Jeep Vs. LR
I sat and read the whole thread; and like most people I'll add my 2 cent. I have a LR Dicso I and had owned a Jeep Cherokee XJ.
The Land Rover: "Nigel" has been in our family since 2003. He is a 1999 Discovery Series I. The Discovery Series I was supposedly alot more reliable for different reasons, electrical being one of the biggest. Nigel has 170k miles and the back door is jammed shut, one window is taped up, the rear view mirror falls down all the time, the headliner touches are heads, the windshield leaks in heavy rain, and everything plastic is just about broken. The turn signals have a mind of their own but work every April when he is due for inspection so who cares. With that said all we have done is oil changes every 3-5k miles and brakes. That is literally it. He travels a lot too. We go to Maine in the summer and Florida every winter multiple times. I live in NC and take him up to the mountains a few times a year too. He hauls my 25ft pontoon boat like there is nothing there. Nigel is not typical though and quite frankly we dont know how he is still on the road. We dont do maintenance we dont take care of him and we dont wash him. He gets no love what-so-ever and still keeps on ticking. He's as faithful as our Collie and we love him.
The Jeep: I was the 6th owner and bought him while I was in college. A lot of my friends and family had had XJs and they were always reliable. You can NOT kill that 4.0 its bulletproof. He was a money pit for me. But I was the 6th owner, all of the owners had been men age 18-25 so the fact that I had him for 4 years is incredible. I replaced the suspension (3" lift) the headers (XJ headers always crack) which was good bc mpg increased too. I replaced all the window regulators (crappy plastic junk) the power steering, the transfer case, the transmission cooler, and the 02 sensors. Thats what comes to mind to begin with. HOWEVER, my blood sweat and tears was in that grunt of a Jeep and I have never loved another vehicle more, nor have I ever hated a vehicle more. If I could do it again I would buy a 1 owner well maintained Jeep and keep it up. I cracked him pretty bad (turns out he had been in an accident before and I didnt know enough when I bought him to see it, live and learn) He currently has once again been ressurected and is now strictly a trail rig. I put 70k miles on him in 3 years and he saw 100s of miles on remote back roads in Va, WV, and NC. He was like a little brother, a real pain in the *** but you love him none the less.
I didn't proofread this so give me a break.
In the end I have to agree with a lot of the guys on here when they say buy what you love. I bought the XJ bc of his classic boxy lines and American heritage. Nigel, our Landy is a quirky old chap that carries all the heritage and proud English tradition that is Land Rover.
As for Toyotas, I will never own one. Not bc they arent reliable (my gf has a '91 4runner that was her father's and at 230k miles its runs like its brand new) but bc my Grampa was in the 1st Marines during WWII and fought from Guadalcanal on to Okinawa and on his death bed he made me promise him to never buy a Japanese vehicle.
Pick a vehicle for what it can be not what it is, its just metal essentially, you can always modify it to what you want. A real overlander is never truly done anyway.
