u/Aggressive_Falcon942

If the government puts out a contract with the goal of getting the best deal, and companies respond with bids, why can't the companies know about eachothers bids, and enter a bidding war downwards, the same way buyers enter a bidding war upwards when goods go up for auction?

I understand the cheapest supplier may not be the best quality, but it seems like you could use other rules to prevent that without interfering with this downward bidding war.

I understand that companies could collude and refuse to participate in this bidding war, but that would mean every company but one of them losing the contract.

I feel like there must be a really obvious answer that I am missing here, any help is appreciated.

My family currently has a volvo xc60 and ford ranger, both of which have needed to be in the shop more frequently than we would like. We are looking for a more reliable car with lower cost for parts, maintenance, and insurance. We have tried our share of luxury vehicles and prefer more simple and rugged vehicles, hence why we are looking at some older non-luxury models.

We have to haul yard debris relatively frequently, and we currently use the Ford ranger to do this. We are also considering purchasing a camping trailer, so we want to purchase an SUV capable of towing a small utility trailer, and a medium sized camping trailer comfortably.

We used to own a 3rd gen 4runner, and it was by far our favorite vehicle. We would like to have something similarly rugged, simple, offroad capable, and reliable. We miss being able to go on dirt roads without concern for the body work, oil pan, or the vehicles capability.

Been looking around and found these vehicles which seem to have fairly strong offerings for their price point. Wanted to get some opinions on which would be best. Mainly looking at the first generations of all these vehicles (2nd gen for montero), so mainly between 1995 and 2010.

Was having a hard time finding information on how the montero compares, so I wanted to post here, thank you for the advice!