Thread: Toyota announced big Landcruiser spec change & price drops in USA

Originally Posted by Flyblown

The way I see it @No.3 is that your producing this sample size of one horror story to advocate for bigger engines, whereas I’m looking at the info and asking myself who the hell drives over 100,000 km towing a 3-ton boat like that in New Zealand in such a short space of time? And why on earth would you try and do it with a Hilux? It just smells fishy to me. It’s such an extreme story that it has negligible relevance to 99.9% of 1GD-FTV powered vehicles on the roads around the world. You can carry on with the story for as long as you like but you will not convince me that 500Nm of torque is insufficient in a LV, or that a 4-cyl is excessively stressed, especially in an almost 10-yr old engine that has already racked up billions of km around the world in every environment imaginable. OK that’s all from me on this.

Not at all, I'm not having a crack at you and if anything I'm saying that ya just gotta use the correct tool for the job - and for the small number of us in commercial/trade applications towing big boats with tonnage and windage, and heavy loads in the tow vehicle to boot (this is commercial marine servicing using the boat as the work platform which is why it's such a high hour gig on the vehicle) a 4cyl anything is NOT the correct tool for the job. I agree again, most people do not have severe duty requirements like this - and part of my point is that the sales and servicing guys don't even understand the limitations of the gear they are selling. That Hilux was chosen on the basis that the guy who brought it took the requirements in when he went in, photos and data on the the weights etc - the sales guys said "not a problem this is what it was built for", the cross check was made with the service people who went "yup can't see an issue" but come time for the questions to start being asked it was a "shrug not us"...

There's a reason NIWA, DOC and the like are going for specific approval to purchase vehicles outside of the Govt pre-approved vehicles list and having the Directors of their departments do a special signoff to buy $200K ex-US heavy duty trucks for this job. I know of one crew that's gone backwards and brought an older style truck and retrofitted it with a 50mm towball so they have a 9L 6cyl diesel on a lightweight roadranger for towing duties - and then had to upgrade the cooling system on the engine for the long climbs up Nth Isl hills... The pain in the arse with both those solutions is 6 month COF's vs 3yr 1st WoF and then annual WoF's after that, much more expensive tyres, need a Class2 licence, TSL, logbook hours, fuel burn and then plain old driving comfort when you aren't towing. Also you stick out like a bling merchant if you go anywhere without the trailer on back and that's not ideal for trade use. That's the point of trying to do the job in a ute, Landcruisers haven't been that available even with a 4cyl in them let alone the v8 (often times on a waiting list) and short of the 3L V6's which also aren't easily had at the moment the only other realistic option is the 3.2L 5cyl which in my opinion (and like bumholes everyone has theirs) even those are marginal for this application.

That's the reason that having the option of a v8 for those that can't do without them is so necessary, discounting the recreational and suburban use types the 4cyl works for a lot of trade type users and industrial sites but for those that it doesn't, getting rid of the bigger option really narrows the choices down. A 3L V6 at $100K is still a LOT more affordable than a yank tank at $200K, or having to go to a mid-size truck now as the light truck options have the same bloody engines as the utes. Even those are starting to give issues with longevity and reliability, especially when the electronic engine is used to power a hiab or similar and the thing decides it needs to do a DPF burn so mid lift it ramps up to 3000rpm on you and stuffs up all the hiab throttle settings. Ahhh the days before the climate bullsh*t and climate change haha.