Another viewing

Due to limitations in what we’re able to import to Mongolia and what Go Help says would be useful, we’ve had to be pretty picky with our vehicle choices. We need a vehicle that is reliable, hardy, can carry a useful load, not too old, and for our own budgetary needs, not too expensive!

Pickup trucks meet this needs with aplomb, and there’s a few makes to choose from, last time Katie and Tom went to see a Mitsubishi, this time Paul and Katie went to Essex to see a Nissan Navara being sold out of a van sales company.

A quick bit of research of the World Wide Web mentions that the older model Navara had a few issue but the newer model, the one we were looking at, had those issues ironed out, and various reviews were positive so we were looking forward to giving it a look over and a drive.

After somehow ending up at the same Lidl without any proir co-ordination, the first order of business after driving from Kent and Wales was finding a loo. These modern wonders of convenience apparently haven’t made their way to Braintree, Essex. After fruitless visits to petrol stations and supermarkets we ran the gauntlet across a busy road over to the van sales office and, doing a little jig in front of the single desk in the Portacabin, asked with a hopeful and partly desperate tone to use the facilities. I know this is more detail than you want, but come on Braintree, get it sorted!

Right, down to business. The vehicle bodywork looked in good nick, the tyres looked tidy and the interior only showed wear on the drivers seat and footwell. We started the truck a few times to check out the electrics and things but this drained the battery so we had to call for a jumpstart on the third start. We established that the drivers seat could comfortably accommodate all leg lengths for us three, and the various storage areas meant there wasn’t a single wasted space in the cabin or rear box.

Now, about the rear box. This is an optional extra and is attached with brackets onto the sides of the tail end. Because it’s not a permanent feature it can, as with this vehicle, shunt forwards and back without much apparent effort. We found water had run off from the box and into where the cargo would go and making the box redundant. This was easily fixed by undoing the clamps and moving the box forwards, which also helped the tailgate to stop rubbing against the box seals when raised and dropped. The box has it’s own window which opened and stayed up easy enough, but didn’t seem to want to lock when closed, alternating between catching left and right locks but never both, and sometimes neither if it felt we were trying too hard.

So there were a few little niggles, but the truck itself seemed sound, so we took it out for a test drive. The bonnet looms ahead for what seems like miles, so manoeuvring out of the yard between some access steps and a van was nerve-wracking , but we made it out with paintwork intact. A quick accidental brakes test before pulling on the main road ensured that we weren’t going to run into the back of anything, and we were off. The engine was capable of pulling in any gear I put it in, though being a diesel it took a bit of ramping up, and the view from such an elevated driving position was excellent.

Being a bit keen to get going, I realised once we were on the road that I hadn’t adjusted the steering wheel to be able to see the gauges. Like, at all. But who needs gauges eh?

I drove the Navara to a petrol station where Katie took her turn to drive, having to make some tight multi-point turns to get out of the queue that had formed behind us. One thing we both noticed was a noise that sounded like a grinding which dropped pitch between gear changes as if some bearings, clutch or some other moving part was rubbing on something. It didn’t sound like a turbo or anything that we thought might belong to the car in normal operation, so when we got back to the yard, Katie gave her brother a call. He advised us that Navaras are known to have problems that sound like what we were describing, the mileage of the truck meant the engine didn’t have much life left in it, and any problems at that age are expensive and definitely not worth the risk.

While Katie was on the phone I did some quick searching for common issues that may not have been flagged in reviews, coming upon a few photos of Navaras with broken backs!

After the call and internet search we decided to nope out of there pretty quickly, disappointed that we still hadn’t found our trusty steed but glad that we had the contacts to help us dodge a bullet. Thanks Matt!

Oh well, we’ll just keep looking!