Gummybr

Well I dont know whether its the same you have seen. Its somewhere opposite the car sale down towards pepiliyana, on the right side of the road if you are going from Colombo side... I cant remember his house address. But if any1 is interested I can give the mobile no.

I got one of my friends who is selling his mini. He wants about 4.75lakhs. Its in good condition since he runs around in it. I think only the dash board has to be done, but all meters are working. I'll try to get him to send a picture through. Its in Kohuwela area. Its red in colour with a white roof.

Can I add 4WD Club & the Land Rover Owners Club into this club scene?

Hey I'm not looking for a big Jeep. Sorry you are correct. Therefore I'll define my subject as rather big (not seriously big) 4X4's with significient off road ability. As far as the Defender goes, its my favourite as a road or a off road vehicle goes cos of its major presence. Well you may not see so much of Defenders parked in Supermarkets or Malls, but hey check out how many Defenders are on the road in Colombo. Also you should consider the fact that there will be more Defenders on the road if not for the price cos there are so many Defender lovers in Sri Lanka who cannot afford Defenders due to the price being well over 12 million bucks. So can we move on from this?

Guys I mentioned that I have not included the 'Soft Roaders' there what I meant was Suzuki Grand Vitara, Nissan X-Trail, Toyota RAV-4, Pajero IO, Land Rover Freelander, Mitsubishi Outlander, Kia Sorento, sportage, Hyundai Tuscon & Santa Fe. True when it comes to on road performance, maybe looks, price & fuel efficiency (which is not much compared to what the above bigger catagory gets). But seriously these are no off roaders. By the way I saw in one of the comments the soft roaders refered to as compact SUV's & the bigger ones midsize SUV's. I did not include the Volvo XC90 cos there aren't any available in the market except for 2 or 3 bought down earlier. Also please remember the Defender is not just a serious off roader its a SUV (though not realy good off the mark or cornering). It can carry upto 9 or 10 people & is one of the most versatile vehicles found, thus it gets it place in here. Also please bear in mind the vehicles I'v asked your opinion on are all in the same sort of price catagory, thus the Range Rover Sport nor the Range Rover comes in cos they are priced in the late 20 million range along with the turbo Cayenne & higher engine speced Tourag & X5. These are superb vehicles but these will fall into the "King Size" as some one wanted to call the Sahara / cygnus & Monetro's. Just keep your comments comming.

What do you guys think is the best SUV in Sri Lanka is? What you will have to consider is practicality, fuel efficiancy, off road performance, on road performance and price and not forgetting looks. In doing so you should look at 5 door family SUV's. My list is as follows. Mitsubishi Montero Toyota Prado Jeep Grand Cherokee Nissan Patrol Porsche Cayenne Volkswagon Tourag Mercedes M Class BMW X5 Land Rover Defender Land Rover Discovery Land Cruiser Sygnus / Sahara (I have not included Soft Roaders & Indian 4X4's cos they can never take on the above as far as the above topics go) Please be independant & give yoour views

Hope that this event will not be as bad as the Nuwaraeliya 4X4 event held in April... Good luck to you organisers..

I'll go for Car Entusiast. But where do you put the Off Road enthusiasts who like big 4X4 vehicles & ground clearance or who ventures off the road just for fun.

Has any of you people checked out the latest 4X4 magazine. There is a group test for 5 Door SUV's which consists of the VW Tourag Diesel V10, Merc M Class, Kia Sorento, Nissan Patrol, Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Land Rover Defender, Land Rover Discovery3, Range Rover Sport & Mitsubishi Shogun / Montero. The course vehicle was a Santana. Most suprising is the top spot, the Discovery TdV6 wins beating the Defender & the rest. What is most amazing is this standard New Generation vehicle has managed to oust the Defender which has been a proven off road vehicle. Here are the results (I cannot remember for exact the points earned by each vehicle, but I can be sure about the placing) 1st Land Rover Discovery 3 SE TdV6 2nd Land Rover Defender Td5 3rd Toyota Land Cruiser Prado 3.0litre 4th Nissan Patrol 3.0D 5th Range Rover Sport TdV6 6th Volkswagon Tourag V10 7th Mercedes M Class 8th Mitsubishi Shogun 3.2l 9th Jeep Grand Cherokee 10th Kia Sorento (fitted with mud terrain tyres) What do you think of the results?

No its not a new scheme, Well its a permit given by the government for retiring servants (Accountant or Secretaial level at Ministries & Govn Departments). There were lots of ppl who bought vehicles on this permit (C. Vaas - 407, M. Atapattu - 407 included) this permit had been there for quite some time now.

