Buy German, get a Touareg

Amusing that out here in Asia that german cars are seen as premium but fragile.  Reliable cars in the scorching heat and constant dust are seen as far eastern and American.  A toureg would be scoffed at as a sensible purchase.  Not saying that’s right, but interesting how things are seen in different worlds.

Hadn’t considered the Grand Cherokee .I thought because it is American it would be rubbish on our roads with corners .Trying to find out if they are Mercedes-Benz engines and gearboxes.

I have a grand cherokee and really like it but I`m based in Canada so they’re pretty common. I actually thought it was the other way round and Mercedes-Benz used the Chrysler chassis.  I don’t find the handling too bad but again I don’t have that many corners to worry about.

It must be about 3 or 4 years since we had the Grand Cherokee.  It was pretty nippy for such a big car, and wasn’t too thirsty.  It was comfortable, and long winter journeys, including up and down the A9 were quite relaxing.  It had a few gizmos I wouldn’t be too bothered about, such as auto-dipping headlights and mirrors, and there were a couple of little bugs in the touch screen interface (possibly since fixed with an update).  It was missed when it went back to the car hire company!

While we had it, we were approached by a guy who’d had the earlier version, and he raved about them, and told us about the Mercedes engine etc.  He was planning to buy the same model as the one we had.  Interestingly, we spotted him in a newer model a few weeks ago, so he obviously did go ahead and upgrade.

I’m not sure what the ‘owner experience’ would be like, but I’d definitely look into them (and get a decent test drive) if I was looking to buy that type of vehicle.

Deejaying, were you ever amazed by how they made a car that big so small inside?

I live in New Zealand and down here you would only consider a Land Cruiser and it is already flagged as my next car. Do they do the diesel V8 in the UK?

To put their reliability into perspective, there are loads selling for decent cash with excess of 250,000 km on the clock – some nearing 400k km