Lada Niva, good or bad?

[Mister K]

I am looking to buy a car next year and really want a 4x4 "SUV" type of a car. I heard that Niva's are pretty decent cars and even some old school Skodas.
What are your thoughts on getting a Lada Niva? yay or nay?

Currently looking at:

Lada Niva
Jeep Wrangler (pre 2001)
Land Rover Defender

Price range of up to £10,000.

[Deleted]

Take the Wrangler.

Nivas are really old and unless you live very near to Eastern Europe/Balkans expect to be screwed over when it comes to spare parts. My friend had one and there are quite a few still driving the roads around here but people mostly use them for drunk driving through the woods or driving the supplies to mountain lodges. The interior is very stripped and not too comfortable.

[firepaw74]

I owned original Lada Niva (not that Chevrolet 5 door crap) and it was incredible to drive. It was very light compared to other 4x4, really easy and cheap to fix (russian build quality is too shitty so prepare yourself for constant problems). In the real offroad you can easily outrun fat-ass Range Rover. I recommend you to look up Niva's made in Finland with diesel engines, they have really good build quality, good economy and more horses then russian petrol variants.

[Zstr]

Lada Nivas are monsters, but yes as previous poster said: spare parts are problems, and you will be in really need of them, though they are easy to fix
also if you looking for comfort it's not high compare to others, but if you looking for offroad use it's best choice out of all