Thread: LR "reputation"

Let the flaming begin but the reality is the troopy will win hands down when not looked after. the low tech straight six 1hz and variants is like Nissans TD42 straight six. Will clock up immense Km's with abuse and without marking it's territory every time you pull in to someones drive. Having owned and sold all (except selling Landrover) Toyota and Nissan have it in reliability (not counting the Toyota V8 and Nissan 3L as these do have problems) They also don't leak anything like the Rovers.

So why do I drive a Rover? I love the Disco, 300tdi is great power for economy, mates in their Patrols always chew more fuel on every trip we do. The Disco is very capable (1 mate has a rear diff lock and the other is a ute with 4" of lift and 33" tyres) we all go over the same tracks and no problems (Disco is standard height with no extra traction aids) And comfort, The disco is also a great size around town not as big as the Patrol or Cruiser (unfortunately when we go away!) but still solid axle front and rear for off road articulation)

If you buy a Troopy you will have a huge interior and it will be very reliable. (without mods) You won't get as good off road abilities, forget highway performance, forget comfort and forget economy.

Land Rovers had a reputation of continuous improvement right until the end of the series 2a when the British Automotive Industry was nationalised by the Government as British Leyland under the leadership Lord Stokes (a Triumph man). At the time the Rover Co Ltd had a number of good projects in the design phase, like the Llama forward control, the Road Rover and Range Rover. The only one of those that got off the ground was the Range Rover and then although having waiting lists of several years BLMC did not provide any capital improvement funding to expand the production facilities.

Regarding the Land Rover marque, instead of having a County style vehicle in the 1970s (which was possible after the launch of the Range Rover) we had to wait for 15 years for it. As an interim measure we were provided with the dud Series 3 and it's abysmal IOE 6 cylinder* which allowed Toyota and Nissan who continued their improvement to take market leadership. (Remember that both Toyota Land Cruiser and Nissan Patrols were still leaf sprung and had 3 speed gear boxes at the outset of the Series 3 Land Rover.)

When you talk about reliability, in a recent UK survey the current D3, RR Sports and Freelander 2s have come in top for buyer satisfaction, a significant jump from being near the bottom with the D2 and Freelander 1.

Diana

* Why did the British Leyland U.K believe that Australia could only have the de-tuned 2.6 litre IOE 6 cyl, when the North American market got the Westlake headed 3 litre engine - a far superior engine in it's Land Rovers.