Team-BHP - Used car in Ireland?

Hi,
I am planning ot move to ireland very soon. I am planning to buy a decent vehicle for normal use and soft offroading during weekends. I cant go for a new one at this stage. There are lot of used vehicles available in the used car market in Ireland. And its cheap too. You will get a good vehicle for 1500-2000 euro range.

I am targetting a pajero or grand vitara now or honda CRV. Can you guys suggest me the best vehicle for this purpose and the maintainance cost involved. I will list out the vehicles available in the market below.

Most of the indians use toyoto corolla there and I want to go for something different

hi, having lived abroad in New Zealand and Australia and the US as well, the most common thing one gets to see is the majority of Indians driving either Japanese imports or new Japanese cars, the reason behind this being the cheap running costs involved.

when i moved to New Zealand in 2001, i was fresh out of university and single, so settled for a 93 BMW 318i, which was imported from South Africa by its previous owner, got it at a real steal, but boy did i have a tough time maintaining it, the car was perfect.
it did everything any enthusiast would like a car to do, it was stuck to the road as if it had super glue on its footwear and what not, especially in the mountains [NZ is volcanic, hence the terrain is full of ups and downs] etc etc.
but then my bubble was burst when a tractor trailer nicked off my driver side rear view mirror.
i had to shell out 300 dollars to replace the assembly as it had to only be put in as new. as compared to the cars cost which was 3500 dollars :(
same was the case with a friend of mine, he dared to be different and got a 96 Saab 9000CD
very able car, and like we all know, European cars are built like tanks.
but he too suffered major losses when the airbag light on his dash kept flickering after his wife had backed into a garbage bin outside their house.
we had it checked at the local Saab dealer in Auckland and he charged us, 160 dollars for diagnosing the prob, and quoted a price of 4500 dollars as the complete airbag assembly had to be changed. [he bought the car for 2950 dollars]
we were scandalized and were wondering what to do. so we eventually decided that we had to keep that car no matter what, as we could not sell the car without a WOF [warrant of fitness {its done every 6 months in New Zealand to make sure your car is roadworthy}]
so we bought another crashed Saab 9000cd [for 375 dollars], parked it in his basement and used it for parts needed for his ride. he still has niggling issues till this day and still salvages parts off the crashed car in his basement.

hence moral of the story was to stick to Japanese imports as they were much less of a headache, and we used to only suggest to people to go in for high end cars or European vehicles only if they were filthy rich or it was a company vehicle :)

and about me, after the lesson learnt by me i settled for a nice nissan primera that served me well :)

but then again its your personal choice, but should you dare to be different, you should also be prepared to face the issues that come along.

cheers

Dr vignesh