What would it take to make a land rover "toyota" reliable?

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Reliability is built in not maintained in

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Agreed. however, without the maintenance the reliability will suffer badly eventually.

Regarding the eu vs jp car discussion. I am a huge .jp fan and have driven honda's for the most part of my car-life. However, if you look at surveys lately you see that they no longer fill the top spots in reliability and/or the distance between the different brands has reduced considerably. In my opinion this is NOT because eu and us brands have gotten that much better but that .jp brands have gotten that much worse!

My 1992 prelude I must have taken apart and rebuild, modified, etc. at least a dozen times. The screws, clips and what not of the dash still work like they were new. I got a 2004 accord in 2006 and the previous owner had an aftermarket navigation system built in and removed it upon sale and half the dash/panel clips had snapped. I though this was because of the ham fisted dealer but when I went to build in a ham radio I too broke half of the clips of the panels I had to remove... My conclusion; The build quality had suffered since .jp had a choice: keep building the best and sell none (virtually) or adapt to the masses :(

In any case:

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Back to the original question

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I already made a beginning in the first post and thanks for the addition slag_burner; I reckon that the axles and such would be relatively high up on the list. For the sake of argument I am looking into a defender at the moment since I believe that to be a model with the most after market support and a supply that will not dry up any time soon. I came across this video: Defender Front Axle 10 to 24 Spline Conversion Maxi Drive Halfshafts & Detroit Truetrac Upgrade - YouTube this bloke was improving his 1993 and went from the poorest to the best made LR parts, and then some. I guess this is what I am looking for, apart from the healthy and insightful discussion we are having on here :)

So, let's go with the defender (pre 2020 of course) for now: what would be the "best" build money could buy, within reason. I mean, replacing the axles completely with dana xx (whatever the model) 1 tonne axles might be overdone and I am not even sure that is allowed down here :) How could one build in reliability to the highest degree, before maintenance takes over this task. Also, any mods to increase comfort are also welcome.

Cheers!
-P

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Originally Posted by scarry

The tilt tray guy that picked up the sons Defender a few years back said if it wasn’t for LR’s and other European vehicles he wouldn’t have a business.

As for your comment,just compare the number of D2’s on the road to 200’s,there is just no comparison,although I doubt what he says is anywhere near the actual truth.

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Watching them around here, Toyotas pay the bills.
And it’s always big $$$ failures.

Toyotas?

Every Toyota gearbox has blown 5th or is about to.
Every 6cyl petrol has done a head and valves
Anything 80 series has needed Swivels and CVs multiple times.
The electrics have failed on every Toyota I know of.
Panels have torn welds and fatigue points.

Steering racks and boxes… well… best be upgrading.

Even a friend who loved his - got a top of the range 200, with everything you could want on it.
At the end of warranty - Sold…..

best part of 40 years around in them...

only had one fail to get me home and even then it got me so close to home the tow was covered under the free 50km tow radius of racq basic. (and truthfully I could have walked home from where it finally quit)

Cant say the same about toyotas or nissans and I've never owned one of them.