I already knew from the moment that Steve bought the Navara, that it wouldn't last long. You just can't have 5 Landcruisers in a row then be happy with a 3 litre 4 cylinder. It's only half a car!
Steve had decided that as soon as we returned home from our trip up north, that he'd advertise the Navara for sale. After a bit of discussion amongst the family and seeking advice from several car yards, we decided to remove the alloy tray and canopy and refit the original style-side tub. We were assured that we'd still get the money we were hoping to get with the style-side back on and we knew we'd have no problem selling the tray and canopy.
The tray and canopy sold within a few days of the ad being listed, as we thought it would. The particular canopy we had is hard to find second-hand, and much sought after.
Then we sent the Navara off to a spray painter mate to have a dent fixed and a few scratches touched up. We had originally told the guy we bought the Navara from that we'd get the dent fixed ourselves so he didn't need to, and he'd knocked a bit off the price to compensate us. So what if we only actually got it fixed so that we could sell it, lol.
Then it was off to the DOT to take our personalised plates off and replace them with a standard set, off to get the road worthy and safety certificate done (no prizes for guessing who ran these errands) then we took some photos and I uploaded the ad to the Trading Post.
After a slight drama with the Trading Post having two categories for Navaras - "Nissan Navara" and "Nissan Navara Ute" (despite the fact that they only ever came out as utes) - and our ad being in the Navara Ute category which didn't show up with a keyword search for "Nissan Navara", two phone calls and a whole lot of waiting on hold later, we had this changed and the phone calls from potential buyers started.
A man came round during the week and took it for a test drive. He loved it, and came back on Saturday with a bank cheque. He paid us $20500 for it. Not bad at all, considering we only paid $18500 when we bought it!
Naturally, Steve had already been scouring various car sales websites looking for potential replacements, and he'd picked out a nice dark green standard diesel GXL 100 Series Cruiser at Toowoomba. He'd phoned the seller a few times before we'd sold our Navara, and chatted about the vehicle. It was exactly what he wanted. The plan is to buy a standard diesel and save up the $5000 to get a turbo fitted to it. Two reasons for this - 1. factory turbo diesels in the 1998-2003 models are still selling for upwards of $35 thousand, which is well out of our price range, and 2. factory turbos come standard with independent front end suspension, and Steve would prefer a diff front end.
Sunday morning, we rolled out of bed (rolled being the appropriate word, after a night of eating huge steaks at Outback Jack's Restaurant... for those of you interested -no, Steve did NOT complete the challenge [see below pic], although he made a very good attempt, and my eye fillet was more than enough for me) and Steve phoned the guy selling the Cruiser in Toowoomba. He still had it, so we arranged to drive up and inspect it.
1 KG of rump, plus wedges and steamed veg! (If you eat it in half an hour, you get it for half price and get a t-shirt and your photo on their wall.)
After a bit of looking over the vehicle, taking it for a test drive and a whole lot more chin-wagging, we decided to buy it for the $22000 asking price. It's a little more than we wanted to spend, and for the first time ever Steve wasn't able to haggle for a cheaper price, but it is well worth the money.
They still need to get the road worthy, and we're still waiting on the bank cheque to clear from the people who bought our Navara, so it probably won't officially be "ours" until the end of the week, when we sign the transfer papers.
We're more than happy to be trading our 2005 model Navara for a 1998 Cruiser.
I promise to post pics once we get it.
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