Vehicle selection is important. Very important. Especially if you are not a whiz at auto mechanics. Having the proper vehicle can make or break your trip. So, where do you start? Well, that somewhat depends on what kind of trip you are planning on embarking on. A good place to start is vehicle make. Should it be a Land Rover, Toyota, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, Mazda - I've seen them all.
Some items to consider:
Traversing the African continent in anything but a Land Rover did not seem quite right, besides which, we had a "friend" that was a Land Rover enthusiast with many contacts in South Africa who was more than willing to help us find an appropriate vehicle.
Your budget will largely influence the age of the vehicle that you can buy. Remember though, the newer and more complex the vehicle, the harder it may be to fix out in the bush. Also, vehicle price will influence such things as insurance and the cost of your Carnet.
Reliability can be argued until the cows come home. Really depends who you are talking to! There are certain types of vehicles and engines that you may want to steer away from. Certain vehicles and engines do have better track records, especially in Africa. It is probably adviseably to stay away from any heavily modified vehicles or ones that have engine conversions. If it's not a reliability issue, it certainly could become a parts availability problem.
Off-road capabilities of the vehicle are dictated by the roads you want to take. We had planned to do a fair bit of exploring and off-the-beaten track driving, so the 4x4 capabilities had to be up to par. However, if you plan on sticking to the main roads, people have traversed across the continent in two-wheel drive vehicles.
For parts availability, either the Land Rover or the Toyota are good choices. Perhaps some of the other vehicle makes don't break as much so parts availability might not be such an issue! Parts availability is best for vehicles that aren't new or too old. You will most likely be able to find the most parts for something that is 10-15 years old.
Typically the newer the vehicle, the more complex it will be to work on. Having something that you can manage yourself quite easily without any expensive diagnostic tools is always a great benefit. Also, throughout Africa, most bush mechanics will be able to work on an older Land Rover or Land Cruiser but not necessarily on a Mitsubishi or Mazda.
Petrol or diesel? Without a doubt, the better choice is diesel. The availability of diesel throughout Africa is certainly better and usually a diesel engine will be more efficient. A diesel engine may not have all the power of its petrol counter part, but then again, the trip through Africa should not be a race either! There is also the consideration of safely transporting extra fuel in jerry cans.
Fuel consumption is extremely important as fuel will most likely be the predominant running cost for the trip. Depending on the engine choice, the fuel consumption could range from 7-30MPG or 8-35L/100km. The Land Rover TDI engines are known to get just under 30MPG (imperial) or about 10L/100km. This is the kind of consumption that we were looking for.
Given all the above considerations, we decided that a 10-15 year old Land Rover 110 or Defender 5-door, either the 200Tdi or 300Tdi, would be the best choice. We asked our "friend" to keep an eye out for this kind of vehicle and let us know of any good deals.
Once you have narrowed down your vehicle choice and are ready to make the purchase, a very important step is to thoroughly inspect the vehicle! Knowing what I know now, I cannot over emphasize this enough! Please see the next section titled Inspection, under the Vehicle heading, for a list of items to consider when inspecting a vehicle.
Since at the outset of this trip my knowledge about vehicle mechanics was limited, we completely relied on our "friend" to help us make the right decision.
Our friend quickly found a vehicle that "will certainly do the job you want it to do." He told us that it was an older Series III Land Rover but that "this truck will take you through Africa no problem." As we couldn't inspect the vehicle ourselves he informed us that he would take a close look at the vehicle when he was next in South Africa. Upon his return he wrote me a convincing email that this was the right truck for our purposes and that the selling price was a great deal.
The truck was not really what we were looking for, but we completely trusted our "friend's" judgment on the matter. We did ask several questions and one of my big concerns was fuel consumption. Our "friend" confidently responded that the truck would do about 8km/liter (that's 12.5L/100km or a little over 20MPG). This wasn't as good as a diesel, but sounded reasonable.
So we ended up purchasing a 1983 series IIIs Land Rover for 35,000 Rand. It is a two door pickup with canopy and has been refitted with a 4.1 litre Chev 6-cylinder engine. Apparently the vehicle had just been serviced, the brakes and exhaust replaced and a new clutch fitted. Everything reportedly worked, no rust or oil leaks. We did not know much more but that all sounded pretty good!