Travel Australia

We expected out car would have to do a mix of road and dirt, probably 75/25. A 4wd was a must, but which one? Toyota's seemed to be the best option.... but financially we could not go there, so we settled for a 2004 Nizzan Patrol. Pretty lush in many ways, leather electric have a look at, Mad Dog Morgan - former convict and self styled prison cell preacher controlled seats, tinted that, smick this.... an automatic with less than 80,000klm on the clock. Perfect.

Car was purchased from Victoria site unseen, but with an racv inspection. We took a punt, and it worked out, the car arrived and was as expected - very tidy. The I made the mistake of taking it to a regular mechanic. My advice checkout, Link header is to anyone who owns a 4wd.... don't got to a regular mechanic. Got to a place have a look at, Be Prepared! Lake Keepit Caravan and Camping Grounds. such as ARB. Why?
Generally speaking, the guys who work on your car are 4wd enthusiasts. They love their 4wd's and would hate someone to do the wrong thing by them. I went to a mechanic in Byron Bay, I wont mention names but his names rhymes with "Bay".

I ended up with

a. A service that did not include an air have a look at, Armidale - old ghosts and new adventures filter change, also see, Cool Stuff we saw in Australia which consequently clogged.

b. Faulty tyres which cause as massive shake of my car.

c. A new steering dampener, to fix the shake. Did not work. The tyres were not round.

d. Finally got tyres replaced - at about $600 more than it should have cost me.

For my next service i went to the boys at ARB in Newcastle?

Awesome.

The found a slight problem(endemic with turbo diesel 4wds) that cuases oil to be blown back through the trubo and fixed it with a catch can. They showed me how to checkout, Our Car - 2004 Nissan Patrol 3litre Turbo Diesel STL clean my intercooler myself(i am NOT handy and it turned out to be pretty simple) saving me hundreds of dollars and gave me heaps of extra power. , Warnambul They did everything that was needed and nothing that wasn't.

Anyway, our modest budget allowed for

• a set of Cooper all terrain tyres(grrr)
• electric brakes controller
• catch can
• some kind device which allows for your car alternator to only charge your main battery if its low in voltage, then a 2nd battery if your have one(so your starting battery is always ready to go).

I looked longinly at winches, roof also see, Armidale - old ghosts and new adventures racks, long range tanks. checkout, Yarongabilly Caves ... but it was not to be.

Inside we added kids storage stuff to go on the backs of the front seats, so they could stick books, toys, etc in them. In between the kids, was a box containing books and toys.

We had intended to get car dvd players, but did not. We figured we were not leaving Byron, to plug our kids into the tv in the car.

We had sports racks on the car and really needed a roof checkout, Back to Byron Bay Shire, a week in Brunswick Heads rack but ran out of money. We managed to borrow a Thule space saver capsule thingo for the roof. also look at, Travel Australia - Two Parents, 2 kids a 4wd and caravan