Lifted budget 4x4’s, talk to me

[slackerTHEpinstriper]

Just an ich I feel like scratching, never appealed to me before but the urge for a nasty matt black lifted something is really appealing to me.
What’s the best options on a budget of day up to £1000, is it possible?

[brachunky]

Like your thinking but reckon you will struggle to find a lifted truck for that price especially like the Yota's you have pictured! You MAY be able to get an old Suzuki for that price but even old Jeeps and Landys are fetching stupid money. Despite their thirst, an older pre 2000 Jeep gets you a decent truck with great ability in the cheaper tax bracket.

[slackerTHEpinstriper]

Oct 14, 2019 10:27:05 GMT brachunky said:

Like your thinking but reckon you will struggle to find a lifted truck for that price especially like the Yota's you have pictured! You MAY be able to get an old Suzuki for that price but even old Jeeps and Landys are fetching stupid money. Despite their thirst, an older pre 2000 Jeep gets you a decent truck with great ability in the cheaper tax bracket.

To be fair I’m not bothered about ability, it’s more the look.
Suzuki is out of the question, needs to look aggressive lol

[brachunky]

I just had a gander on fleabay and was shocked how much some of the older 4x4's are going for!!!! And that's before you start throwing more money at it!

[vanpeebles]

Just the look for driveway tarmacking and petty thievery

[Phil H]

May I suggest a Vauxhall Frontera? Underneath they're close to an Isuzu Trooper. Picked mine up with 9 months MoT (and en EML lamp) for £600 recently. Even though it's a 2003 (so in silly tax land) it's only just over the cost of a pre-2001 version being the 2.2DTi. There's a tidy silver 3 door 2.2 petrol on FB Marketplace up for £900 just down the road from you near Buxton.

[MkX]

Toyota Hilux Surf. Whilst not 'lifted' they ride very high. This sub-£1K beastie would probably soak up a bit of your time in terms of sorting out niggles but they are legendarily strong, (remember when Top Gear tried to kill their Hilux truck?);
www.gumtree.com/p/other-vehicles/1993-toyota-hilux-surf/1354909913

You can add snorkel, electric winch, etc. to your heart's content!

[sowen]

Half your budget will be blown on wheels and tyres at least, more if you want useable offroadable tread!

[OGDB]

It’s certainly possibly but tyres and wheels will cost more than the car.

I had a 3dr disco. Paid £450/£500 I can’t remember. 33/12.5/15 BFG mud tyres on compomotive wheels were an eBay bargain at £150. Lift components were then bought from eBay used in the £200 region. So it’s certainly possible but not easy.

I also had a 2.8 MITSUBISHI challenger, similar body style to the hilux surf, I think it was a J version of the shogun sport. I paod £400 I think for that with 6 months ticket.

I’ve owned some high performance cars over the years with some bold tuning, imprezas, R33 & R32, Porsche’s, M3s all of which have been driven hard. I can not stress enough how much fuel I used to pee into the wind with a lifted 4x4 on the road. It was insane.

[MkX]

Oct 14, 2019 17:10:28 GMT OGDB said:

. . . I can not stress enough how much fuel I used to pee into the wind with a lifted 4x4 on the road. It was insane.

A friend of mine was running around in a big old J petrol 4x4 in the '90s ?Land Cruiser or Trooper? the best he was getting was 15mpg, often as low as 8mpg!

[slackerTHEpinstriper]

Oct 14, 2019 17:10:28 GMT OGDB said:

It’s certainly possibly but tyres and wheels will cost more than the car.

I had a 3dr disco. Paid £450/£500 I can’t remember. 33/12.5/15 BFG mud tyres on compomotive wheels were an eBay bargain at £150. Lift components were then bought from eBay used in the £200 region. So it’s certainly possible but not easy.

I also had a 2.8 MITSUBISHI challenger, similar body style to the hilux surf, I think it was a J version of the shogun sport. I paod £400 I think for that with 6 months ticket.

