Thinking about buying a Terrano, what to look out for?

[Birch]

Thinking about buying a 1997 Terrano with a 2700cc turbo diesel engine, has done around 110,000km. Would predominately be my fishing vehicle and the hardest it would work would be traveling down back country road which have occasional rough fords and a little driving on river bed gravels. I try my hardest to avoid the real nasty stuff which many people seem to enjoy getting stuck in.

Was wondering is there anything to watch out for in trucks with this motor and age?

The alternative option at this stage is to spend a further 3-4k and purchase a Toyota Surf with equivalent specs. Almost went with a Soft Roader, but find it hard to abandon the confidence which a more competent 4wd systems offers.

[juz]

Great engines, seem to go forever and dont give any real issues. Have had them in Navaras before, The manual boxes eventually become noisey but are cheap to get rebuilt. At 100,000kms should give trouble free running for years. The 3.2TD are good too but all seem to be Auto.

[motorhead]

check for rust around the rear seat belt mounts, and under the rear seats.

and the steering gear as well. also the bushes (but easy enough to replace.)

search on here, there are a few threads about this.

[niblik]

anything with this on the front...

[Jerry]

The rust mainly affected the earlier ones ie the older pre 95ish shape and some Mistrals..... more info here www.lvvta.org.nz

[Birch]

Sounds like the one I am looking at is new enough to avoid the worst of the rust issues. Would still check it out just in case.

[Safari Swb]

yep the one you are looking at is an r50 not a d21 so will not be affected from rust issues. the autos and manuals in them are not the strongest though,

[flyingbrick]

WTF. Arent these the terrano's with the grenade engines?

go with the toyota - much greater resale value too!

I'm speaking from experience btw.

[juz]

The so called "Grenade engines" are the ZD30 3.0TD engines, had one in my 04 Navara with 260,000kms on it and never had a problem with it.....The TD27 and QD32 engines are fine,go forever dont crack heads like the toyota engines.

[haydgq]

WTF. Arent these the terrano's with the grenade engines?

go with the toyota - much greater resale value too!

I'm speaking from experience btw.

Na these are sweet and its the Toyota's with the grenade engines mate, In my opinion a terrano is a way better option than a surf with a 2.4 or 1kz 3.0 diesel or a 3.0 v6, Its the start of the ZD30 engines that are a little dodgy but prob no worse than any of the Toyo stuff as much as I love Toyota's i tend to like the reliability of Nissan diesel stuff just a little more.

[flyingbrick]

WTF. Arent these the terrano's with the grenade engines?

go with the toyota - much greater resale value too!

I'm speaking from experience btw.

Na these are sweet and its the Toyota's with the grenade engines mate, In my opinion a terrano is a way better option than a surf with a 2.4 or 1kz 3.0 diesel or a 3.0 v6, Its the start of the ZD30 engines that are a little dodgy but prob no worse than any of the Toyo stuff as much as I love Toyota's i tend to like the reliability of Nissan diesel stuff just a little more.

Sorry bro. We had a grendade zd30 (yeah thats the bugger, thought it was a little larger than 2.7) and it shit itselfwith just 140,000km just like the rest of them.

Car yards wont have them on their yard (they go straight to auction) and they have a VERY bad reputation for being shit. You only need to read the ausie 4wd mags (near every issue has reference to how unreliable the zd30's are) or search pirate or outerlimits for "grenade" there are pages and pages and pages of owners with huge repair bills.

all i know is that we had ours and sold it (long story) to a yard for 7,000$ trade (iirc) and it went straight off to auction.

My uncle had a surf basically the same year as ours etc which looked virtually identical (same color even) and he got 15k for it as trade in.

[Birch]

Do terrano's sit higher above the ground then Surfs, it seemed so while giving it a test drive today. The lack of power compared with my old surf 1KZ was noticeable but it would keep me from speeding which is not exactly a bad thing.

Was playing around beneath the terrano and noticed that the frame is covered in thick grey pant with long thin droplets pocking down which has harden. Is this a standard undercoating or is it likely that it has been applied at a later date to hide something?

[juz]

Doesnt sound like factory underseal but some people do underseal there vehicles for better rustproofing/sound deadening. I do it to some vehicles, especially older ones.

[haydgq]

WTF. Arent these the terrano's with the grenade engines?

go with the toyota - much greater resale value too!

I'm speaking from experience btw.

Na these are sweet and its the Toyota's with the grenade engines mate, In my opinion a terrano is a way better option than a surf with a 2.4 or 1kz 3.0 diesel or a 3.0 v6, Its the start of the ZD30 engines that are a little dodgy but prob no worse than any of the Toyo stuff as much as I love Toyota's i tend to like the reliability of Nissan diesel stuff just a little more.

Sorry bro. We had a grendade zd30 (yeah thats the bugger, thought it was a little larger than 2.7) and it shit itselfwith just 140,000km just like the rest of them.

Car yards wont have them on their yard (they go straight to auction) and they have a VERY bad reputation for being shit. You only need to read the ausie 4wd mags (near every issue has reference to how unreliable the zd30's are) or search pirate or outerlimits for "grenade" there are pages and pages and pages of owners with huge repair bills.

all i know is that we had ours and sold it (long story) to a yard for 7,000$ trade (iirc) and it went straight off to auction.

My uncle had a surf basically the same year as ours etc which looked virtually identical (same color even) and he got 15k for it as trade in.

Yea sweet i know they are known to be a shite engine and they are crap and usually never last that long but theres always the few that dont i suppose just like how most of the V6 surf's do the head gaskets but when the same engine is in a nz new Camry with FULL service history they will easily do 500,000kms plus, With the Toyota stuff its usually from lack of servicing and general maintance but that zd30 was just crap from the start.

When we had Wanganui Toyota we sold two 1999 prados and one 2000 Hilux to a mate of ours in earthworks and all had the non intercooled IKZ's in them and all three had cracked the heads between 130-160 thou kms and they had been serviced correctly so its got me buggered, They towed 1100 Litre diesel tanks prob 3 times a week and thats as hard as they worked and i know this as I worked for the guy driving machinery and the Toyota's.

[4wdnuts]

R50 terranos are generally pretty good. how ever they suffer from the rear suspension bushes wearing and become a nightmare to drive. also a few people have reported the crank angle sensor buggering out on them and the engines revs up by itself and does all funny things. they are easy to fix, altough mine is doing it now and ive never bothered to fix it yet. hope all that helps