Thinking about a second Xterra!

[shane_sd]

My wife bought her 2007 xterra new before we were married. It's coming up on 100,000 miles and it has been rock solid and great on long road trips. Other than the timing chain noise that was fixed and the shocks going bad very early, it has been good to us. It's also nearly paid off.

Their is one problem, it's not a 4x4! We live in Southern California where bad weather hardly exists, and although I'm not a hardcore off-road guy but I love hitting the trails and I usually hit em' hard.

My question is if I were my Honda for another xterra, which 2nd generation 4x4 model would be my best bang for the buck for off-road use? I see an 05' SE in my area with 4x4, it's priced right, but doesn't have the rear lockers. How important are rear lockers for off-road use?

I'm guessing the obvious is to go with the Off-Road model, but those are pricey.

Is their anything I should know about the 2nd gen xterra's and the difference between models when looking for an off-roader?

Sorry for being a little scatter brained, all suggestions are much appreciated.

[Mathster]

If your light on your offroading, trail runs, some mud or crawling, I would go with an S or SE before looking at the Off Road edition.
the locker on the offroad edition only locks in 4lo.
Also, I have 120K on my gen1 X and almost 200K on my gen1 frontier
If you worried about two Xterras getting along, my gen1 and gen2 dont mind each other.

[shane_sd]

Would it be possible to add an ARB locker later if I wanted to?

[RacerXXL]

Originally Posted by shane_sd

Would it be possible to add an ARB locker later if I wanted to?

Sure you can, just realize they are not cheap. Locker, compressor, installed will be in the neighborhood of $1800

[shane_sd]

Originally Posted by RacerXXL

Sure you can, just realize they are not cheap. Locker, compressor, installed will be in the neighborhood of $1800

Is the ARB locker as good as the OEM?

Should I just wait for an Off Road model to show up locally?