I’ve owned some high performance cars over the years with some bold tuning, imprezas, R33 & R32, Porsche’s, M3s all of which have been driven hard. I can not stress enough how much fuel I used to pee into the wind with a lifted 4x4 on the road. It was insane.

Ooofff those MPG’s are no good to me!!!
Veg oil version needed

[brachunky]

Oct 14, 2019 17:34:53 GMT MkX said:

Oct 14, 2019 17:10:28 GMT OGDB said:

. . . I can not stress enough how much fuel I used to pee into the wind with a lifted 4x4 on the road. It was insane.

A friend of mine was running around in a big old J petrol 4x4 in the '90s ?Land Cruiser or Trooper? the best he was getting was 15mpg, often as low as 8mpg!

I have had 5 different Jeeps with their straight six engines & the avg was around 9-10mpg! You have to be committed to the cause lol!

[OGDB]

Oct 14, 2019 17:34:53 GMT MkX said:

Oct 14, 2019 17:10:28 GMT OGDB said:

. . . I can not stress enough how much fuel I used to pee into the wind with a lifted 4x4 on the road. It was insane.

A friend of mine was running around in a big old J petrol 4x4 in the '90s ?Land Cruiser or Trooper? the best he was getting was 15mpg, often as low as 8mpg!

I had a friend who had a Jeep Wrangler, must have been on an "L" Reg with a 4.0l petrol straight 6, that thing used to drink like a fish. The fabric top used to act like a parachute as well which didn't help matters. 

[OGDB]

Oct 14, 2019 18:02:27 GMT slackerTHEpinstriper said:

Oct 14, 2019 17:10:28 GMT OGDB said:

It’s certainly possibly but tyres and wheels will cost more than the car.

I had a 3dr disco. Paid £450/£500 I can’t remember. 33/12.5/15 BFG mud tyres on compomotive wheels were an eBay bargain at £150. Lift components were then bought from eBay used in the £200 region. So it’s certainly possible but not easy.

I also had a 2.8 MITSUBISHI challenger, similar body style to the hilux surf, I think it was a J version of the shogun sport. I paod £400 I think for that with 6 months ticket.

I’ve owned some high performance cars over the years with some bold tuning, imprezas, R33 & R32, Porsche’s, M3s all of which have been driven hard. I can not stress enough how much fuel I used to pee into the wind with a lifted 4x4 on the road. It was insane.

Ooofff those MPG’s are no good to me!!!
Veg oil version needed

I have run a few vehicles on veg and I have to say that I most probably wouldn't do it again, unless pump prices were astronomical. 

If you can get WVO and filter it yourself then sweet, as that's most likely free, however I was paying for mine, SVO from a whole sales and I think, at the time I was paying between 90p/l to around about 60p/l. It may seem silly but prices seem to go up and down with the fuel costs! I was buying mine from a whole sales but had to spend a minimum of £150 or whatever which isn't no hardship but mixing ratios in winter and changing the fuel filter so often just made it not for me. There are a lot of pros and cons to running veg and there are some veg specific forums out there which are probably very helpful. I don't know a huge amount about it, only what I learnt from my experiences. Not every diesel can run on veg, obviously. Common rail engines wont run it IIRC. If you have a mechanical injection pump and the pump is Bosh branded you can usually run it. In the cold they can be a pain in the chuff, and if you get a clogged up fuel line or filter its even more of a pain in the chuff. 

At the time I was running lifted 4x4's I needed something with a good bit of grunt to tug a heavy trailer around in all weathers, however now I don't need to do that I don't think I would go back to a 4x4. We used to have a lot of pay and play sites but many of them have been closed up now. 

I have had 4x4 pick ups as well, which have been great, and I could do with another one, for the load space. However I can not stomach the fuel costs of a big truck, so now I am looking for a TDI Caddy of Feilica pick up, but that seems impossible! 

