So I'm still looking for various vehicles that I can buy to replace my Tacoma...
Looking through the listings I saw an Isuzu Vehicross for sale... I had completely forgot about these cool little SUVs.
They're pretty cool looking, and they have a fantastic mix of on-road comfort and off-road capability. Not to mention that production world-wide is less than 5000 so they're quite rare and hold their value well.
Gas mileage is poor but I don't have a long commute and I'll only be using it in the winter and on days when I'm working on my car.
My biggest issue is the motor (which it shares with the Isuzu Trooper), from what I've read it had some tolerance issue at the factory that caused some of the motors to start burning oil around 30-60K miles and if left unchecked would lead to larger problems as a result of oil starvation.
Anyone have any experience with this SUV or with a Trooper and can lend some insight into the oil issues... also any idea of signs to look for to determine if the engine is good? Obviously: listen for knocking, look for blue smoke, and check the dip stick... anything else that can be done on a test drive?
I might also consider trying to find one cheap with a blown motor and have it rebuilt
