It's an interesting question! Not another toyo Vs L/R...
We have bought over the last 5-6 years probably 20+ Nissan D22 pickups. The South African built one ("Hardbody") falls apart much much faster than the Japanese built one. I asked a similar question to a CAT dealer engineer with 20 years experience and he said the same thing - a ZA built 140G grader is much less solid and tends to suffer metal fatigue much faster than the Jap built one. He reckoned steel quality had a lot to do with it. We found that Nissan tend to have really strong drive trains and engines, but bodies and suspension not as long lasting as Toyo. Toyo are not invulnerable though! The gearbox synchromesh particularly on 1st and 2nd tend to go pretty fast, injection pumps can wear quite quickly too, but apart from that they do tend to last.
We change the D22 pickups after 2 years, and by that time they are pretty shot. Landcruisers we change at 4 years, and still are in pretty good shape. But really I don't know for sure why!
Gil
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