I was a Jeep guy for a long time - CJ5, CJ7, 3 XJs, and a ZJ, but I got out of the off road game when a few of buddies I'd wheel with sold their rigs. I also moved to Vegas and found absolutely no one interested in the sport, so I got into cars for a while (although one of them was a V8 BMW X5 that I put Range Rover wheels and AT tires on and still off roaded it from time to time 
). When I moved back home to Colorado a couple years ago, I decided to find a reliable and tough 4x4 that would be comfortable around town, great for ski trips, be good off road and have lots of aftermarket support. I chose the 100 series Land Cruiser for it's good clearance, perfect wheel base, factory center and rear locking diffs, silky smooth V8 and transmission, good looks and above it's bulletproof reliability record. I've built it fairly well with an OME 2.5" lift, Slee sliders, Slee belly plate, TJM bumper, 10k winch/w Factor 55, URBs, ARB drawers, CVT awning, Duratracs, and put lots of money into preventative maintenance.
I truly do love my 100, but the one thing that I haven't found myself using it for is camping which I figured we'd do all the time once I had the truck. In fact, we've only gone camping once in 2.5 years I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to roughing it, and part of the reason is that have a bad disk in my back and sleeping on the ground causes considerable pain for a couple of days after. That lead me to look for alternatives, and the most obvious choice was a RTT for the 100. The main reasons why that won't work are that I would not fit height wise into my garage at work or many of the garages around town I use. In fact, I couldn't even add a Yakima universal ski rack onto factory cross bars because of height! I do not have the option to simply remove the RTT when I'm not using it because I live in a loft/condo complex with nowhere to store it. The next option I considered was having a conversion where the roof would be cut and a pop top solution was put in, but I reached out to several well known vendors and none were interested at this point in doing a 100 series. The last option I've considered and the one I'm pondering daily now, is to replace the 100 with a JKU or JKUR and fit an Ursa Minor J30 top on it which I feel/hope would get us out camping more and would provide a more comfortable situation.
Probably the most critical area for me in considering a new vehicle is the reliability factor since I intend to be in remote areas and often alone. I used to carry 2 huge bins of tools in my XJ (mostly because I didn't have a garage LOL), and I could pretty much fix anything that happened to it. It had sticky starter solenoids, and every now and then I'd take a BFH and give it a few good taps and get on with my day Fun as that was, I'm not in college any more, I don't want to carry my garage with me in the Jeep, and I don't want to be calling my buddy with a new baby asking him to load up his car hauler onto his truck and come find me. He already gives me a hard enough time because his $60k Dodge Ram 3500 diesel is so much bigger and better than my 100
My question here is - have any of you been truly stranded by your JKU/JKUR? I don't necessarily mean because you were on some crazy hard trail doing something you should have said no to, gave it too much gas and snapped an axle, but more like you woke up ready to leave camp and the Jeep wouldn't start. Or, you were on a road trip and the ignition completely gave out and nearly killed you (like my ZJ). I'm looking for things that could mean the difference between making it out ok from the backcountry or potentially being in extreme danger because of a failure. I'm looking to buy a 2012+, however if I spotted a really good deal on an 07-11 or if someone wanted to trade me for my 100 I would consider it. If I buy a 2012+, I'll most likely buy brand new since around here they're pretty much the same cost new or used with 20-40k miles on them. Sorry for the long winded post - I realize I just kept rambling!
One of the XJs that I tinkered with in college:
The X5 that made people scratch their heads when they saw it on Jeep trails:
And the current rig:
). When I moved back home to Colorado a couple years ago, I decided to find a reliable and tough 4x4 that would be comfortable around town, great for ski trips, be good off road and have lots of aftermarket support. I chose the 100 series Land Cruiser for it's good clearance, perfect wheel base, factory center and rear locking diffs, silky smooth V8 and transmission, good looks and above it's bulletproof reliability record. I've built it fairly well with an OME 2.5" lift, Slee sliders, Slee belly plate, TJM bumper, 10k winch/w Factor 55, URBs, ARB drawers, CVT awning, Duratracs, and put lots of money into preventative maintenance. I truly do love my 100, but the one thing that I haven't found myself using it for is camping which I figured we'd do all the time once I had the truck. In fact, we've only gone camping once in 2.5 years
I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to roughing it, and part of the reason is that have a bad disk in my back and sleeping on the ground causes considerable pain for a couple of days after. That lead me to look for alternatives, and the most obvious choice was a RTT for the 100. The main reasons why that won't work are that I would not fit height wise into my garage at work or many of the garages around town I use. In fact, I couldn't even add a Yakima universal ski rack onto factory cross bars because of height! I do not have the option to simply remove the RTT when I'm not using it because I live in a loft/condo complex with nowhere to store it. The next option I considered was having a conversion where the roof would be cut and a pop top solution was put in, but I reached out to several well known vendors and none were interested at this point in doing a 100 series. The last option I've considered and the one I'm pondering daily now, is to replace the 100 with a JKU or JKUR and fit an Ursa Minor J30 top on it which I feel/hope would get us out camping more and would provide a more comfortable situation. Probably the most critical area for me in considering a new vehicle is the reliability factor since I intend to be in remote areas and often alone. I used to carry 2 huge bins of tools in my XJ (mostly because I didn't have a garage LOL), and I could pretty much fix anything that happened to it. It had sticky starter solenoids, and every now and then I'd take a BFH and give it a few good taps and get on with my day
Fun as that was, I'm not in college any more, I don't want to carry my garage with me in the Jeep, and I don't want to be calling my buddy with a new baby asking him to load up his car hauler onto his truck and come find me. He already gives me a hard enough time because his $60k Dodge Ram 3500 diesel is so much bigger and better than my 100 My question here is - have any of you been truly stranded by your JKU/JKUR? I don't necessarily mean because you were on some crazy hard trail doing something you should have said no to, gave it too much gas and snapped an axle, but more like you woke up ready to leave camp and the Jeep wouldn't start. Or, you were on a road trip and the ignition completely gave out and nearly killed you (like my ZJ). I'm looking for things that could mean the difference between making it out ok from the backcountry or potentially being in extreme danger because of a failure. I'm looking to buy a 2012+, however if I spotted a really good deal on an 07-11 or if someone wanted to trade me for my 100 I would consider it. If I buy a 2012+, I'll most likely buy brand new since around here they're pretty much the same cost new or used with 20-40k miles on them. Sorry for the long winded post - I realize I just kept rambling!
One of the XJs that I tinkered with in college:
The X5 that made people scratch their heads when they saw it on Jeep trails:
And the current rig:
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