I did a photographic contract for a year on an island off the west coast of Scotland that is a National Nature Reserve. It is wild with basically no roads, only rough (very very rough!) tracks. They used to have Land Rovers but decided to save money and bought, so I believe, Vauxhall Brava pickups (re-badged Isuzu's). They had half-a-dozen of them, and broke ALL their chassis. Snapped them!
So they went back to LR's, 200 and 300TDi's. One went off the island whilst I was working there - a ten year old 200tdi with a full service history and only 30,000 miles on the clock - 3K a year! It had used several sets of springs, new shocks every year and two or three sets of doorhandles every year - so many of the latter because staff used them as steps when lifting stuff off/on the roofrack. It looked terrible but the engine was in tiptop condition and despite the bashes and scratches it was a keeper for the lad who bought it on the mainland.
Then they were told they needed to buy TD5's, and got three to start with replacing ones they'd disposed of, all broke down with temperamental and hard-to-diagnose engine problems. As the vehicles (and reserve staff) in addition to their Reserve Staff duties are also Mountain Rescue Team, Coastguard, Fire Brigade, Ambulance and Stalking Support vehicles, they needed reliability, the vehicles HAVE to start when required as lives may depend on them. So finally they went back to ex-export 300TDi's as the solution. They still have them.
There's good reasons why Land Rovers continue to be preferred in the rougher parts of the UK.
I got special permission to take my own 110 over whilst I was working there. It was warmer sleeping in it than sleeping in the Castle!
