I bought a brand new TD5 130 cab chassis in 2003. Only driven by me and I am not hard on vehicles. I do a fair bit of heavy towing (rarely over 2 tonne though) and thinking the Landy is rated to tow 3500kgs- No problem. So imagine how ****ed off I am at having to rebuild a gearbox after a mere 145,000km. Recommended to replace the clutch too, with the cost of labour to pull the gearbox out it would be a good idea since (although not worn out) its best days were behind it. Over $2000. I love my Land Rovers but this is not good enough and I will be writing to Solihull to let them know. Anyone else have similar problems?
So if toyota are such a quality product with a well developed quality system why have they averaged almost one safety recall per month,every month since the early 2000's and have recalled more vehicles in the last couple of years than every other manufacturer combined?.My last Toyota had a recall on the bonnet latch that had first been identified in 2006,my vehicle was a 2008 model.Doesn't sound like quality to me. Pat
Several reasons... You conveniently mention a date too - increased production abroad during the 2000s and limited uptake of Toyota Quality Principles in these overseas manufacturing plants for one. A Quality System can't prevent defects if it isn't implemented. Also, given the number of vehicles in the range and the sales volumes of said vehicles, it's not surprising that they have had recalls "more than every other manufacturer combined" (though I can't find a specific evidence of this), 3.8 million vehicles for the floor mat problem, has there even been 3.8 million Defenders built since 1948? Perhaps if the figures were as a proportion or an index it'd be a little bit more useful than headline grabbing gross figures.
You've also said that most problems people have are caused by flogging their cars to death or not maintaining them. Is it then reasonable to assume that in the absence of flogging a car to death and maintaining it well, no problems should occur? Or do the vehicles just have inherent faults?
There's plenty of evidence on here of Tdi big end problems, even with good maintenance (like in the case of rick130), but Isuzu engines seem to lack this problem. It seems to me that the Tdi would have an inherent weakness in that regard, as did Toyota's 1HD-T.
That would suggest that maintenance isn't the biggest determiner of whether an engine will last, perhaps it was flawed at the design stage.
Land Rovers biggest issue, obviously is the reputation of poor reliability.
People tend to talk about things more when they go bad, when i did my business training they showed us the results of studies that looked at customer feedback across a variety of industries, if a person has a good experience with a product they will tell aprox 7 people, if they have a bad one they will tell 20-25 people, these numbers multiply exponentially when the 25 tell their friends etc, percentages drop but the study was a very good indication that reputation will sell/not sell any product.
Mercedes Benz made some bad decisions in the 90s, they dropped Qual to save cash, people soon noticed this and MB got their worst ratings ever buy a huge margin in the JD Powers etc surveys, MB realised they needed to sort this as they were losing ten times what they saved with the cost cuts.
Mercedes did the right thing, they re-engineered all their cars and got the product back to a level that customers were happy with.
Land Rover should have done this in the mid nineties, they knew of the issues and they chose to ignore their customers, it cost them everything.
BMW and Ford, each purchased Land Rover for a pittance, neither could justify spending the $$$ required to FIX the brand, because so much damage had been done by then.
Land Rover i believe, only still exists today because of loyal supporters like us, people that will go to great lengths to keep their pride and joy alive, i hope the Indians who now own LR can do a better job.
My experience has shown me that the LR reputation is, unfortunately, deserved. I have a Defender - not quite 3 years old - and it has never gone for more than 6-8 weeks without something new breaking, leaking, failing etc.
All replaced under warranty - but really. A new vehicle. Sorry, but it's a very poor excuse for a tough truck.
Now - I've never owned a Toyota - never will either, but we have 20 or so Cruiser utes here at work - these are Geo's field vehicles. They are actually very good reliability wise, so being honest, I find the proposition of this thread, however well intentioned, simply untrue.
On top of this, with all the other LR I see (friends vehicles - club vehicles) - just far too many break down with predictable regularity.
The real problem here is me - I love them. Will my Defy ever become reliable? Time will tell, but to date it's simply crap.![]()
2007 Defender 110
2017 Mercedes Benz C Class. Cabriolet
1993 BMW R100LT
2024 Triumph Bonneville T120 Black
I started driving Land Rovers in the 1960s and have owned four to date. My current Landy is a Disco 2, which is driven carefully but is worked hard with lots of heavy towing (2.7 tonne caravan).
It is a well designed vehicle and I love it, BUT:
two steering drag links,
three MAFs,
one wheel hub (due to ABS sensor failure),
two V8 engines, (two liners slipped on one at 163,000, factory new replacement had excessive axial float at 7,000 km),
one ABS sensor,
one radiator,
one water pump,
one door lock,
one PAS pump,
one front prop shaft,
two front diff oil seals, etc
in 204,000 km is indicative of far too little emphasis on the quality of components fitted. Toyota does not suffer from this problem.
My Disco seems to have a random selection of fittings, with little evidence of the designer taking care to ensure that they can be accessed easily, which can make working on them a pain. Toyota does not have this problem either, but tends to standardise sizes and simplify access.
Land Rovers are much nicer to drive, but I don't think there is any doubt that Toyotas are far less likely to need replacement components during their life.
If only Land Rover did the design and initial engineering and Toyota did the production engineering and manufacture. Then we would have the best of both worlds.
I think that overall Toyos are more reliable. However they lack soul. Chose which you want, cause you dont get both.
Cheers
PS. 95 D1 V8 Auto - all orginal drive train at 290,000k - some heavy towing and off roading
02 D2 V8 Manual - all original drive train at 160,000k - heavy towing and a lot of off roading
PPS. Both have had usual silly stuff - welds breaking on electric window regulators; both have (recently) had master cylinder re-sleeves. D2 ABS modulator early on in warranty; D2 front CV's and drive shaft unis.
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