Do you mean BMW X3, I haven't seen any X3s in SL, is there any? I've seen only X5s. Yes, Minister Mangala Samaraweera bought a X3 on his permit, heard that it has already met with an accident and now lying at Prestiege. Around 2 X3's were bought on the MP's permits. Yes there aint no diesel Vitara's now since the Japs don't give it to sri Lanka, the new Vitara diesel is better on performance since its got a Renault megane engine. There are still retiring government servents permits in the market which go for around 2.0 mil. You can bring down a Diesel vehicle at $ 17875 with a capacity restriction of 2300cc. these permits are transferable but there will be 5% Customs duty + VAT & PAL applicable. Say around Rs. 600,000/= in duty. So if you guys are interested U can check with any permit broker. Carmart is bringing down the 407, Carplan the Sportage. mainly those I dont know of others. Freelander was also available for a short period, but not any more.

The X Trail Diesel is a 2.2litre which is supposed to be quite economical according to motorcar magazines.There are Diesel SUV's in the country but you wont find a hell of a lot becuase of the high duty on diesel vehicles. People entitled to duty free imports (like ministers, NGO's & some professional businessmen bringing in a lot of foreign earnings to the country are entitled) do bring down diesels. But on the long run it will cost the same as a petrol to run because of the maintenance factor. BTW Earlier Suzuki Japan said no to the Vitara Diesel in Sri Lanka cos of the pollution in Sri Lanka plus the quality of the diesel. Most brand new Vitara diesels failed in Sri Lanka. (Check with Aitken Spence Hotels - They still have a diesel Vitara bought on the hotel permit). But still there are quite a few diesel SUV's which came in recently on the MP's (Prado, Montero, X3, Patrol, Discovery3) & retiring government servants permit (Freelander, Sportage).

Correct choice leonardo. The SUV is far better than a sedan when it comes to travelling in Sri Lankan roads, considering the state of the roads and the oncoming buses and big vehicles. But I do not know for certain about the cost of maintenance as against a sedan car, but petrol consumption would be somewhat similar cars with the X-Trail giving around 7-8kms per litre depending on your driving ability & where you drive it. As a matter of fact if ground clearance is your issue you might consider something like a HRV or a Suzuki Ignis / Swift / Chevorlete Cruise with somewhat of a better ground clearance, but I dont know whether they will be small for you.

I dont know about you. But for me the build quality in the commander is rotten, we brought down a shit Chinese double cab which had one of the ugliest and basic interiors and it also looks like the commanders interior. Bad taste,, why not the earlier Cherokees had some look not this. It is claimed to be a full 7 seater but only a 2 year old or so can go in the third row of seats, so what 7 seater, I'd take the Land Rover Discovery3 over it any day.. Sorry to hurt your feelings but that is the truth.

Well I'm living in Sri Lanka. does nayone know of a website that I can check the above out? I'm GTiR freak so wanna find out about them also I got a friend of mine in office with whom I argue regarding performance of cars. p.s. I work for a car company so most of the time we check out performance

Mate I know about the GTiR very well. Its been a dream car of mine. I always think of getting one when my financing is ok. I think that the GTiR is more heavier than the VZR due to its bigger engine & 4wd system. So no wonder its slow in the 1/4mile. But if what you say about the VZR performance is based on the 200bhp then will it be ok for me to think the performance to be in the 7.0sec region. Sorry I didn't want to know about the Primera against the GTiR or the VZR. I just wanted to know the 0-100kmph figures. I think the 2.0litre GT does it in around 8.2secs with only 150bhp. So I'm imagining the Camino 2.0litre with 190bhp to be better than that.

My dear friend that is the old G wagon, which I also do like though I haven't seen many around in Sri Lanka. But the new one is the problem. If someone says that it doesn't look like the Sorento or ML then take a look at it with the rear of ot hidden. You'll see the difference.

Does anyone know of the performance figures (0-100kmph & top speed) of the Nissan Pulsar VZR? Can it out run the old Pulsar GTiR? Like to know the same of the Nissan Primera Camino 2.0l.

What do you think about the new Mercedes ML & G Wagon? Don't anyone see a similarity between them and any existing car? Well honestly I think that they all look like the Kia Sorento! Which if I'm not mistaken is a Korean copy of the Lexus RX / Toyota Harrier. Why would someone who has the reputation to make such world beating cars like Mercedes want to imitate a cheap Korean? I seriously cant understand it. The new look on the above SUV's suggest one thing to me, and that is they are never gonna be in production for a long time because the design will look dated in maybe a years time. Any merc lover can reply.