The advantage is that you have a loading bin. If you need something where you can do overlanding trips, but the rest of the year you have to take away the garden rubbish or load a pack of cement or some tiles, then the double cab will work for you. Some people say it is useless because you do not have a car and you do not have a bakkie. For some people this is exactly why they buy it.

The Toyota Hilux Bakkies is most certainly the most popular and most reliable 4x4 vehicles around. There 4x4 abilities are very good, if they have a diff-lock installed. This vehicle can easily last you 300,000 or more kilometers.

You can get more information on these vehicles at http://www.hilux4x4.co.za/views

SUV

These are the lovely ones. These includes magnificent vehicles like the VW Touareg, Nissan Patrol and Land Cruisers. The Cruisers are the masters of the bush. They are very reliable, their off-road performance are suburb and they have a lot of space.

The new Toyota Prados are also very capable off-road vehicles. The traction control is a big plus and they have very good ground clearance. Unfortunately the tupperware is no good if you use it for long off-road trips.

Most of the new SUV vehicles with low range and high range will be able to take you as far as their ground clearance can go. With these machines you get two types. The permanent 4x4 like the Prado, Cruiser, Discovery, ML, etc and the one where you can select 4 wheel drive like the old cruisers, land rovers, Nissan Terrano, etc.
One major problem with your permanent 4 wheel drive vehicles like the Mercedes ML and Discoveries are that they need to have a differential in the gear box between the front and rear axles (central diff). This is needed because when you go around a corner your rear wheels takes a shorter route than your front wheels and the differential have to handle that difference in speed. The problem is that if one of the wheels loose traction the differential will send all power to that axle and that wheel. So lets say your left rear wheel is in the air, all the power will be directed to that wheel. No power to the front axle and no power to the right rear. You will be as stuck as with a normal car and the 4x4 will be useless. So if you buy a permanent four wheel drive vehicle it is very important that it has a central diff-lock. You can ask the dealer or see it on the transfer case gear lever (the small one) This gear lever will show “H”, “N” and “L”. In the case of a centre diff-lock it will show “H”, “H(L)”, “N”, “L(L)” . The (L) indicates the central diff lock. I know the new Prado and Land Cruiser has this function.

One thing I cannot understand is the use of the automatic gearbox in a 4x4 vehicle. There is nothing wrong when driving with the auto box. It will do sand driving and steep climbs better than a manual box. The main problem comes when you go down steep hills. When you go down a very steep decline you must engage first gear low range of the vehicle so that the engine power can offer resistance when going down the slope. If you apply the brake the vehicle will start to slide down with possible detrimental consequences. The automatic gearbox can not offer that resistance.

So if you intend to drive rough rocky terrains with your vehicles you must rather go for a manual vehicle. The VW Touareg has a feature where it will lock the automatic gearbox so that it acts like a normal manual box when driving in such conditions. If you do intend serious off road work make sure about this feature when you want to buy an automatic.

The latest Land Cruiser VX with traction control is absolutely marvelous. It comes with three diff-locks (front, rear and central).

With the cruisers you get a GX and VX. One of the main differences between the two is that the GX has a Solid Front Axle (SFA) and the VX has a Independent Front Suspension (IFS). There is a lot of speculation about which one is the best. In short, again it depends on your purpose with the vehicle:

Diesel or Petrol

For off-road conditions a Diesel will do better because it has more power at low revs than high revs. This works great when climbing or driving sand, mud or snow. Its fuel consumption is better than petrol vehicles, so if you go far you need to take less extra fuel with. If you go up in Africa you might find it hard to find unleaded fuel everywhere, but you will always find diesel. The diesel might not always be clean in Africa, but at least you can get something.

Maintenance on Diesel engines are a bit higher than on Petrol engines, but the ease of driving and fuel consumption makes up for that.

Older diesel engines are not suitable for dune driving. The new era diesels are much better, but then again they need cleaner Diesel which might be a problem going up in Africa.

WARNING: One thing an older era diesel engine is not is a RACING ENGINE. If you drive your vehicle hard and fast, the diesel is not for you. It will not last very long, then you must rather go for a petrol vehicle. A diesel engine operates under much higher compression than a petrol engine. Thus the components are much heavier. High revolutions will damage the engine. On the other hand because a diesel engine runs at much lower revs than a petrol engine, it can last much longer than a petrol engine if used properly.

The latest diesels, like Toyota D4-D is something else. It does not mind revving a bit higher and the performance is amazing. In short you have the fuel consumption of 1300 but the performance of a V8.