I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that as a statement of fact on present Toyota products. But then I would (see my profile).


Certainly a 1991 Hilux I had from new was basic (in a good way) and excellent build quality where it mattered. No doubt it’s rotted in to the ground by now though!

I would hold 1990 through to maybe 97 Toyota’s in high esteem but having been in a company that has run Toyota’s as it’s fleet since around 2000 MHO would be that they have followed some European high end manufactures by cramming ever more “value” in to their vehicles.

By that I mean ever more built down to a price complexity.

A case in point being a friend who owns both a LC and a 2005 Range Rover.

He has recently traded his previous 2006 LC which he had owned for around 8 months before convincing himself that the number of expensive issues with it must have meant it had been clocked (despite it having a full dealer history) when he bought it.
£500 for a wiper motor
£2,500 for new injectors
£1,400 for a 60K service to name a few.
He traded it for an 11 month old LC at a Toyota dealer (less than half price BTW, so much for residuals)
Result. It needs new injectors at £2,500 with less than 30K miles on it!! Warranty claim of course. Interestingly the Toyota dealer managed to look utterly surprised by this and to claim it was something he had never heard of (despite having changed the ones on his previous LC a matter of months earlier) They had the same reaction to a known (and extremely expensive fault) on my 2006 Avensis!! Oh and a work colleague who bought his lease Avensis and ended up with parting with £2K+ of his own money when the steering rack failed.

His 4 year old RR? Front diff. replaced FOC by LR at 3yrs/80K miles and out of warranty plus an intermittent problem with one of the ABS sensors’ and that’s it. Now at about 90K.


So I could of bought 2 1990’s LC and ended up with far better cars for the sort of money my friends pampered (never off roaded) LC’s have cost him.

And I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to part with my own money on an 80 series LC, anything newer? Maybe not