[welshpug]

even with a diesel you'll struggle to break the mid 20's, fit big tyres and that soon drops quite quickly.

[strikey]

Oct 14, 2019 11:21:20 GMT slackerTHEpinstriper said:

Oct 14, 2019 10:27:05 GMT brachunky said:

Like your thinking but reckon you will struggle to find a lifted truck for that price especially like the Yota's you have pictured! You MAY be able to get an old Suzuki for that price but even old Jeeps and Landys are fetching stupid money. Despite their thirst, an older pre 2000 Jeep gets you a decent truck with great ability in the cheaper tax bracket.

To be fair I’m not bothered about ability, it’s more the look.
Suzuki is out of the question, needs to look aggressive lol

if you are just into "all the gear , no idea" then scoff at a sammy/jimny...but i still doubt you will find & build anything inside your budget.

my old sammy , built , stood me way less than £1k...it was my totally reliable daily driver (sensible mpg) ,weekend toy and general landrover shamer for 7 years. i know finding one is getting harder but if getting dirty is your priority then its the way to go.



if you really just want looks to go posing in then grab the cheapest p.o.s 4x4 you can and chuck a budget lift kit/wheels on it.

[joem83]

My old Jeep Cherokee Sport 3.7 v6 with LPG managed 15mpg once - 50mph on a dual carriage way, rest of time it was 9-11mpg.
That was a standard truck as well, not helped by only having a 24L petrol tank and the nearest LPG station being 8 miles away.

MPG was same on lpg/petrol, although performance WAS affected when running on LPG.

If you hoofed it, mpg readout dropped to 2mpg, 2!

[MkX]

Oct 14, 2019 19:38:17 GMT strikey said:

Oct 14, 2019 11:21:20 GMT slackerTHEpinstriper said:

To be fair I’m not bothered about ability, it’s more the look.
Suzuki is out of the question, needs to look aggressive lol

if you are just into "all the gear , no idea" then scoff at a sammy/jimny...but i still doubt you will find & build anything inside your budget.

my old sammy , built , stood me way less than £1k...it was my totally reliable daily driver (sensible mpg) ,weekend toy and general landrover shamer for 7 years. i know finding one is getting harder but if getting dirty is your priority then its the way to go.

if you really just want looks to go posing in then grab the cheapest p.o.s 4x4 you can and chuck a budget lift kit/wheels on it.

I live close to a stretch of challenging off-roading terrain which is well used by the 4X4 community. Big, well-equipped Landy's often come to grief and need rescuing. I've a lot of respect for Jimny's as they plod along and get through stuff which often bogs the heavier cars down. And they can look cool!

[Rich]

Came here to possibly suggest the Cherokee XJ but seeing as the budget is £1000 and you want to do more than 3MPG, that’s out of the window, you can lift an XJ on the cheap but you can’t get much more than probably 3” before you have to spend on more parts than just springs and shocks really. A diesel could be worth looking at as the VM 2.5TD can run veg but you may be better, as suggested, looking at jimnys and SJ’s, because you’ll be pushing your budget hard with anything else and again, as suggested, fuel economy is pretty poor on most things that weigh about 2 tonnes and have the aerodynamic properties of a warehouse full of Russian washing machines, regardless of fuel type. My disco 1 300TDi was probably worse on fuel than my XJ despite being a tray back, because it was overall about 5” higher than stock with huge special traction tyres on.

[OGDB]

Another side note. Proper off road tyres are noisy as anything! All the ones I’ve had are anyway.

I feel like Ive suggested too many negatives, so I’ll try and compensate. I suspect you could get a lifted 4X4 for sub £1000 if you spent wisely and knew what you needed/wanted and budgeted correctly. I’ve done it myself so it is possible. They’re Incredible in the snow and taking them out in the lanes is awesome fun. Plus when you drive around in something that looks like a pirate ship with wheels it’s amazing how many people get out of your way!