syncview
Well-Known Member
Uh.. I don't know but I wouldn't call it 'lightly built' lol
Yeah old land cruisers are well, good old land cruisers.
Yeah old land cruisers are well, good old land cruisers.
The XK is lightly built compared to many other 4x4s, like the Land Cruiser. For a time we had both an FJ80 and a Jeep XJ and it was amazing how little there was holding the Jeep together compared to the Toyota. In the 16 years we had the Land Cruiser we put it through 200,000 miles of abuse and other than parts that you expect to wear out, it never gave us a problem. The Jeep was much newer and we only had it a few years but in that time it needed two new sets of U-joints, the fuel system constantly kicked error codes, the interior rattled and all the seams opened up, and a weld broke on the rear shock mount that caused the shock to be folded in half.
All those failures and it still couldn't tackle the same trails the Land Cruiser could easily conquer.
After owning an XJ, I guarantee I'll never buy another one.
I used to drive one as a work vehicle for the forestry consulting company I worked for before the logging industry collapsed. I can attest that it handled the logging roads very well especially seeing that we worked in areas that the roads had been untouched or deactivated for years.
However in my first week on the job, the auto transmission went leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere. We switched that Pathfinder out for one with a stick which was very, very slow. That one had two seperate freak fuel leaks, rattled horribly and was extremly twitchy at speed on the logging roads. After those problems were dealt with it was a reliable, yet sluggish truck.
For my needs there are alot worse options out there and the price of the pathfinders is tempting but I think I've had my fill of Nissans for quite a while.
Sounds like you had the Z24/KA24 powered Pathfinders. The VG30E powered trucks are significantly faster - in fact, they're faster to 60 than most of your candidates that you've listed so far. They're certainly better on-road than any you've listed.
The automatic transmission issue was caused by an undersized radiator-integrated transmission cooler that would clog and die. Easily and cheaply rectified with a large external cooler. Plus, even right out of the box, they'll go some places even mildly modified Wranglers can't.