Post by PG on May 10, 2019 19:10:28 GMT
Our Shogun - a SWB commercial - was 10 years old a couple of weeks ago. It's covered 78k miles in that time and we reckon about 25% of that has been towing a livestock trailer. So it's earned its keep and worked quite hard.
The first 7 years of its life were pretty uneventful - it just ran and ran. Since then a few things have needed to be done, but it has never broken down. A lot of the needs have been consumables - battery, brakes, tyres, exhaust. I'm not sure if three brake calipers (two last year and a rear this year) are consumable or not, but having learnt an expensive lesson getting the fronts done at the local Mitsubishi dealer, the rear was done by our local, friendly mechanic at a fraction of the cost (for both labour and parts). Also the clutch master cylinder went a few months ago and our mechanic reckons the clutch itself will need doing quite soon.
One thing that eluded diagnosis on two trips to the dealer was finally solved last month by the local mechanic. On start up the engine sounded, well, awful. Like somebody was hitting a can of stones with a spanner. As it warmed up it decreased but it was still a really bad noise. In desperation he stripped the front of the engine down and found that the rubber anti-vibration collar on the main engine pulley had perished. Hence the terrible noise. It was replaced and it now sounds much better. Hardly silent - it is after all a 3200cc 4 cylinder diesel - but much more like it used to.
Bodywork wise, it has a couple of scrapes, but has worn really well overall. The interior has worn very well. Inside and out it cleans up nicely when we bother - which is not often enough really. But it is a truck and is used and treated as one most of the time. I gave it a 10th birthday deep clean to be nice to it.
Our plan is to keep it. As when I investigated what it would cost to change to one of the last run out Shoguns before they stopped making them, we were offered £4k trade in against a new £38k SWB Shogun. Er.... no thanks. And even if we wanted to change it, apart from another Shogun I have no idea what it would be worth changing for. But we've decided to make another change to out fleet to compensate - see the other thread.
Here are the post clean photos before it got dirty agan.
The first 7 years of its life were pretty uneventful - it just ran and ran. Since then a few things have needed to be done, but it has never broken down. A lot of the needs have been consumables - battery, brakes, tyres, exhaust. I'm not sure if three brake calipers (two last year and a rear this year) are consumable or not, but having learnt an expensive lesson getting the fronts done at the local Mitsubishi dealer, the rear was done by our local, friendly mechanic at a fraction of the cost (for both labour and parts). Also the clutch master cylinder went a few months ago and our mechanic reckons the clutch itself will need doing quite soon.
One thing that eluded diagnosis on two trips to the dealer was finally solved last month by the local mechanic. On start up the engine sounded, well, awful. Like somebody was hitting a can of stones with a spanner. As it warmed up it decreased but it was still a really bad noise. In desperation he stripped the front of the engine down and found that the rubber anti-vibration collar on the main engine pulley had perished. Hence the terrible noise. It was replaced and it now sounds much better. Hardly silent - it is after all a 3200cc 4 cylinder diesel - but much more like it used to.
Bodywork wise, it has a couple of scrapes, but has worn really well overall. The interior has worn very well. Inside and out it cleans up nicely when we bother - which is not often enough really. But it is a truck and is used and treated as one most of the time. I gave it a 10th birthday deep clean to be nice to it.
Our plan is to keep it. As when I investigated what it would cost to change to one of the last run out Shoguns before they stopped making them, we were offered £4k trade in against a new £38k SWB Shogun. Er.... no thanks. And even if we wanted to change it, apart from another Shogun I have no idea what it would be worth changing for. But we've decided to make another change to out fleet to compensate - see the other thread.
Here are the post clean photos before it got dirty agan.
