OK!!, Whats the Best 4wd ever built for reliability, purchase and repair cost/??

75, 78/79 Series Toyota's without a doubt.

Most popular workhorse 4wd in the history of this country for a very good reason.

The one you like and use :-) Or see below to what others Say

Maybe these ones?

Cheers Tony

Sheezuz Axle, you sure know how to start a Chitfight! and i will just add to it-the mighty 100 series TD without a doubt!!! hahahahaha

Reliability.

Purchase Cost

Repair Cost


Would have to be the

LADA NIVA for sure !!!

I think the series 80 Cruiser has to be one of the best all rounders. Problem is that nearly every one of them now would be high-milers...

I had a Range Rover for 15 years. 350 cu" 308/Chev 350 hybrid stroker motor, with a modified Turbo 700 auto and Borg Warner (later Range Rover) transfer case. 2" body lift, big wheels, 2" coil lift. Rear diff lock

Went like a cut cat, could climb a brick wall and was surprisingly economical. Great tow vehicle.

What got me in the end was the electrics - Churchill's Revenge I reckon...

viz

I'll give the suzuki sierra a vote.

Just my thought.

Toyota Troopies and Traybacks all years not sure about the new V8 havn't been around long enough.
Toyota 100 series with solid front end, diesel.
Nissian GU 4.2 TD
Toyota 80 series TD
Nissian GQ 4.2
Holden Rodeo older shape 2.8TD
Early Model Hilux Solid front end. 2.8L Diesel
Suzuki Sierra

Hi folks ,it had to be the Lada Niva I reckon! They couldn't give e'm away. :-)))

No offence ,Regards Paul.

Axle, Old Son,

I think youve answered your own question. The GQ is a gem. 4.2 diesel or 4.2 petrol, the bloody things go forever. The 3.0 petrol was a gem as well, they've been known to do near 500,000 km just with regular servicing.

Jim.

The Best ?????

Could actually be the worst depending on how its treated ....

My personal favourite ... F50 Daihatsu .... Only cost me fuel and tyres the whole time I owned it - apart from regular servicing.

Nothing I have owned ... in any brand ... has bettered it for reliability.

I think hands down, Toyota Landcruiser, any model will win this. Followed closely by Patrol. After that they dont really matter. Cruisers and Patrols are both bloody good. But the Cruisers are easily the better vehicle. Sale records indicate this by miles. And so does every station, mine and hire car company. The most capable and affordable tourer would be the 80 series though, toughest would be 75 Trayback.

Gday Axle
Doesn't matter which one is best. My brother in law's hair dresser"s boyfriend will always know of one that is better.
Muzbry

Hi, I'll back the troopys against the rest!
One thing with any Toyota you pay extra for the badge & the reliability, but you always get the same or better proportion of it back when you sell it, red

Axle, the answer will depend on your application. The 75 series ute is useless for the average 2 adult 2 kid family so this could not enter the equation if that is your application but likewise the GQ 4.2 wagon would not be suitable for throwing the round hay bales in and spreading it round the dry paddock.

A few "common" (maybe a different word is needed here??) well known and publisised issues with the early GU's would wipe them off the list for sure. The 4.2T had the 5th gear issues, the 3.0lt don't even talk about, the head problems with 2.8's wipes them out. Likewise the gearbox issues with n/a 4.2 100 series Tojo's wipes them out for me and the fr diff of the turbo model deletes that entry too. So we head for the petrol's in this same era or much earlier versions of these badges to get something "reliable" enough to be on the list. I will not pertain to know the answer but I can give you a repair list of vehicles owned if you want it and it's not pretty.

In 4wd, I have had a 2.8Rocky, 2.2Blizzard, 3.0Pathfinder,3.5Paj, 3.5Jack, 4.2 100series, 4.2GQ, 2x4.2T GU's. None of wich would enter the equation for all your questions put together. One of my 4.2T GU's has 380000km on the dial so longevity is in this one's favour but I have had to do heaps to it to keep it on the road so it is out for me. The 3.5 Paj was probably the cheapest car to keep on the road but I sold it at 170000 or 180000km so I don't know about longevity on that one. All others have caused me grief or I have not owned them long enough to give true first hand experience on them. I will say, I knew the lady owner of the GQ I owned and she did have a good 300000km run out of it before I bought it but I only had it for a relative short time.

Keep it basic and less can go wrong is about all I can say.
Cheers, Trevor.

Looks like how long is a piece of string question...and the thread with (1,981 likely views) will make interesting reading.....

Value for money...my TDi200 Fender cost me $6,000 has 300K on the clock, cost me another $2,000....I reckon it will still be going in another 300K with standard servicing...

