from my view:

Honda Accord: i think they are all Auto (the car is designed for the USA market)

Ceferios: can get them in manuel but hard to find, you have choices of motor from a 2l 6 cyl (aviod, gas guzzler) 2.5 6cyl and the 3.0 6cyl. pretty good but i was never a fan of the handling but if its family wagon you should be sweet.

Caldina: not to sure on motors but knowing toyota should be sweet. they do have the GT-T model, all turbo'd up with 4wd and all the gizmos. but they normally go for a larger price.

Subaru's: good solid car but try to buy one with either a service history, warrenty or with low k's. only fault in them as most they are expensive to maintain so some people dont do it (ie as i stated before, buy one with service history). only weak link is the Auto box (a good decision by yourself to avoid), they do use more gas than other cars and as stated by others in this forum they can be an issue to insure, age, history and where you live can infuence on how much you pay.

i am a bit bias when it come to cars, i reconmend a good solid falcon. can't go wrong. with these days of higher fuel prices you should be able to pick up a nice one for bugger all.

Happy hunting
:spudbooge

[Motu]

I shouldn't knock belt drive cams - with increased servicing intervals and more reliable cars...they are the golden goose,and cam belt jobs are our golden eggs.I hate to think what we'll do when they all go back to chain drives....

Most of the cars we are talking about here (cept the Commodore,but that's my pick,so you can ignore me) have a water pump driven by the cambelt -so when you do a cambelt you are a mug not to do the water pump,also the tensioners and idler bearings,cam,crank and oil pump seals if any...the Subaru has 4 tensioner bearings and an auto tensioner - we are talking serious money here,so make sure all this is done before you buy the car,accept no less,or set aside the money.

Or you could buy a Commodore V6 and save all these hassles.

And your clutch will wear out - it's what they are designed to do,they wear as part of their opperation.Subaru's are the most expensive clutch job out there,Hondas second.

[Skunk]

How about a 4wd 2.3 Honda Accord wagon with tiptronic? They're 98-03 models, not like the earier ones (2.2l)

Two wheel drive only until it needs the drive. Check the auto responds correctly as they learn over time.

Prefer the shape to the Cefiro. Headlights are brillant (Xenon discharge I think that's right). Lower the springs and 17" wheels.

I happen to have a 99 model one that could be for sale...

[TonyB]

I know no matter what I do I'm going to go against somebody's advice, but I figure you've all tried to help by offering some advice, so here goes anyway. The kids make life difficult, so we've only test driven 2 cars so far. The options we wanted (Room, grunt, 5 speed and maybe 4WD) left us with a fairly limited choice.....so we took out a Legacy GT wagon. After driving that 4WD became a 'must-have'. The thing was easily taking corners at speeds that would have the old Bluebird spinning of into the bushes. Not necessarily what you need with kids, but then who hasn't accidentally gone in to a corner too hot on an unfamiliar road? The GT will have a better chance of getting around than most cars. Having recently driven the bosses Falcon BA XR6 Turbo on a wet night I can safely say the GT would kick it's butt on a wet windy road. Maybe even in the dry too. We both loved the taught "wired" feel- lots of feed back through the steering, and the ride was actually smoother than the Bluebird with it's overdamped Munro shocks. Overall we loved the car, but it was having some tuning issues, possibly due to having the wrong gas in the tank.
We then tried a Grandwagon so the wife could try an auto- "OOoo, it's like driving a gokart!" Didn't like the Grandwagon after the GT- mushy handling, steering feedback was almost non-existant, and the auto was reluctant to kickdown. Wife didn't like the two-tone paint either.

The wife didn't want to try the Stagea- "it's UGLY- I'd be embarrassed to drive it" she said.
So now we need to try a 250T (which only seem to come in auto), and Onearmedbandit is looking for a Legnum 5 speed 4WD 2.5V6 for us to try.

The cost of repairs on any of these cars makes me a bit nervous, so we will be getting a 3 year warrany with anything we buy. Hmmmm, maybe I should get a high k's GT, and thrash it so eveything breaks... then I have a nice newish car...

[Motu]

KISS - specialy with Subaru,the 250GT is pretty simple for a Sub,non turbo I hope.If you buy off a dealer,make sure HE does a cambelt job,check the bill and make sure all 4 tensioner bearings have been done and the water pump as well,if he won't agree to that have him take $1000 off the price and keep your thousand because you will need it.If your water pump or a tensioner bearing fails you are in for some big bucks - I can't stress enough that you need to get this job behind you,so you can have a happy life with your Subaru.

[TonyB]

Thanks Motu, I'll give it a go. Do you know much about the 2.5V6 in the Legnums? What about the Tiptronic Auto?

[riffer]

...so we took out a Legacy GT wagon. After driving that 4WD became a 'must-have'. The thing was easily taking corners at speeds that would have the old Bluebird spinning of into the bushes.

Watch out if you intend to thrash the Legacy GT wagon.

They are prone to some pretty wild liftoff oversteer at the very limit, like all four-wheel-drivers (and Porsches too).

It's pretty interesting the first time it happens. You have to be ready to dial in a bit of opposite lock, floor it and hold on.

Even more interesting when its on a secondary road, like say the Gentle Annie (from Napier to Wanganui). Yeeha!

[Motu]

The Tiptronic seems to be better than the early Mitsi boxes,but I was driving a 95 Diamante the other day with a totaly stuffed one,this is the time they start to fail - 10yrs everything goes to hell.

The 2.5 V6 is ok - but I can't understand why people want to go complicated,an OHC front drive V6 is horrendously difficult to work on,like remove the inlet manifold to check the spark plugs - helloooo! and then they complain about high repair bills and the gargre ripping them off,blah,blah,blah.

With 35 yrs of repairing cars - I like to work on cars that are simple to repair,as the owner of a gargre I don't like to give people huge bills that are only the size they are because the car was more complicated and expensive to repair than need be.Customers bleat about the high cost of repairs,I bleat about why did you buy such a stupid car in the first place.