I finally got my "dream car" for backpacking trips. It's a 4 door 2000 Chevy Tracker that was made by Suzuki here in the US (it's the same as a Suzuki Vitara).

Mine has an inline 4 cylinder 2.0 liter 130 hp engine that's pretty easy to work on and has a reputation for being reliable. It gets between 20-25 mpg (city/hwy) so that's not great, but it's not bad for a 4x4. It's got a 3 speed auto transmission with overdrive and auto lock hubs and power rack and pinion steering. It's not as tough as the Suzuki Samurai I used to have, but it's still a pretty good 4wheeler and will keep up on the trails with most stock SUVs and do better than quite a few. They're well respected by hard core off roaders and it's a lot more comfortable than the Samurai I had and will go places my Ford Ranger would never get to.

These cost between $18-20k new, but 16 years later I got mine for $2600. It's got 230k miles on it but the body and interior are clean and the engine is freshly rebuilt. I even got a 6 month warranty from the mechanic I bought it from so that's not too bad. I expect I'll drive it for the next ten years or more if I don't do something stupid again.

These are great for backpacking because they're dependable, and will go almost anywhere. The back seats fold down to make a flat deck that has enough room to sleep two if you had to, and more than plenty of room for all your gear and supplies.

So I'm pretty excited. The past couple years I've been pretty limited on where I could go because that Ford Ranger I had would get stuck on flat dry ground. I'm going to take it on some trails for the first time tomorrow and do a little day hiking. It will be ready to change the break in oil after that and then I should be ready to start going places again.

A vehicle made for woods roads! Nice score. After years of 3/4 and 1 ton work trucks that needed 55 gallon drums with a garden hose siphon to run, I downsized business and bought a Tacoma. Hasn't entered beater stage yet and is relatively scratch and dent free, but it has been good to get to some trailheads that had some snow and mud involved. Sleeping in the back under the cap is a great option to have. We want to do a number of peaks within a 3-4 hour range this winter, and being able to drive to a trailhead on Fri. night and start out Sat. morning is a great thing. We're going to a trailhead this morning and guaranteed half the parking lot will be Subaru Outbacks. Vermont's official car.

The Outback was very high on my list of choices. Most of those I've met who have them love them. Both the Outback and Vitara sell for more than book value here, but after reading the reviews on them at www.edmunds.com I found quite a few people have had issues with head gaskets blowing out early.

I take negative reviews with a grain of salt because I've worked on cars and know how well some people can abuse them, but when I see a lot of common complaints I take notice.

It's kind of fun to read those reviews. Some of them are hilarious. One that stood out was by a guy who said the Vitara was a dangerous piece of junk because it skidded off snow covered road at 55 mph when he had to slam on the brakes to avoid a car that pulled out in front of him and it rolled over when he slid down into a ditch. Yeah, that's the car's fault alright

The Vitara also had some negative reviews (they all do), but overall dependability was rated very high. The 4 banger engine got a lot better reviews than the V6 they offered (which also had head gaskets blowing early), and for me the room in the engine compartment to work on it is a big factor. So many cars have stuffed the engine compartment so tight that it makes them a huge pain to work on, so I really appreciate getting at stuff without needing to become a contortionist. My wife has a 2000 Merc Cougar that's a huge pain to work on. Changing the alternator is notoriously vicious among mechanics and many just will not even do it.

I'm getting ready to head out in a few minutes. If anything worth noting comes up I'll post about it.

Subaru (Outback or Forester) seems to be THE car in the Pacific NW, even for non-hikers. It seems as though at least every other vehicle is a Subaru!

With many USFS roads deteriorating because of insufficient funds for maintenance, a high clearance 4WD is needed more and more. I've found that by going slow and being careful, I can navigate many of these with my 2006 Toyota Matrix, but it takes longer to get to trailheads than it used to!

Everyone I've known who drives an Outback loves it, and a lot of them have 200k plus miles on them so they must be a good car. I'd love to have one, but they go for top buck here and they don't come up often. I almost got one but the seller told me someone was coming to buy it when I called on it, and it disappeared from Craigslist shortly after that. I was ready to go buy it so that kind of bummed me out.

I didn't even get a chance to put the Tracker in 4wheel drive today. I went to a Conservation area not far from where we live that used to have a few good roads to test it on. One of them was cut off where the lake has flooded above it but the other was closed. I'll have to call them on Monday about that. They've been closing off to many access roads around here and there's no good reason for it. I've banged heads with them over that before.

After I change the oil on the Tracker tomorrow I'll head out towards the Hercules Glades area of the Mark Twain NF and play around there. I know they haven't closed those roads off yet.

Even so, I did drive on some pretty steep graveled roads that most rear wheel powered cars will slip on. My old Samurai had to be put in 4wheel drive to make it up them but the Tracker didn't have a problem. It felt to me like it might have a limited slip rear end which would be great. I'll have to look into that and find out. I was trying to find one of those for my Ranger before my burros sabotaged it. That would've made a huge difference in that truck for me.

