Need help choosing two new (to me) cars!

If you want a four-wheeler buy an old jeep rather than the Toyota. Jeeps are more ubiquitous in your locale which means parts and mechanics are easier to find and thus cheaper. I found Jeep Cherokees to be fine vehicles. I'm not sure how the Liberty stacks up but you may want to look into those before the Toyota.

The Land Cruiser is a good vehicle, but any vehicle with that many miles will incur repairs. What are your repair options where you live? In some places repairs of foreign vehicles are still expensive and repair facilities limited.

There's a site now called http://www.truedelta.com/index.php?session_code= where they collect information from drivers about their cars -- I'd check it out, see what they're saying about the '96 Land Cruiser. I've heard great things about them too, but it never hurts to have more data. I've been driving Subarus for about 20 years now -- if you're looking for a 4-door sedan, check out used Legacies. They're reliable, affordable, and comfortable, and if snow is an issue the AWD is great (I live in Michigan and can testify). My Outback wagon still works well for my little family of 4 -- we've installed a variety of car seats and booster seats in the back, hauled the dog in the way back, strapped stuff to the roof for long trips, etc. Oh, and it's at 208,000 miles now and doing fine.

It all depends on what kind of car guy you want to be, and if you don't want to be a car guy, buying any vehicle with 162k miles on it is a last resort. If you want a carefree car that can do all that you listed above-get a subaru (probably and outback model) no more than 3 years old, a Honda CRV or Toyota RAV4 in that order. A Ford escape may also suit your needs but I don't have any personal experience with them. I totally agree with hms71 on the legacies and subaru AWD is really great, reliable and easy to work on. The toyota land cruisers are great vehicles for what they are-a true off road capable station wagon. They are also heavy, complex, handle on road poorly, prone to rolling over in extreme manuevurs and get poor gas mileage-these compromises are pretty much unavoidable when you want true off road capability. Jeeps are great vehicles, have great drivetrains and shit for interiors and electrical systems. I currently own two jeeps-a liberty and an old wrangler. The liberty is a great vehicle and was the wifes graduation gift from her family-but it does weird stuff that I see causing expensive problems later in the interior-windows sometimes stick, or don't work at all, interior lights are kinda wonky, and it doesn't get good mileage at all-around 15-16 is normal for day to day driving. The wrangler was also a freebie and is a bit of a nightmare maintenance wise for such a simple, basic vehicle. I have also owned about 5 jeeps over the years from the old huge wagoneers and cherokees to the the xj cherokee and the grand cherokees and now the liberties-and that is how i have formed the above opinion. Very little actual mechinical trouble but lots and lots of really annoying things breaking. A few years ago I talked my Mom into selling her grand cherokee and getting a lease return subura outback-which she loves. If cost is a big issue (it usually is) the new kias are actually pretty good vehicls and great values. The soul would appear to make a great cheap family vehicle. The nissan altima also looks to be a great value if you want something accordish but don't want to pay the honda premium.

Jeep Cherokees Second, if you can find one. They are the best bet for 4WD price/performance and so are becoming less common as people scoop them up. You can still get them dirt cheap - around $3000 for a nicer one that hasn't seen off-road action. ~15mpg or more depending on how you drive it, and parts are common and cheap. Look for non-modified with the Inline-6 engine.

My family owns a used dealership. It really depends on who owned that landcruiser before and how they took care of it. I would trade that civic in on a dodge caliber awd (what I drive).

My Dad had his '89 Land Cruiser for 16 years, and the only reason he sold it was because we moved to a different country. In that entire time, the only thing he ever replaced on it were the tires and the battery.

(And all the stuff for routine services, I guess. Spark plugs, dist. cap, the like.)

re trading in the 2 door Civic for a 4 door: my wife and I traded her 2 door Civic in for a 4 door VW when our child was born. As it turns out, it was actually a lot easier to get in and out of my 2 door BMW than into the VW. I don't remember if the Civic's seats lift forward or not, but if they do it's not as difficult to get to the car seat as you might think.