How do I decide on a Jimny?

Looking at buying a Jimny for deer management.  It will be a second car so won’t do huge miles.  
coming to conclusion that mechanically they are pretty solid and I can do bits myself mechanically. History is a bonus. 

how worried should I be about corrosion?  Looked at a few and been put off, especially as sellers are claiming they are solid examples?  Should I just be accepting that they will be rust?  Is it always repairable or are they examples out there where repair is just not feasible??

Any advice appreciated.

opening a can of worms with that question

tin worms

It's one of those things that depends on how competent you are with rust repairs. If you are then anything is doable if however you would have to pay someone then it makes more sense to spend money on a better clean car. It really is down to you.

It might help us to know what sort of year you are looking at?

Unfortunately Jimny's do rust. It's not un-common to see surface rust underneath on a 4 year old Jimny and the older they get, the more they rust. All because the body and paint work is nice and shiny, doesn't mean there is rust underneath the vehicle.

A Jimny does have a proper chassis and this can get surface rust on it, but that won't be a problem. Most of the problem areas for rust are associated with the chassis, the main places are

- behind the headlights
- the body mounts
- the upper suspension mounts
- the small boot pan

All of these can be fixed by cutting out the section and welding a new piece in but it's time and effort or cost. Have a look at the BigJimny Wiki about common problems and in particular rust (link below), it shows the common areas and provides details about fixing the issues.

www.bigjimny.com/mediawiki/index.php/Common_problems_-_overview

Sorry don't want to put you off, but best to go in to this armed with all of the knowledge. It sounds like you have already seen some examples and decided not to proceed.

Hope that helps

Robin

There was also a production period in the 2000s where manual Jimnys had weak gearboxes.  These will be long out of warranty so it could get expensive. Good used manual gearboxes without the same issue aren't easy to find.

Always check 4WD engages, as the vacuum locking system suffers from rusted pipes and the hub seals can leak too much air for locking to take place.  It's easily fixed but a point for negotiation.

Crankshaft pulleys can separate after 10 years or so and the bearing on the PAS/aircon tensioner pulley can fail.  The drivebelts are generally quite annoying on a Jimny as there is little space between them and the radiator, which officially has to be removed to change or tighten the belts.  There is no cambelt to change, though.