Driving the Tracker was a real pleasure today. It did great on our hilly windy roads. It's got a ton of headroom and the windows are tall so you have a great view while cruising in it. I'm just about ready to start planning a backpacking trip now. I'm thinking somewhere in the Upper Buffalo River Wilderness will be one of the first places that car takes me.

But I'm getting it ready for a real road trip too. My wife has wanted to go to California forever and drive Hwy 1 up the coast. We have some friends that live near Portland she wants to visit too. If we get to Portland I'm looking you up OM!!!

Yep. We've got a Ford Escape Hybrid with 150K miles on it. Bought it new, and have taken it all sorts of places in the Sierra, and one pretty memorable adventure in Death Valley. It still gets 32-34 MPG...so that's a big plus.

And our other car is a Subaru Legacy wagon, 4WD, with higher clearance than the Outback...

I have a hovercraft, so there's that.

Like every other mountain-loving Californian, am wondering whether we'll be able to drive over Tioga Pass on New Years...again.

Cheers,

Good for you for finding a good deal. I thought those were made in Korea or Japan. I've noticed Subarus are quite popular during my visits to Alaska.

I'm partial to small hatchbacks for fuel efficiency and room. If I were a little closer to retirement I might have gone Subaru for more room and clearance, but as I still have a few years (4 years, 7 months, 20 days) to go, fuel efficiency reigned supreme. About a year and a half ago I needed a new car and went with a new 2014 Chevy Sonic with a 1.4 turbo and six speed stick. It took around 18-20K miles before it the gas mileage rose to where I like it and I now average 40mpg. I guess that's the break in period, I don't know.

While cars are made from globally sourced parts, final country of assembly is in the first digit of the VIN.

US: 1,4,5
Canada: 2
Mexico: 3
Korea: K
Japan, J

http://www.dmv.org/vehicle-history/vin-decoder.php

You probably knew that (smile).

Sounds like you got a great deal. I'm still kicking myself for letting the salesman talk me into buying new, over two years later.

I did okay, but I'll be spending some time to get it all up to snuff. I spent some time this week cleaning it up. It's looking pretty good and driving really nice. My wife took it out to go shopping today and when she got back she told me she's taking it and I can have her car. I had a feeling that might happen.

I hate her car so it's back to Craigslist for me.

I'm pretty sure I can sell her car fast for $1500 so between that and whatever I can sell my smashed up Ranger for I'll have some cash to get some other beater that I don't mind working on and is fun to drive.

as someone who like to go overseas, unfortunately i cant buy a car when im abroad, but i can always rent one though hehe

I've had many vehicles over the years that were great for getting me to the trailhead. Everything from a 1974 Bronco when I lived at Lake Tahoe to a 1986 nissan pickup.

When I moved to Southern Oregon I got a 1993 Jeep Cherokee (used) and ended up putting 260,000 miles on it. It never failed to get me to the trailhead (and back) so then I bought a 2004 grand cherokee with the same great straight 6 engine that my 1993 had. It's been great for all of those difficult BLM and forest service roads plus the occasional snow. All of my vehicles have been 4WD.

Reliability has always been the key for me since I 'm often traveling in remote areas.

Since my wife has definitely decided she's taking the Chevy Tracker we found another car for me. I am now the proud owner of another Tracker.

This one is a 1991 2-Door "Geo Tracker" 4x4. We only paid $400 for it so it's really a "project" car at this point.

I need to change the timing belt and cover, and maybe the front crankshaft seal, and the auto trans filter and tranny oil, and the brakes need to be gone over, and I might have to fix something with the cooling system, but besides that it's ready to go.

My GF has a 2007 Matrix: I love it. Yeah, I've seen a lot of Subarus at the trailheads down here in CA (including my own, when I owned one . Once I saw a Jaguar, though (!) and it was a bumpy rocky dirt road, too.

My older brother and I changed a clutch in a 74 Bronco in the foothills of the Sequoias when I was 15 and he was 17 years old. We had to walk and hitchhike from outside of Springville to Porterville to get parts.

The Bronco was only a couple years old and was never driven hard. My brother drove up the side of a hill one time on property we owned there and on the way down the clutch just turned to mush.

I'd already done a clutch or two by then, but my brother had never even seen one and I'd never messed with a transfer case. We borrowed tools from a rancher who lived about a mile away. He was nice enough to lend us the tools, but we paid dearly by having to listen to him tell us how "stupid city boys" are every time we asked him for one. I kept trying to tell him we weren't your average city boys, and that we lived on a small farm with cows and beef cattle and chickens and critters of all kinds, and that we both worked with our father building custom cars, but he never heard a word of it. He just kept on crapping on us.

