One of my hobbies is checking out remote hot springs. I was too whimpy to take my Cayenne too far off road into the nasty stuff, but was getting tired of having to hike an "extra" 5 miles when I could easily have driven a good portion of it in a truck with good clearance. Found a guy on Craigslist about a year ago that had a '95 DI for sale, in what appeared to be an insanely low price. I ended up purchasing the thing for under a grand and as I started to investigate all the "issues", I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the major stuff had been taken care of.

Replaced the idle control valve and the rest was just tuneup matters. Had a busted belt in a front tire responsible for the bulk of the death wobble, and the remaining wobble was cured simply by tightening up suspension bolts. Some one busted the window during a breakin 2 weeks ago, and I got lucky that a Disco had just been dropped off at a self service wrecking yard. I went out to grab a new glass, but ended up raping that truck - and now have spares for practically the entire vehicle for under $300. All told, I'm into the thing for less than 2 grand, and would not hesitate to drive it cross country on a moment notice. She purrs like a kitten, and I've taken her 40 miles off road deep into the Idaho wilderness without narry a worry. I've put about 7,000 miles on it in the past year (mostly traveling to hot springs), and that represents about 1/3rd of my annual miles. So technically it's a part time driver. I like it so much that I've been contemplating trading the Cayenne for a proper sports car (and so my eco friendly neighbors will stop giving me the death stare for being a single guy with 2 gas sucking SUV's in the garage...)

 

We have 2, both daily drivers, except when they're in the shop
starter, alternator, head gaskets, water pump, leaking transmission, busted coolant tank....blown fuses and so on