I won't talk about the 130 though ;)

Found this....Roothie's take on Value for Money.....


Roothie's Take on Value for Money

Just sold my 1988 GQ Patrol diesel traytop with 883,000 k's on the clock ! Bought in new - original motor - just put in 3rd clutch as I do a lot of towing - had to rebuild rear diff - 2 alternators - 1 radiator - 1 headlight switch and apart from everyday wear and tear eg bearings brakes etc nothing else has gone wrong ! Changing oil and filters gets expensive so at 300k I stopped servicing at 10k and did it at 25k - I worked that vehicle extremely hard so I can't praise the GQ enough !

Any vehicle that gets you home safely after a big trip is a good one !


All the best


Outback Gazz

I reckon the 80 series landcruisers and the GQ patrols (and the later GU's because we all know about the early 3.0 td problems).

toyota have gone softer and softer with each new model release (just look underneath them and what the suspension is), excluding the 70 series (rigid live axle) etc.

Great thing with Nissan being cash strapped is that they have stuck with old technology on the GU's and just gave them a nicer looking body and flashed up the interior. Basically a GQ underneath still.

new one's are expensive still whereas the 80's and GQ's have levelled off with their depreciation which you would also need to take into account. A couple of years of depreciation on a newer model could be alot of accessories on an older model :)

Maybe the Jackaroo also. Apparatly the Isuzu diesel engines in them are great.

Earlier Hilux's would have to be in the top 10. New one's are just a rip off. $15K more than their competitor; yer right!

I figure Axle was just looking to see what sort of hornet's nest he could stir up, but I've got a stick and will have a poke.

Ok it's more than 20 years old but the old MQ SD33 would have to be up there. About as comfortable as a bed of broken glass, nearly as quick as a 2.8 D Hilux and as good looking as the earliest of Troopies.

It's got it all.

Cost me 12k to buy, taught me to drive off road and got the Missus interested in camping. It never got serviced, but I changed the oil before we went to Fraser. The sills fell out about 6 months after we got back and the floor got so hot that you couldn't drive it in bare feet. But that sucker never stopped. I got rid of it at about 200,000km .

Would I have another one? Absolutely not but I'm glad I had the one I did.

Duncs

I Like Toyotas and Patrols Diesel. Prefer the troopies traybacks to the wagons. My vote is for the Rodeo 2.8 turbo spacecab cause thats what I own. Its done 528 thou km and hasn't missed a beat. I use it to cart several 1 tonne loads of wood everyday and it hasn't let me down yet.

I've owned it from new and apart from the regular services brakes and bushes had only one prob , a leaking oil seal replaced at 28k under warranty.

Not as powerful or comfortable as some but its done the Simpson and the Canning stock route and hopefully be able to travel to the cape next year.

To add to this discussion, there seem to be a lot of fourbys requiring engine rebuilds. Is there one vehicle consistantly making it to say 500,000k without the need for an engine rebuild.

Cheers

Quite a subject Axle.

There are opinions and then there are facts. I will try to go logically through
them and rule out some types in a fair and honest way.

First you have to pretty well leave out most Turbo diesels and auto's they are simply more complex than there non-turbo and manual counterparts.

It now becomes a bit tricker and to get to some real statistics sites like this have had hundreds of stories of failures and weak points so next to go has to be the whole lines of Toyota's with weak diffs and CV's

This pretty well limits you to the 60 series and non turbo GQ's and GU's

The 60 series were pretty good , but age is telling on them and thru that era rust was a major issue.
Nissan were built with rust resistant steel - now don't get to excited Nissan owners because Nissan used this material to use thinner panels and every Nissan owner knows how they dent easily, however being true to the post this dents don't rule a car out but rust is very bad for reliability so we ae left with non turbo GQ's and GU's

Diesels are of course always an issue because they require fundamentally higher pressures , tolerances and are more suspectible to water/fuel issues , and also give there batteries a harder life , these things limit their reliability particularly in cold.

Ok so we are down to petrol GQ's and Gu's

Well the facts are that early GQ's still relied on points and were suspectible to ignition issues so I'm afriad they don't make it.

We are now down to 2 classes of car

EFI GQ's and EFI GU's

Well long history has shown not a single ECU failure on either of these two cars however on closer inspection the GUs from 2002 onwards have inbuilt redundancy features on it like for example twin oxygen sensors and fuzzy logic that can sort out issues and actually improve the reliability.

Well by process of evidence backed logical deduction that only rely leaves 1 car left -->

Manual 2002 4800 petrol GU Patrols , believe it or not I just seem to have one of those , although it does have a broken winch rope.