Yep, if you have doubts, particularly about what you’ve been told by the seller vs what you’ve discovered........ walk away. Plenty more available.

Re. NRMA check. May be ok, bt I had an RACV check done on my Patrol before buying. It wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. The inspector was obviously unfamiliar with Patrols & reported a major problem with the gearbox. On advise from others I paid a 4wd transmission specialist $100 to check it out. Their report was that there was no problem at all. I suspect the RACV inspector wasn’t aware of the low rev transmission growl common to the TD42 & some other diesel 4wds.

On the basis of my experience I’d suggest you have a 4wd specialist do the pre-sale check. Find one near the seller & if the seller is not willing to take the car to them, walk away again. Our check didn’y just find the gearbox was fine, they found a number of other issues which the seller then fixed. The cost of the check saved me around 800 to 1000 in fixes including a replacement fuel tank which was leaking.