We didn't have a clutch alignment tool so all I could do was eyeball the clutch and tighten the pressure place and hope for the best. It took all of one day to get that transmission stabbed into the flywheel. We were lying on our backs in the dirt pressing it over our heads. No jacks, no nothing. The transfer case and transmission are mighty heavy on those.

I'm sure the old rancher was laughing his rump off at us thinking we never get it done so it was a huge pleasure to drive up to his house to return those tools. He still couldn't muster up a "Good job" for us though. After we thanked him again he started in on us "dumb city boys" and my brother and I just chuckled and drove away.

I really wanted a Bronco bad until then. After that, not so much.

Here's a pic of my "project car". Check out that "Flame Job"

Somehow it seems inevitable that a used car with a flame paint job would be a 'project car'.

I had flames on my Geo Metro! Small, chrome, magnetic flames, but flames nonetheless.

I agree!

The crappy part of those stickers is you have to sand the paint down to metal to get rid of them. You can't just peel or sand them off, that pattern will show through if you paint over the paint under them.

I really don't think I'll be painting it though. I'm way more interested in driving it on trails and it will get scuffed up where I intend to go.

Chrome flames are awesome!

I'm not sure, but these might have the same engine as your Metro. I just started tearing down the front end of the engine on this yesterday. Got the timing belt cover and pulleys off it. It's just a gosh awful greasy mess. I'm going to change the timing belt, idler pulley, water pump, and clean up the alternator. The crankshaft pulley was loose and ground through the timing belt cover, but the bolts were tight. This leads me suspect they're the wrong bolts and just a bit too long.

There's a sticker on the inside of the hood from a dealership that says the timing belt was replaced about 12k miles ago. I have a feeling it was them didn't get that pulley tightened right, and there's a few other things they missed to. Two little seals under the cover are missing. You can't buy them anymore, so I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that. Probably put a glob of silicone where they should be and cross my fingers. And there's a stamped steel cover piece that's not tight for the same reason, the bolts are too long.

Some mechanics can get pretty darn creative in how they "fix" stuff

As I understand it the Metro came with one engine initially and later versions had a second option. Both of my Metros had the 1.0 liter, 3 cylinder mated to a 5 speed manual transmission. The later second option was a 4 cylinder, not sure about the size.

Tip: Use ethanol free gas in those engines. Don't ask me how I know this. Well, maybe you're more of a mechanic than I am so don't mind replacing gaskets.

for me, a minivan is the ultimate adventure vehicle because i tend to go in a group and need space. had a sub forester, and hated it. not enough cargo space, the rear seats had no leg room. awd 100% on on is unnecessarily complicated design and had a lot of drawbacks.

I like minivans too. They have some practical design advantages that make them great backpacking cars. I did my longest road trip in a full size Dodge "Surfer" van back in the early `80s. That thing was great for car camping. Sucked gas fast, but it was a good camper. I lived in it for the better part of a year.

Some of the minivans are kind of tough to work on though. Even full sized vans can be a pain.

One of the most common complaints I saw on the 4-door 2000 Chevy Tracker is rear seat leg room, and I can sure see why. For myself, I'd rather get rid of those rear seats and put a longer deck back there.

The 2dr Tracker project car is so tiny it barely holds two people and their gear, but it does, so it's great for shorter trips and it's just a fun vehicle to go play around in and perfect for zooming over to the corner store.

I've got my little project car all torn up now. It's just a mess. It's been leaking oil like the Deepwater Horizon blowout and the engine compartment and underneath the car is a disaster area.

I finished the engine tear down this afternoon and cleaned up the oily mess you get with that and the disaster area as I've gone along. I've got almost all the parts I need now and I can start putting some of it back together while I wait for a few more to show up. Of course, I've found I needed more as I went along, and I've learned all kinds of things in the process.

There's a keyway on the crankshaft to line up the timing belt sprocket that's all hogged out and the sprocket was just wobbling on it. Apparently this is a thing with the motor in these. I ended up pulling the the radiator, a/c condenser, alternator, water pump, timing belt cover, belt and idler pulley, and the both the crankshaft and cam pulleys and sprockets, and the auto transmission pan and filter.

I'll be repairing the crankshaft keyway with Loctite epoxy, rebuilding the alternator, and replacing the timing belt cover, belt and idler pulley, and the both the crankshaft and camshaft seals, and the trans pan filter. I'll be replacing all the gaskets I can too, and I'll probably pull the valve cover and adjust the valves while I'm at it since it's probably leaking oil from there as well.

I've posted a few videos showing the huge mess I've gotten myself into, and will follow up with the getting myself out of it part as I get there. If all goes well I should be driving it in a few weeks to a month, but it depends a bit on the weather. So far we've barely had any really cold days, but beginning tonight we're in for about a weeks worth at least.

Tracker Videos

The trackers and samari's are great little rigs There is a huge cult off-roading culture for them. But of course those, that know me, well enough, know I am going to say Subaru is about the best out there :-)

Congrats on the score.