I agree with the idea that at times it seems like a 80series has alot of stuff to maintain, and that's true. But most of this is from us buying them used, so as soon as we bought them we had stuff to do. If we had bought them new, we easily could have gotten 60K miles out of them before doing anything at all. I bought mine with 49K miles on it, have since done minor things, PHH, starter contacts twice, knuckle, wheel bearings, etc. It seems like alot of work to think about it all at once. I do like the fact that most of this stuff the average guy in his garage can fix, this is in contrast to many other vehicles (Jeeps for example) that do not have re-greaseable wheel bearing, it is a sealed bearing, usually goes for a long time, which is good, but can not be reused and can not be pulled or fixed by a normal guy in his garage.
I wouldn't say the 80 is perfect, I think Toyota should have put a rubber boot around the birfield joint, still have it inside the housing, but put a CV-style boot over the joint, fill with grease and call it good, if they had done that, then short of breaking the joint you'd never have to touch it, the grease couldn't go anywhere, sure grease gets old but mostly just turns into oil, and if in a sealed boot, still protects good. I think Toyota could have done better there. But you also have to compare it to other things out there. Compared to a Jeep the Cruiser is engineered far better (jeep puting u-joints in their knuckle joint with no way to grease them).
So I wouldn't say the Cruiser is perfect but compared to what is out there it's pretty darn good. I hear the argument alot about how this Jeep went for 180K miles with no work at all (one of my friend's did), and that's great, happy for them, but at the 127K mile mark it already felt old, didn't drive good, etc. However my Cruiser at 127K miles feels quite good, like it's just getting started..
I think for more people the newer Cruisers (100-series) are a better fit, they ride 10 times better than an 80, more power, better gas mileage, great vehicles, and less maintence things to worry about.
Personally I love my 80, not the nicest one in town, a bit beatup, but it's taken me places no vehicle should have to go, and it did it all smiling..
