Not defending LR at all, but in both of those cases there is a complete lack of any detail regarding mileage, service history and maintenance ... the whole lot.

It could be that the cars concerned have got 150-200k on the clock, with independent service history or self-serviced from day 1.

Without a lot of details, it'simpossible to pin any blame on any party.

The problem with the luxury cars like this is that they made them so technical, and instead of finding an engine suitable for a truck, big lazy and torquey, they plonked car engines in, multi cylinder but relatively small swept volume per cylinder, which haven't proved to be especially durable unless maintained over and above.

One could wonder too what sort of mechanical sympathy these dead engines have seen, run low on oil? thrashed to hell from cold? switched off with the turbos still glowing red?

Maybe the sales successes have a sting in the tail, for them, in that in the newer catchments of buyers and users are people with little knowledge about looking after vehicles (i know of Disco 3's and 4s which have done immense mileage but have been looked after properly), where possibly Japanese competitor vehicles haven't appealed to the demograph that lacks mechanical sympathy to quite the same extent?

I don't know the answer to that question obviously as this is only opinion, just wondering aloud, i freely admit to being a Landcruiser fan, but if you neglect and abuse them they too won't forgive you, but Toyota hedge their bets by not offering stupid service intervals, nor do they try to get sports car performance from their industrial vehicle range.

I hope the new Defender has the simple attricbutes of the old one.

Edited by gordonbennet on 24/04/2018 at 19:56

(Land Cruiser doesn't have 3.5 ton tow capacity).

Good point about the 3.5 ton towing capability, Toyota downrated the standard Landcruiser to IIRC 2.8 tons, probably to keep the Amazon range as the top weight puller, yet they've pulled the Amazon 200 from UK sales, to be fair it didn't sell in high enough numbers.

They have launched a more basic Landcruiser at very good prices, though still hobbled on towing capacity, yet i've known of people that have always towed well in excess of 3.5 with Hilux and standard Landcruiser and the vehicles laugh at the weight despite not being plated so high.

But Toyota still have the modernised 70/78 series on the books, now powered by the hefty 4.5 V8 Diesel and 3.5t (or as much as you could want in reality) towing, but won't bring that here...i'd have thought this period without a proper commercial LandRover to sell would have been the time to strike with that 70 series vehicle in any of its various formats.

You'd love it PC, its everything the Defender should be and with the engine Defender always cried out for, though they kept the old style drive, RWD normal with locking diffs all round so centre diff has to be locked to get drive to the front axle, not sure that UK buyers could cope with having to think about terrain and grip etc regarding transmission wind up if they left it in 4WD after leaving the slippy stuff!

My friend has one of these Land Cruisers and he said he could pull a train with it.

www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/20180305427...2

agree with your opinion