Guest Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 TTM, Thanks for your information , I really do appreciate it the information....I personally want the LC, but, it really stretches my budget and we would compromise our other purchases in Bangkok........ So the million dollar questions is: Do you extend yourself for the better car which would be important as we will spend a lot of time in the car travelling and compromise other purchases, or, do you "downgrade" the car you purchase and afford other items required... TTM, did you know that a 96/97 Land Cruiser is worth around 1.5 million Baht, the prado is around 1.3 million baht.... SB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SingaporeSteve Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 SB - Fuel economy in the jeep is pretty laughable until you have to pay the bill. I get around 400KM per tank (65L) on average but most of the Km's I do are on the expressway to and from Pattaya. The only consolation is that gas is still cheap here at around 16B litre. In terms of off road driving I think it depends on what you want. The 2001 model Grand Cherokee has a fantastic 4 wheel drive system that meant when I went on a Jeep training day off road, I never had ot engage the low diff at all. The computer controlled all the wheels perfectly. In 50,000 Km of driving here including many trips upcountry (with both me and GF driving), never had any issue with roadholding or suspension. How often do you go off road? even upcountry in the middle of the wet season with roads like swamps we have never had a problem. The 4 wheel drive is computer controlled. It drives 2 wheels until it senses the wheel slipping and then automatically engages the other 2. Piece of cake and never had any slipping. One big consideration is the price as well. 2001 Grand Cherokee can be your for around 1.6M Baht as they deprecitatte faster than Japanese cars. I looked at Landcruiser but for me it was just too big and I thought it was ugly, but of course thats just a personal opinion. Older shape Jeeps can be picked up for around 1.2M I think for 99/00 but its nothing compared to the newer model. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 SS, Thanks for the information.....At this stage, I believe I will be doing very limited off-road driving and will mainly be on the highways, whether it is to Hua-Hin , Pattaya, Ayuttaya, Chiang Mai etc..... Interesting info. on the Grand Cherokee.....How did you get the training day? did that come with the purchase or did you got a Jeep dealer to organise? Additionally, what are the creature comforts like in the 2001 model? Thanks!!! I owe both you and TTM a beer when in Bangkok for info. SB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 SS, Hopefully, this is not too personal a question , but, here goes: for the air cond repairs how much did it cost? Thanks, SB, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 The other item to consider is the available "market" to resell the car in say 5 years time..... I would say in 2008 there will be a greater available market for 2001 Grand Cherokee than 1996/7 Toyota Land Cruisers. I just don't know who would want to buy a 10 year old car in Thailand.... Comments? SB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
think_too_mut Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 >Do you extend yourself for the better car which would be important as we will spend a lot of time in the car travelling and compromise other purchases, or, do you "downgrade" the car you purchase and afford other items required... My second best would be Prado. >TTM, did you know that a 96/97 Land Cruiser is worth around 1.5 million Baht, the prado is around 1.3 million baht.... Shit, that's more than what new ones cost here. It's just telling you how well they hold their value. Note: don't even look at ex-government or ex-Water Board cars! They've probably seen a lot of crude action. Driver training: with my club, every driver must go through 3 days training: 1 day theory, 1 day recovery, 1 day practical off road driving. Only then he/she is allowd to join the trips and drive over the club's land. I went for several more days (sand driving, operating a chainsaw , first aid, advanced recovery). To Singapore Steve: if you did not have to engage low range, the training was a sissified version of it. No good insructor would ever trust a computer inside the vehice and let it misjudge what he is navigating and getting you to perform manually. They don't want to cause a damage to the vehicle nor jeopardize safety of yourself and others. Vehicles without the low range (or manually controlled low range) are not admitted to the club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SingaporeSteve Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 TTM, The training day I went on was organised by Jeep but it is hardly the sort of thing that real addicto's would get up to. All the cherokee drivers had to keep playing with their gearboxes to get round the course, disengaging this and engagging that to keep going. Not my idea of fun - I prefer just to let the car go into 'D' and press the acelerater. Just a personal preference. Thats why we seem to be worlds apart. I view a journey as a way of getting from A to B, where I suspect for you the primary benefit is having as much fun in the car on the way They said I could change down to lower ratio but they also told me that the car could go round it just allowing the systems computer to do it and it worked a treat. Also in case you are not aware of prices here, the new Grand Cherokee is 2.8M baht. Landcruiser is up around 3.5M from memory on a grey import and Dsicovery is similar to G-cherokee. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SingaporeSteve Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 The drive to Hua Hin is what convinced me I needed to get out of a sedan and into a 4 wheel drive sitting higher up !! The training day was organised by the dealer although Jeep do them as well. Actually I only did it about 3 months ago after having had the car for a year so its hardly essential but certainly is good fun. For features, Look up Jeep.com or whatever, the limited model is whats available in Thailand. You can choose Thailand as the country through the site or otherwise just look at the US info its all pretty much the same. Everything you can imagine is electric on that car. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SingaporeSteve Posted February 19, 2003 Report Share Posted February 19, 2003 SB - Aircon repairs were free under warranty (4Yr, 80,000 KM). Perhaps another reason for getting 2001 model, you still might have couple of years warranty left. Not sure about re-sale values but the Toyotas generally hold their value a lot better but also many Landcruisers are real working cars for all the good reasons TTM mentions. Most G/Cherokees seem to be on Sukhumvit or expressways most of the time!!! Therefore in Thailand the older Toyota has probably had a tougher life, but is likely to be better able to stand it. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 23, 2003 Report Share Posted February 23, 2003 Indeed. In my garage at home, I have 2 cars: a '98 Porsche 911 C4 Cabriolet (my second) and an '01 Jeep Grand Cherokee (my third). The Jeep gets driven more than the Porsche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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