Buy or Build an Overland vehicle

[Jeff Graham]

I’m going through the process of choosing an additional Overland Vehicle. I want to weigh all my options, before I make a decision. I’m trying to remove my personal bias from this buying process, as much as I can.
This leads me up to my questions, for the OB community. Buy a factory off-road built vehicle (Jeep Rubicon, Toyota TRD PRO, Ram Power wagon, etc…), or buy an older used vehicle and build it yourself.

The first condition: is that I have a fixed budget for this project. If I spend $45K on a new vehicle, I will have little remaining for Outfitting. My budget is $55K, and no more.

Second Condition: I live in an apartment, so would have to pay a shop to do some of the build. I can do electrical, bolt on accessories, etc.… Any work requiring a lift, I would need to have a shop do this work.

Let’s hear what the OB community thinks on this topic, and why. If there are other threads on this topic, please post them also.

 

[1Louder]

Build!

 

[OffroadTreks]

I’m going through the process of choosing an additional Overland Vehicle. I want to weigh all my options, before I make a decision. I’m trying to remove my personal bias from this buying process, as much as I can.
This leads me up to my questions, for the OB community. Buy a factory off-road built vehicle (Jeep Rubicon, Toyota TRD PRO, Ram Power wagon, etc…), or buy an older used vehicle and build it yourself.

The first condition: is that I have a fixed budget for this project. If I spend $45K on a new vehicle, I will have little remaining for Outfitting. My budget is $55K, and no more.

Second Condition: I live in an apartment, so would have to pay a shop to do some of the build. I can do electrical, bolt on accessories, etc.… Any work requiring a lift, I would need to have a shop do this work.

Let’s hear what the OB community thinks on this topic, and why. If there are other threads on this topic, please post them also.

So this is my own story. Maybe it might be useful. I had some similar considerations. I'm all for building. But I find my wants change regularly.

So last year we were full-time travelers. Living and traveling in our Airstream and towing with a Ram 1500. We gave up our first overland vehicle. But we were missing out on offroad adventures. And I couldn't add more to the half ton without really compromising payload.

So part of the reason I chose the PW was that, as a full-time traveler, I couldn't afford downtime for mods. It was our sole vehicle. So we couldn't easily drop it off at a shop for mods. Shops and labor are expensive.

Like you in the apartment, I didn't have a garage either. Can't work on a truck when your home is parked in a National Park.

The PW just checked a lot of boxes for us. Keep towing the Airstream, get offroad quickly, with the factory lift, winch, front and rear lockers and AT tires. And we bought late model used. Bought our 2015 with low mileage, someone else took the MSRP hit on and owned for a couple of months. So we had money left for mods. But not a lot was needed. Sliders, 35 inch tires, diff protection. That's really it. Other stuff since then has been really optional, some of it cosmetic.

So that was the reason why I chose the ready built. Not exactly the same situation, but similar. I will say this, the ready built or almost built, like the Rubicon, you can just get going faster than building. Whatever you start to build, might not be ready from day one.

We took the Power Wagon wheeling the day after we bought it out near Valley of Fire in Nevada. Our first rig we built, wasn't that capable on day one. It took some time and work.

We settled down last year to pursue another goal, and I keep thinking more about us building a second rig. We have a garage, and room and tools now. And now it feels like we could build something more slowly.

I'd love to build something like an old Jeep Cheif or maybe an old school Suburban since I have kids.

Good luck.

 

[Raul B]

Honestly... which one will take you out to the trails faster? If your not going to be rock crawling and strictly just using it to overland a stock Rubicon would be more than enough to get you out and exploring....

 

[vegasjeepguy]

Buy a capable platform (4WD, high clearance, etc.) and then build it.

 

[Red Beard]

I say build if you have the skills to do so.

 

[French]

Build it.

 

[adventure_is_necessary]

Find a capable platform with desirable aspects. Then build it right. No point in buying an expensive rig and then turn around to dump more money into it to make it what you want. Depending on your needs out of a rig, stock form can handle a bit, but there's still some that would need to be done to accommodate you, any passengers, your gear, and then protecting it all and making sure it all gets where you want it to go. It also depends on your timeline for completion, as some rigs might require extra work due to their age and life. If I had the budget you had, I'd get a Grand Wagoneer or Cherokee Chief, clean it up and resto-mod it.

 

[Keboh]

I'd grab a JKU with a hardtop and decide if you want to build from there. Those things will go really far stock with good tires.. you'd be surprised. Get that, add some recovery and maybe some armor, and see if you really wanna build from there.