Nigel Fryatt – editor

Buying yourself a 4×4 is a great experience – if not without some concerns. If it’s a ‘previously owned’ model, it all depends on the owner; is he really being honest when he talks about “only done a bit of off-roading”. Or when he explains all the details about the servicing, can he look you in the eye and say, “oh, yes, it’s never let me down. Very reliable.” You have to make sure you don’t have your beer goggles on when making that decision. Mind you, that’s even more difficult if you have already decided that you ‘need a new 4×4’. What a great excuse that is, to actually ‘need’ one! Is it a bloke thing, to ‘need’ a 4×4? Or maybe it’s an enthusiast’s need, not just restricted to blokes.

Bob Cooke – contributor

There’s definitely something fishy about my “new” Cherokee. Don’t think I’m complaining, if I’ve gone and bought a dud car for too much money it’s entirely my own fault; I’ve bought dozens of old cars in my time and very few have been bad ones, thanks to the set of rules I’ve drawn up, which include: Never buy from a dealer (I’ve never had a warranty on a used car that was worth the paper it was written on), never buy from a friend (too many of my ex-friends have a significantly different idea of what constitutes a sound and reliable car than I have), and never buy from a farmer (too much mud, chemical fertiliser and chicken droppings, let alone a tendency to skip  servicing).

So I bought this car from a farmer on the advice of a friend, and I deserve everything I’ve got. The appeal was that the car had only done 60,000 miles from new; the car had been bought new but was only driven regularly for a few years.

Louise Limb – contributor

It’s fair to say that more than just a spot of water has been falling out of the sky around these parts of late. Having quietly ignored my front brake pads while they continued to behave perfectly well for several months despite Phil’s dire warnings about the reluctance of the nearside wheel to spin freely while it was up on the hoist, I had a wee bit of a scare on a sneaky bend in torrential rain recently.

Negotiating a series of roundabouts while escaping the clutches of central Bradford, I very nearly swapped lanes rather more suddenly than I would normally prefer. I was accelerating gently up the middle lane out of an uphill lefthander, between lorries and cars on a very wet road, when I started to pirouette to the left! Nice if you’re a ballet dancer, but not so good surrounded by a ton of metal, which, given half a chance will overturn if you do anything unexpected.

Hils Everitt – Editor at Large

It’s been a while since my beloved silver machine has graced the pages of the mag as I’ve not really done an awful lot with it, apart from a few pleasure trips, one up to the Norfolk Broads and the odd kit-lugging exercise to rugby matches.

So, all’s well in the Grand world, finally, after an annus horribilis in 2010. Well, that was until someone, who shall remain nameless, decided to do something totally idiotic and halt the poor Jeep, yet again, in its tracks. No, that doesn’t mean some stupid off-roading debacle, merely a complete lapse of brain activity which could have killed-off my beloved steed completely.

Okay, so after a superb trip to the Swiss Alps for some R ‘n’ R, the Grand was picked up from the valet parking at Gatwick and it was off to the shops to stock up the fridge and cupboard and get milk for that long-awaited decent English cuppa.

Bob Cooke – contributor

A character by the unlikely name of Lemony Snicket wrote a story for kids entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events and I’m feeling now that something along those lines happened to me and the Cherokee. I certainly hadn’t intended to part company with the Jeep, partly because I tend to consider a favourite car as a friend rather than a lump of machinery, and the Cherokee and

I had certainly enjoyed some very exciting and demanding off-roading adventures together. It’s also partly because the old truck was still running perfectly well, the engine revving smoothly, the emissions clean and the only bits that had fallen off were the items of trim I knocked off by bouncing the Cherokee off trees, rocks and the like. The first Unfortunate Event was when the exhaust started blowing.

Louise Limb – contributor

A quick 1500 mile trip down to West Penwith and back this month reminded me why I bought the car in the first place. The journey was completely trouble free, apart from the usual niggles, squeaks and rumbles that may or may not be real problems – I’ll leave the bonnet shut for the moment…and a diesel bill that cost more than the Landmark Trust rental and for a 4×4, the SWB Grand Vitara is really quite economical! Half a ton of seabird guano and airborne spume from a windy but glorious Cornish coastal break necessitated a thorough clean for the Grand Vitara on my return to ward off corrosion as, at the rate things are going with finances, this car’s got to last as long as I do.

Hils Everitt – Editor at Large

Since our last instalment the L200 has been used as a removal ‘van’ and general runabout while I took some time out from ‘at larging’ to spend some quality time in the Swiss mountains.

Before I headed off to the airport, by train, our designer Paul picked up the pick-up (!) one afternoon to move his girlfriend’s belongings and then dropped it off to our editor Nigel so that he could use it to get out and about. The initial intention was for Nigel to use it for a camping trip in East Anglia, but, as we’ve said before, without any kind of loadbed cover, the Mitsubishi loses its practicality as a serious load lugger for any kind of extended trip that requires lots of equipment. Luckily, Paul had dry weather
for the move.