2017 Best Overall Towcar
Well it's official The best overall towcar is apparently the new Land Rover Discovery.
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One and never own another first 6 weeks spent four of them back in the garage admittedly it was the early disco, it had that many faults over 18 months cut me losses. Once bittern twice shy as the saying goes, went back to the shogun, two over the next 18 years never had a spanner on them apart from service. My view, you have your own. Now on a Hyundai Santa FE had it six months looking ok it will have a lot to come up to the Shogun standard. Here's hoping.
PS Santa FE with its discount 18K less than the Disco, top of the range Wiggins with all the bells and whistles
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I have to agree with your comments and view about Shoguns, we have owned two Shoguns over 16 years and can not fault them. Some people think they are like farm tractors but they keep going and get you home every time. We would never change our's.
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DaveFL2" "learnt something every day top of the range Hyundai! " So what you got in your car for 32k here's ours. Heated and cooled seats front an rear, heated steering wheel, lane departure, blind spot warning in both mirrors, self parking, 2 seat settings automatically sets has you get in, moves back on exit to give better access, cruise control, parking assist front and rear, speed control, automatic lights that even bend round to contour of road, automatic wipers, automatic dip head lights, fuel computer, 19" alloy wheels, sky sun roof, do you what me to go on cause there's more. Car should have been £37.700 we did a deal for 32k.. l am pleased with what l got for my money. the only other cars l have had other than the Shoguns let me down badly, won't name them for fearing l get agro posts
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Well said Heethers! In similar vein, I had 4 Toyota Landcruisers and put 90,000 on each before taking another. so a total on the landcruiser of 360,000 miles. Unscheduled visits to garage - None! Failures of anything other than service items, - None! No. - not even a brake lamp bulb! Those cars were totally reliable! Sadly Toyota spoilt the engines in an effort to get lower emissions! So I changed to Mercedes ML300CDI Much better V6 Turbo Diesel than the Toyota, and far better on Fuel and Tyre wear. 35,000 per set and all worn at exactly the same rate. BUT reliability not as good as the Toyota Landcruisers. Let down by periodic electrical gremlins !
Would have tried a Disco but always put off buying one by stories of questionable reliability, I simply cannot accept any unreliability in any car, so will not buy one.
TF
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Would have tried a Disco but always put off buying one by stories of questionable reliability, I simply cannot accept any unreliability in any car, so will not buy one.
TF
Never owned a Disco or driven one, but my life is also not controlled or led by stories. If I fancied one I would deal in facts.
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Dave FL2,
OK fact one. You find Toyota Landcruisers in every tough spot in the world. Rarely do you find the Land Rover equivalent.
Fact two I have spent quite a lot of my time In the South Australian Outback. There the Landcruiser is King. The idea of using a Land Rover out there is met with derision and shouts of don't be bl**** daft mate, we want to come home afterwards! Seriously the LR has a very bad name out there, for serviceability, especially where the opportunities for maintenance are few & far between.
Fact three. How many disco owners do you know who can say that they have driven their disco's hard over 360,000 miles, and not had a single failure in all that time? The Landcruiser even carries two big 12v batteries under the bonnet to spread the load. They are a bit over engineered but thats how i like them. They will not let you down.
Thats what I mean about reliability, - bomb proof reliability. My Toyota 's gave me that. True they don't have all the modern cutting edge electrical gismo's, but what they have goes on doing it, come hell or high water.
I don't have the same feeling about my ML which has failed me on a couple of occasions due to electrical faults in the locking system. I only keep it because it has such a great V6 3 litre engine. Better than the Toyota's 4 cylinder engine now that they have spoilt it, in order to lower emissions etc.
TF
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I was always amused by the series of VW adverts on TV a while back.
The ones where some weedy guy is telling his mates "it sounds just like a volkswagon" or "it's just like a volkswagon" or similar.
The irony is that the sort of people who say these things are invariably........Skoda owners!
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TF
There you go again, you are in the past.
360000 miles, you are in 1990's and talking about Landcruisers and Discovery 1's that needed a repair truck in its wake. Freelander 1's that had a particular petrol engine that overheated and warped the head and block. Landrover had a bad name for reliability and you like to believe it is still the same by holding onto your 'stories'. No-one doubts Toyotas reliability in their older engines, unfortunately the newer ones are not so good.
Times change, as do cars and their manufacturers.
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DaveFL2,
You might be right, who knows? But when things need to go right first time, I still want the confidence that owning and driving a totally reliable car gives me. I am afraid that Land Rover still don't give me that. Once I see them out there in the bad lands of the world, coping with little maintenance and back up, then I will perhaps buy one. I still am in contact with all my mates in South Australia, and the Land Rover is still not acceptable out there as a real alternative to the Toyota or the Mitsubishi. Even the Subaru is stated higher.
TF
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Tiger fish l am with you, l may catch cold by going for the Santa FE and wished l bought another Shogun but the 300 quid road tax and the fuel economy won the day, plus her that has to be obeyed loved the SF. The disco wasn't in the running due to the high end price, l could be wrong on the reliability. Having said that a work colleague bought brand new range rover sport 80ks worth first six months a total of 6 weeks in the garage for one thing or another, never got to the other 6 month, cut his losses and swapped it for a Merc. We can here horror stories of all makes, so you takes your choice and live with the consequences. Having said that at least the car industry is more reliable than the caravan Industry
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...now, if the Koreans started building caravans.....
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Or even if Carlsberg did
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Funny how folk perceive things.
