My second four wheel drive was a 2004 Holden Rodeo Crew Cab four wheel drive utility. This car followed the Jeep and had big shoes to fill, it never quite did.

This car had a 3.5L V6 engine and a 4 speed auto, as a four wheel drive it wasn’t in the Jeep league, the ground clearance was not as good and the long rear overhand was a hindrance in rough going.

It was however much cheaper to run, I took advantage of the govt gas conversion rebate and had the job done. Initially it ran very well on gas, it was actually difficult to tell if it was running on gas or petrol (it could run on either).

I had a second gas tank installed and it made it a very economical vehicle to operate.

Later however the gas conversion played up and it was often returned to the installation company for repair, the final straw was after I had to have a new gas injector system installed at considerable cost and even then still had operating problems. It was my opinion that petrol engine gas converting was still in experimental stages in Australia and there were a number of issues to overcome...I do know that newer systems inject LPG in a liquid state rather than gas and I understand this was a big improvement. After spending big on having many unsatisfactory repairs carried out on  the system I decided to get rid of it, whilst it was running okay. I did however develop a liking for the crew cab utility concept and the usefulness it offered, as you will see.