After returning to the states post 1 year of overlanding in South America, my girlfriend and I bought a subaru forster, this so far is a great little car for trips and around town. I am looking at adding a second vehicle in the next few months to be the camping and dirty sports rig to drive to the trails. I would like to be able to seat 4 comfortably and I am 6'3" so an extended cab truck likely won't cut it, but a crew cab would. I would also like to be able to sleep comfortably after i build some sort of platform. Most trips will involve mountain bikes or skis so easy carrying of these is important.
Roads will be around town, and forest service road with some longer trips mixed in occastionally and no real wheeling. 4wd is required for snow. The truck should be new enough to be comfortable and driver well, I also prefer manual transmissions when available.
I would like to spend $5000 or less, but want something I can drive into the mountains without worrying about getting home. I am considering crew cab trucks with 6.5' beds and caps or suburbans, and am also interested in other ideas. In order to get a crew cab with a long bed for cheap I would be buying an old HD truck, these are cool but are overkill for my needs right now and possibly more upkeep. Suburbans are less cool but can be had for cheap and it would be easy to have enough room to sleep with folded rear seats, they are also smaller for around town. An old land cruiser might work but not sure about sleeping space, and the domestic trucks are either way cheaper or way newer. Smaller suvs like a 4 runner or similar isn't enough space to sleep in, and I don't think any other big utes are in my price range.
On the truck front how do the big 3 fair in terms of reliability in a 15 year old 150,000 mile truck? A suburban is mechanically the same as a GM truck and if a ford will be a better buy I will lean that way.
Thanks
Roads will be around town, and forest service road with some longer trips mixed in occastionally and no real wheeling. 4wd is required for snow. The truck should be new enough to be comfortable and driver well, I also prefer manual transmissions when available.
I would like to spend $5000 or less, but want something I can drive into the mountains without worrying about getting home. I am considering crew cab trucks with 6.5' beds and caps or suburbans, and am also interested in other ideas. In order to get a crew cab with a long bed for cheap I would be buying an old HD truck, these are cool but are overkill for my needs right now and possibly more upkeep. Suburbans are less cool but can be had for cheap and it would be easy to have enough room to sleep with folded rear seats, they are also smaller for around town. An old land cruiser might work but not sure about sleeping space, and the domestic trucks are either way cheaper or way newer. Smaller suvs like a 4 runner or similar isn't enough space to sleep in, and I don't think any other big utes are in my price range.
On the truck front how do the big 3 fair in terms of reliability in a 15 year old 150,000 mile truck? A suburban is mechanically the same as a GM truck and if a ford will be a better buy I will lean that way.
Thanks
