A commercial vehicle in Bali earns its keep on bad access roads, in wet-season mud and under loads it was never quite designed for. Cosmetics are irrelevant; the clutch, the gearbox, the leaf springs and the chassis rails are the purchase.

Diesel dominates for a reason — torque at low revs, cheap fuel and a rebuild culture at every workshop. Check for blue smoke under load, oil weeping from the injector seals, and a clutch that bites right at the top of the pedal.

Look underneath at the chassis rails and the spring hangers. Coastal rust plus overloading cracks hangers first, and a cracked hanger is a workshop week, not an afternoon.