Used 4X4 advice

[mattp1986]

Hi all, I'm looking at getting into a bigger car preferably 4x4 have a rough budget of £8-10k.
I've narrowed the choice down to Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4. I'll probably go with diesel automatic, as I think these cars would be lacking torque with the N/A petrol engines.
I've been looking at the 2011-2012 models of both cars and prices are around the same.
Just wondered if anyone has any experience of ownership of either and knows common faults etc, I would assume the Toyota would be more reliable going off name only, but I know Honda are pretty dependable vehicles also.

Thanks in advance for any replies, can't seem to find much info out there for these vehicles of these particular model years.

[sawman]

We ran a 2012 rav4 for 4 years and 65k miles. It was 3 years old when we bought it. It was a petrol automatic. The cvt auto transmission is a bit odd sounding but works well enough. It was utterly reliable, just needing tyres and brakes during our ownership. It averaged 30mpg with mainly trundling on school run with occasional longer runs. I think it was probably needing shock absorbers replacing by the time we sold it as the ride was becoming quite unsettled on some surfaces

The only issue I had was i couldn't get properly comfortable driving it, but my wife had no problems and she drove it mostly. Such was the seat issue that I chose to do long trips in our fiat 500 unless i really needed the space.

Overall, was a decent car, definitely worth consideration

[J1990]

I had a CR-V for about a year whilst living in Southern Thailand and used an '11 plate RAV4 (and a '98 Land Cruiser with over 800k km on it) whilst working in New Zealand. The CR-V never put a foot wrong and didn't seem to do anything badly, however I never really gelled with the car and couldn't see myself ever spending my hard earned money on one. The RAV4 on the other hand felt fairly robust, never put a foot wrong and generally just felt like a well made car, I had no issues when used for frequent gravel and snow drives out in it and I could see myself getting one if I was in need of a work horse now - If the land cruiser I was also using was anything to go by then I'd expect it to be able to run indefinitely if treated well.

[mattp1986]

Thanks for the replies, I have heard the petrol models of both cars are the more reliable engines, and as my mileage is usually under 10k per year I will probably look into that as big diesel repair bills would instantly eliminate any fuel savings made over a year.
Managed to find a local used car dealer who has one of each in stock so I'm popping down over the weekend for a test drive in both.
Looking forward to trying them out