Choosing a quality crossover isn’t easy. It’s worse when the previous owner used a car in this class for regular off-road driving. Infrequent exits to the dirt crossover are not afraid. But if the car every week waded through puddles and snowdrifts, it is absolutely obvious that the wear and tear of its units’ resource will be much higher than the declared one. No old owner will tell you about peculiarities of exploitation. However, the presence of “roadless past” can be specified by some modifications.
Search and call
At the stage of searching for a crossover ad, it’s worth remembering the main thing. If the ad contains any mention of “refinements to improve the passability,” it is better to immediately pass by. You should also double-check the car for availability of refinements during the call. For this purpose we use a provocation: let’s say the way home is not easy. If the owner will brag about the car performance, you should immediately doubt your initial choice.
Cursory inspection
If the first two phases of acquaintance with the car passed successfully, it is time to meet the owner and see the goods. Ziggy tires, the presence of a winch, non-standard bumpers, lifted suspension – all these are the reasons to refuse to buy. Most elements of such tuning accelerate the wear of the suspension as a result of its overload or violation of geometry.
Body check
Next important step. Badly closed doors, condition of plugs under the towing eye, marks of bumps and scratches – all these things can tell how often the car was off-road. Always remember that a crossover is still a car for paved roads, not a car for heavy-duty driving.
Checking the engine compartment
First of all, you should check the presence and type of grille. If it is too frequent, it means exactly one thing – blowing of a radiator all this time was worse than it was calculated. This in turn causes systematic overheating of the engine and gearbox, if the latter is automatic.
Underbody inspection
Be sure to look under the bottom of the car. Do we see there a complete kit for protection of units? It is absolutely obvious that all this time the crossover was used for offroad driving. Therefore, it is better to refuse such purchase at once. It is not superfluous to ask about availability of self-locking differential. It is definitely a useful function, but it decreases a resource of the unit drastically.