Which Rav 4.2 Shall I Buy?

[bigbrownbear]

My wife and I live in Sydney and have been looking for the last month at buying a Rav 4 Automatic. (Although we can drive manual)

In that time we have been looking purely at black or silver 3 doors.

However I only noticed how much similar the 5 door is and it doesn’t appear to be that much longer (about 40cm) and thinking maybe if we get a 5 door now this will save us the hassle of changing when we have kids in 2 years time. However the 3 door does look more stylish!

Anyhow our general rav4 criteria so far is:

• Lot less than 100K,

• Full log books

• Good service history

• Ideally 2003-2005 (as most of their depreciation has gone).

• Good resale value.

• Has a few scratches - as we dont have a garage - there no point us paying huge $$$ foir a perfect rav4.

• Budget between 15-18k on the road.

So my questions are:

1. Do you think it matters which model I go for in terms of reliability and resale i.e edge/cv /cv sport/ cruiser?

2. Does the 3 door have better resale value over the 5 door?

3. Is there anything to look out for when buying a Rav4?

4. Is the manual less prone to problems than the automatic?

Any other tips/recommendations are very welcome

Thanks for sharing your wisdom and experience in advance

BBB

[sammy]

BBB,

we had an '03 RAV extreme prior to trading up to the current model Kluger

it was the 2ltr automatic. from personal experience i can honestly say that it was one of the most reliable cars i've ever owned...put simply...it was a case of petrol and drive.

i think provided it has been regularly serviced either by dealer or competent mechanic u should be fine.

the only thing to keep in mind (yes there's always a "but") is that fuel consumption particularly with the auto is in my opinion a little on the high side...especially around town....i think we were averaging about 14lt/100km...having said that on the freeway u should be getting around 9-10

resale i think you'll find that the 5 door is probably a little better than the 3, given as you have pointed out that you get a little bit more room/flexibility particularly for kids in the future and yet the overall length is there or there about

to sum up i guess i would say an honest car provided u accept and drive it as intended....ie not a sports car....not a true off-road

Sam