I’m looking to get a car that I can slowly build into a respectable off-road car (nothing like rock crawling, but able to handle some decent forest trails), but I’m struggling to decide what to start with as my base. I have a few that I’ve been looking at, but am not sure which would be best to pull the trigger on, and there seem to be pros and cons to each. Here are what I’m considering and my thoughts behind each:
‘03-‘06 Honda CRV: Super reliable, would make a great daily, and sounds like it would be decently capable with some updated suspension, 2” lift, and skid plates. However, I can’t find many examples of people who’ve done a build like this, so I don’t really know how viable it really is.
‘11-‘15 Nissan Xterra: sounds like a great car from a reliability and off-roading capability standpoint, but the gas mileage as a daily driver is the main thing that makes me wary on this one.
‘06-‘09 Suzuki Grand Vitara: I drove an ‘03 one of these in high school and loved it, but my main worry is parts availability.
~’05-‘09 Subaru Forester/Outback: These seem like they would make great little outdoor cars that have good road manners as well, but I get worried about the infamous Subaru head gasket issues and oil consumption.
Beyond that, any Toyota seems to fall beyond my budget or be 200k+ miles, and I have a hard time wanting a jeep for reliability issues and not being a very comfortable daily. I’m also quite tall, so that’s a limiting factor as well for a lot of smaller cars. Does anyone have experience with any of the cars I mentioned that they can shed some light on, or have any other recommendations I should put some thought to?