The 1991 model year (MY) Ford Escort was one of the worst cars ever made and was a typical example of a car made by a committee to a price. Virtually all the components failed at some point, even obscure things like seat runners, air vents, dash illumination and switch gear. The body pressings were truly dreadful with ripples along the top of the doors and the paint work was full of dirt. After about 18 months the car was revamped with nearly 1000 modifications. It was only a slight improvement. More improvements followed when it was face lifted around 1995 when it got to the "it's as good as it gets" stage. Even the front seat upholstery used to fail due to sharp edges on the frame cutting through the foam padding and then through the covers.
The Ford Escort was Britains best selling car for nearly 10 years!!!0 -
I can see that the long held tradition of deriding anything that is manufactured in GB is alive and well, your quote " The idea of using a Land Rover out there is met with derision and shouts of don't be bl**** daft mate, we want to come home afterwards!", is similar to the old Toyota ads and of course they would say that wouldn't they.
I assume the reason you haven't mentioned the abysmal rate of recalls for faulty Toyotas is because the biased British press never report it. In the last eight years Toyota have been up there in the top four, in the states alone approx twenty four million fault recalls in the five years to 2014 and still up there in the top four, not trivial faults either, exploding airbags and throttles jamming wide open etc. Imagine the press reports if these had been Land Rovers.
At the end of the day we choose what suits us best but as Dave FL2 said you are harking back to the faults of twenty five years ago. I am on my sixth LR, all fault free so far and I am proud to drive a vehicle manufactured in the UK that is renowned all over the world (apart from Australia that is)!Give it a go Tigerfish, you might be pleasantly surprised!
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Well said Vulcan !
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I suppose if we lived in the outback or Africa we may think differently but as I live in Lincolnshire I am not really worried about meeting an elephant around the corner or being 100 s of miles from civilisation. My Volvo has 3 years warranty which I hope not to have to use but if it is needed I am not really worried. I certainly wouldn't drive round in Toyota land cruiser because they do in Africa, because I don't like them .I don't like Mercedes either but as I have a choice I choose a Volvo . I see a lot of LR stuff on the roads so they are obviously very popular and I don't knock people for buying one. I also don't want an old car and am lucky enough to be able to drive a newer one but that is not to say that some people don't do very well with older cars. I think for everyone who gets a lemon there are a lot more with good reliable cars much the same as caravans.
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I do not accept the view that my experiences with Landcruisers are based on old experiences. The first Toyota 4x4 that I purchased was a Colorado in 2001. That did 90,000 with no failures, and was swapped for an Landcruiser LC2 in 2004, 90,000 later a LC4 followed in 2007. The LC4 did its 90,000 by 2010, and was followed by a LC5 which did 90,000 by late 2011 when I retired, and it was replaced by the Merc ML300CDI. None of the Toyota's had anything other than routine service items during the period 2001 - 2011. So I would argue that my experiences are not that archaic. However I do accept that i recent years the smaller, none heavy duty Toyota's have let the company down a bit. BUT none of those failures were involving the Real Landcruisers!
Since my retirement my mileage has dropped significantly, I now do less than 12,000 per year. The Merc has been outstanding in respect of its 3 Litre V6 engine which runs like a sewing machine. Now with 73,000 on the clock , she returns 35,000 per set of tyres all worn at exactly the same rate. Fuel consumption is good ranging from 26MPG urban to 40mpg on an easy run solo. Average per tank about 34 mpg. She tows 1630Kgs like she's on rails, at about 23 MPG.
BUT she's not as reliable as the Toyota ! On one occasion taken to the garage on the back of a truck following total electrical failure , and two more occasions of partial electrical issues. All associated with central locking problems.
Given a free choice (Which being retired I no longer have) I would swap her in, but not sure where I would go. I am afraid that LR still do not have the reputation for total reliability that I seek .
TF
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Tiger fish l had 3 shoguns, l bought a Punjero import off a friend of the wife built like tank only car l made money on bought it for 6k sold it £6500, then did a very silly thing remember fords first 4x4 yep you got it, the dreaded Maverick could not get 8000 out of asset of tyres, due to fords power steering, turbo trouble starter motor trouble, only thing didn't go wrong was the sunroof but l believe the body work was Nissan. Swapped after 8 months for MG VVC for the wife's 45th birth day. l my self found a 3 year old 2.8 Shogun GLS SWB kept it 8 years, only thing wrong in that 8 years needed rear brake light had a job to get the screws out to replace the bulb. it had done140k when l part ex for 2007 SWB Shogun equippe only problem l had with this was the vrg valve crudding up with soot deposits from turbo. changed from super market fuel and added an additive every 3 months no more problem. The shogun did 84k when l part ex for the SF, hope l have done the right thing, l am saving 300 pound road tax and getting 30 mpg out of the SF expect that to rise has its only done 4k.l believe in what you are saying if the Shoguns and Toyota's can handle the outback then surely its a piece of cake in this country
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The first generation Ford Maverick was 100% Nissan. The only bit made by Ford was the badge on the bonnet and the little stickers that the dealers had to fit over the word Nissan pressed into the bottom of the B pillars.
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Chap turned up to our rally on Friday with his top of the range FL2. He was a bit late as it had gone into limp mode so he was slowed down a bit. Mayday came out but the diagnostics wasn't showing a fault code. Saturday morning took it out and the engine management light came on back to the garage still nothing on the diagnostics. On a more positive note he was really pleased that the £725 he had spent last week on the rear differential had cured that fault. Mind you after 30k miles you expect a few problems
Meanwhile, we took our elderly LC4 for a spot of off-roading coped quite well, I thought, despite the 170k on the clock.
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