Deux Smurf - The Story So Far...

January 2023 saw Deux Smurf’s 27th birthday and our 7th anniversary together, and as there always seems to be a lot of love for her, I thought I’d dedicate a couple of pages to her ‘story so far’.

Back in January 2016, after our 1996 Land Rover Discovery lost her battle with rust, I desperately needed to find another 4x4, and quickly, as Muddy Madam and I had just set up The Mud Life website. At the time, the irony of having a 4x4 and outdoor website and NOT having a 4x4 wasn’t lost on us, so the search commenced.

In no particular order my list of basic requirements looked something like this:

- No more than £4,000

- Reliable

- Nothing too modern

- Good off road

- Good on road

- Parts easily available

- Proper 4x4 system, with low box

I decided to disregard Land Rover products as I wanted The Mud Life to be more generic, not just another green oval appreciation website; although a Discovery 2 was very tempting.

Having scoured the internet for a month searching for a new-to-me 4x4 that would make me feel all fuzzy inside, without success, I began losing the will to live. I arrived at the conclusion that I’d be better off searching for a set of hen's teeth in a bucket of rocking-horse poo.

I then posted a thread on the UK’s Toyota Hilux Surf forum bemoaning the fact there was hardly any Surfs for sale anymore. It didn’t take long for a forum member to link another selling type website that had a rather tasty 3rd Gen listed that was only an hour away. That fuzzy feeling returned.

Muddy Madam and I went over to Ormskirk to have a look, and not only was the Surf genuine, but more importantly for me, so was Paul, it’s current custodian. He insisted on showing me its service records and discussed at length what he’d done to it over the 2 years. I was smitten, but more importantly, so was the ever wary Muddy Madam. So we bought it, and I was a Toyota Surf owner, again.

With 166,861 miles on the clock, I was to be her third UK owner, and at £3,500, a little over the price I really wanted to pay, however, her condition was so good, and her current owner genuine, so it was a no-brainer.

Getting to know you…

Because she was our second Surf, and Surf still rhymes with Smurf, she was christened Deux Smurf, and after a full service that included changing all her belts and fluids she was put straight into Mud Life action. There were numerous blasts to the NEC in Birmingham, Wales and the Lake District, and before I knew it we had covered nearly 1000 miles in just a couple of weeks.

Although the windscreen wipers did their job, they did so in anger, they squealed with every single wipe they made, so I invested in a pair of Bosch Aerotwin wipers. I also replaced the rear wiper, a complete unit from Roughtrax. The wiper is attached to the arm with 2 very small screws and is quite a fiddly job to replace. You need to be careful not to thread them as they don’t come with the wiper, so you better not drop them either!

The General Grabber tyres that came with Deux Smurf, although perfectly road legal, had sadly past their sell by date when it came to green-laning, so a new set was required. This of course brings with it a whole new headache; mud or all terrains, expensive or budget? I have to admit that I’m a bit of a closed book when it comes to tyres as I’ve had BF-Goodrich All-Terrains on my last four 4x4s, and they’ve been exceptional.

With this in mind I sent a cheeky email to BFG, and low and behold they agreed to send me a set of their KM2 Mud Terrains to review.

Apart from servicing, nothing else was done to her for the next 2 years / 10,000 miles, and that was when her exhaust back box began to rattle when idling, so when I was at Milner Off-Road, on an errand, I bought a replacement. A new battery was fitted, too.

I think it was around this time when I got myself a pair of Thule roof bars so we could take our 16 foot open canoe on paddling adventures. I’ve had Thule bars on other 4x4s and I have to say they’re very sturdy - they have to be as they’re often thwacked by over hanging branches whilst green-laning.

In February 2019 we’d covered almost 20,000 miles with majority being green-laning, and two big changes happened. First BFGoodrich contacted me to ask if I wanted to try out their new KM3 Mud Terrains - daft question, and secondly I swapped her suspension.

When it came to on-road manners, Deux Smurf handled like a go-kart - absolutely brilliant for fast country lanes and motorways, but driving her around town and along bumpy green-lanes she was a nightmare and quite adept at rattling your fillings out.

Wanting a smoother ride with great flex whilst green-laning I posed the question on the Hilux Surf Facebook page for replacement suspension, and by an overwhelming majority Pedders was the name that cropped up time and time again with comments like; “Unbelievable ride quality”, “best decision ever” and, well you get the idea.

So the following day I sprung into action (see what I did there?) and had a chat with Roger at Pedders and I ordered their +1” TrakRyder kit and wow, what a massive improvement it made. Not only did she flex better ‘off-road’, but she no longer skipped and jumped over pot-holes, and her steering was much sharper, too.

The following year, 2020, with 192,434 miles under her tyres, her exhaust fell apart, so after recommendations I took her to SK Garage in Manchester and spent £400 on a new stainless steel exhaust which sounds epic!

Since then there have been more oil and filter changes, headlight bulbs and various suspension bushes and other sundries replaced, and of course we had the wheel nut debacle from a few months ago.

We also fitted a LTPZ-DLX-20E slim-line light bar on the bumper that Chris from ORE4x4.com kindly sent us, and more recently OSRAM’s 40” VX1000CB SM light bar that’s fitted underneath the Thule bar. Oh, and my best mod ever - fan washers jets that are covered in our February ‘23 issue.

There will be other bits that I’ve probably forgotten, but overall she’s been a fantastic 4x4 to own. In 7 years and around 32k miles I’ve spent around £2k on servicing, parts and labour, which I don’t consider too bad for a 4x4 that spends its time off the beaten track.

Fuel wise, a big 3 litre turbo diesel is never going to be the most efficient vehicle on the planet, but on a long journey she’ll achieved up to 27mpg. She’ll also run on veg oil which keeps the cost down.

Overall I’m incredibly happy with Deux Smurf, but I can’t take all the credit, we were lucky, she’s had 2 very fastidious UK owners who’ve kept her in fabulous condition since being imported into the UK.

What’s quite remarkable that everything still works. Having said that there are some things that are beginning to show their age, like the small bulbs in switches on the door panels which are dim, and of course headlamp bulbs which are a typical annoyance to Surf owners.

So what’s next?

Not much if I’m being honest, With 198,500 miles under her tyres it could be argued that she’s just about run in, and I’m happy keeping her fairly standard, but I’m tempted to make some practical and sensible additions that’ll make her better off-road. A rear locker would be beneficial, and I guess at some point I would also like to fit a drawer system in the back for when camping. But more importantly her chassis and nether regions will need coat of protection soon as surface rust is beginning to show, and there’s a spot of rust appearing on the bonnet that requires looking at.