Thinking about a Toyota Tamaraw as basic heavy duty transport

[Gray Wolf]

One of the big problems I have with the Suzuki multicab,  in addition to the ones mentioned by Capt Ron, is the fact that the seats on the Suzuki are bolted directly to the floor and are not adjustable!  We take it for granted that if we\'re tall (or thick) we can slide the seat back on our vehicle to give us more leg or \"belly\" room.  Not an option with the multi-cab.  Too bad.

 

[coutts00]

When looking around for a car just after we arrived I spoke with our next door neighbor who has a Tamaraw and is very happy with it, however he said, its gasoline not diesel. Its slow, doesn\'t accelerate and doesn\'t brake all that well either. We looked around and picked up a low mileage, Japanese left hand conversion from Subic. It is a Mazda Bongo Van, happily seats about 15 Filipinos or 8 very large Americans. It is Automatic, Turbo Diesel with Intercooler, it goes like a rocket, stops on a dime and is built on a truck chassis. Four wheel disk brakes and is rated as a 1 tonne vehicle, returns a healthy 15kms / ltr with the aircon running at 100kph.

We have family down in Catanduanes, and make the run down there regularly, I am able to keep up with most of the buses and I am passed by only a few, followed one late at night hitting 140kph in the back woods. Our van just sang a sweet song and said give me more. I picked it up with 65k on the clock and it is in rock solid condition. I have had 6 people in it and about 1/2 tonne of luggage on one of our trips down, taking rice, canned goods etc to the fam.

I have so much fun driving it, I wonder why I did not get something like this in the US years ago.

Wayne

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Wayne,

I like your logic. Mine is not far from yours. I also bought (carefully with someone who knew what to look for) a \'Subic converted RH to LH\' Toyota Hilux Surf. Built like a tank 2.4 Turbo EFI Deisel (see pic). Had it now for 18 months & except for a water pump only needed the standard service plus wear & tear parts (tyres, brakes etc). Parts are readily available for the most part (Toyota have a parts factory close by  ) it\'s quite large but the wheelbase is the same as a medium car. From its high driving position Dee & I feel safe in traffic (even Jeepneys stop when I pull out to cross the road) & it handles the RP roads well. I love my car

Now the negative. Don\'t know whether you have hit this but for a start Toyota dealers won\'t have anything to do with it. They say Subic cars are too much trouble, same answer from Honda & Mitsubishi. Not a big problem until I ask the local mechanics about the fuel injection. My Surf is an EFI which has an electric pump not mechanical. No one has the equipment to tune or service the pump or injectors, so if anything should go wrong (touch wood not so far) I would need a new one. Cost at least P30-40K. Have you run into any of this? Found any answers?

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[coutts00]

Not specifically,

I owned a similar vehicle in Australia before I moved to the US. The Toyota guys should be able to get anything you need in Oz. and ship it here fast, same engine if I am not wrong. They took a 2.2 liter gas engine and converted it to diesel and came up with a 2.4.

You may notice my pic, I sell hovercraft in the US and I am considering doing the same here, we manufacture out of Australia, so I have a great network of people at the head office, in Melbourne. We have to source all sorts of stuff all of the time. People run hovercraft with all sorts of engines and as we repair them all we are constantly finding something that died.

We are in the process of building a really big mother, not quiet the scale of the SRN4 that used to make the run from Calais to Dover, it is to be used as a rescue craft for the Changi airport in Singapore. It has 2 V10-1100 MAN Diesels, putting out you guessed it 1100hp, we actually only need about 400hp out of each engine to make 60knts in 10ft seas, but the boss put the bigger ones in as we have to run a fire pump at 2000 ltrs a min and foam capability. It also does not hurt that we can throw it around 180 degrees and go to full throttle in the opposite direction from 60 knots one way to 60 knots the other in less than 30 secs.

The little one I am pictured with is my baby girl, all vessels are women right. She is as untamed as my provincial filipina wife, if she thinks another woman is looking at me, goes like a typhoon in December, I have had it to over 75knots in 12ft seas, and sips gas like 3 old ladies at tea time.

So if you run into a problem, I can probably get the part out of OZ in 24hrs, and have it fedexed here in 2-3 days to your doorstep. My craft is with a dealer of mine in Up State NY at the moment, and when we took it out on an ice covered lake, the gps said over 100 knots in a 1/4 mile, problem was I shut it down and tried to coast to a stop, well ice has a very low friction co-efficient, and we skidded out of control for another 1/2 mile. But it is a blast, if I bring it over and the PI guys don\'t give me too much grief over it, Sta. Rosa is near Laguna de Bay if I am not wrong, we could go for a blast from one side to the other and back in a very short time. We live up near the floodway just outside Manila. Some of my new friends here have ties into the QC and Marikina police forces here, they have expressed interest in getting it here as it can get into weeds and floating debris near the shoreline without getting tangled up in anything, we have nothing below the water line.

Hope I don\'t need to take you up on the Oz parts but zapping over Laguna Del Bay has got my attention We will have to meet up for a coffee or something or if you head to Tagaytay let me know as there is a Starbucks across the road from me.

Keith once you buy a Subic Vehicle the local dealers will not even talk to you I had a Subic Pajero and had the same problems you need to go to a surplus auto parts store to get parts thats what I did till I sold the car

I bought a new local Trooper for my wife to use but as far as testing equipment we are in the same boat the local Isuzu Trooper that has electronic control modules on the engine and the Isuzu dealer in Illoilo has no test equipment there way to fix a problem is to install every component that is replaceable till the problems goes away thank god it is still under warranty

I just recently bought a 1999 Local made Trooper 4 x 4 for my own use which I found on the net in Manila with 70K on it for only 330,000 Piso one owner all service records the reason it was so cheap is it has a gasoline engine Filipinos do not like gas engines so the resale value is low on these cars if it had a diesel in it would have cost 500,000 -700,000 Make sure if you buy a car in Manila to get an LTO check to make sure it is legal (not stolen,if imported that all taxes are paid etc) keep the paper from the LTO in Manila it will ease your registration process if you take the car to the provinces

Also check out Ad Post if you are looking for a Car http://www.adpost.com/ph/

Good luck with your Toyota

Tom









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[samatm]

back  to the Tamaraw ....   I am looking at 94 Tamaraw in good condition with clean title.   It could use paint..about 20K  ..   I test drove it an love it.. but it might be under  powered for some mountain climbing with a full load.. I dunno.  Anyway.. they are asking 150K... is this price a good?    It has cold AC, tinted windows, good interior, new tires, new battery, Its been taken care of..   the 4cyl engin looks clean and esy to maintain..

[c_a_p_t_a_i_n_r_o_n]

Sounds a bit pricey....The Tamaraw\'s I\'ve looked at in Cebu & Bohol have been around P80-120k

For 150k you should be able to pick up a reasonable smaller SUV.....