The little suzuki escudo/vitara is no race car and it definatley is not oozing horse power. Its just a pretty simple small light weight no fuss 4x4 that quietly just gets the job done. My one has just had a 1.5" spring lift and some slightly grippier at tyres fitted. It goes most places although I dont push it to hard as being a hunting wagon once the going gets to tough it time to get out and walk. Being small it will fit in places the land cruisers and patrols wont. And being light weight ive been able to winch mine with a high lift jack
When buying one the k's on some of them dont necessarily mean high k's on the engine and gearbox as a lot of the tidier ones have spent a fair amount of time being a framed around behind camper vans.
The cons with them are they arent the most powerful 4x4 out there and soft sand will suck the power out of them. The other nasty habbit they have in the 1600 ones is they have a nasty habbit of cracking heads and blocks. The easiest fix for that is take the 1600 out and put a 1500 out of a cultus in. Its a very easy engine swap and the way suzuki rates their engines your not loosing much in the way of cc's. In fact I didnt really notice a drop in power. All in all its been a great little hunting road trip wagon towing a trailer around the upper north island full of camping gear.
