Some advice in purchasing a 1995 Jimny in Africa

Hello all, I found this forum via google and had a quick question for the community. I am currently living in East Africa for work and have a pretty limited budget for cars, but found a 1995 Suzuki Jimny with 120,000km. It has a hard top, 4wd automatic. It is RHD, and seems to be in pretty good shape. The owner was adament about regular servicing, and the oil & Filter look like they have been changed recently.

I like the car, its clean and engine seems to run well, and it’s a pretty good price for Tanzania at $4,400 (Cars here are ridiculously expensive due to import tariffs).

I have experience with Toyota trucks, but never had a Suzuki. I wanted to reach out to this community to see if anyone had any advice for what to look for in an older Jimny that is going to be purchased used.

I'm going to take it to a mechanic soon to have it examined. Is there anything in particular with the engine or transmission I should be aware of with higher mileage engines?

I noticed evidence of an oil leak from the valve cover gasket (no oil visibly leaking, just oil on the head).

I will have a small budget to put some work into the car - if it needs work ($1,000, but labor here is really cheap so parts are really the limiting factor for budget constraints).

If anyone has any advice to offer it will be much appreciated.

Thank you,

T

Hello,in the UK the "Jimny" wasn't introduced until 1998. Before that in the UK we had the SJ410 or SJ413 or samurai which I presume is the car you are looking at??
Most of these suffered rust problems and there are not many left on UK roads although a few are still used offroad.
Rust is the biggest issue but I suppose you won't have that problem!
This is a different car to the Jimny as known here although it has many similarities in the running gear.
I,ve no doubt someone can help you out.
According to Wiki some were built in Nairobi??
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Jimny

Burton, Thank you very much for the advice.

It actually is branded as a 1995 Suzuki Sierra, and it has the 1.3L petrol I4 engine. I didn't realize that there were Suzuki's manufactured in Kenya, but I did notice that the car had import paperwork from 2003, so I assume it was a Japanese import. (Possibly Dubai too).

I just got back from having a mechanic check it out.

There isn't any rust that I could see on the body, and the frame looks like it's in really good shape too. A little dusty, but definitely no rust holes.

The mechanic said that it looked pretty good - but as with any 18 year old platform, could use a little work. He said it would for sure need one of the engine mounts replaced. I did notice a little engine wobble, but wasn't too terribly worried.

If anyone else has any advice or issues to look out for I appreciate it.

Best,

T

Rumour has it that Suzuki had a look at the Landrover and built a more compact version
I can't really comment on the running gear but they are sturdy. I've no doubt someone on here will tell you more as they were very popular off roaders in the UK. In the meantime
www.suzukiclubuk.co.uk/articles/1-guide-to-buying-a-suzuki-sj

Suzukiclubuk is the best place to get advice on an SJ/samurai but having had one the main issue is rust. It forms on the wheel arches and floors and the rear corners of the shell behind removable panels that hide it.

The carburettors on 1.3 engines can be problematic occasionally and don't like being put at extreme angles or the float chamber empties and they stop the engine through fuel starvation. In the UK people have manifolds made up for Su carb conversions and our 1995 cars had fuel injection to get past our emissions laws back then, but I don't know if they had fuel injection in Africa then.

Leaf springs gave a harsh ride but llama4x4 in the UK sell some fantastic soft lift springs and some of the last ones made around this era were coil sprung in a similar way to the Jimny.

They were a far hardier car than our Jimnys but less comfortable.

Kirkynut