Alright, 1 month and maybe 1700 miles in and so far so good. Figured now would be a good time to share a few musings...
After driving a 100 series daily for maybe 7 years then over to an x5 on air suspension for another 3 years it was nice to be back in a land cruiser. This 200 series definitely feels similar to our last 100. Rides like a truck, kinda wallows down the road but in a good way. Super quiet and smooth which is surprising given its still on original tires (viewed this as a positive / evidence this truck had lived an easy life prior to us).
Don't enjoy the more frequent trips to the gas station but I'll adjust. Getting a solid 15 mpg, have seen 18ish on longer country road drives.
Hauled a 14' carpet rolled up, a couple hours, sticking out the back with top hatch open. This sucked for 2 reasons. Constant alarm going off and couldn't figure out an easy way to pull the top hatch down onto the carpet to reduce dust from the dirt roads traveled. The 100 series only showed an idiot light on the dash in similar situations and I could run a strap from an inside hatch handle to the hitch or even back inside the cabin to pull the top hatch down onto whatever I'm hauling. No easy way to do this in the 200. Luckily I don't need to do this frequently and will try to avoid long distances with rear hatch open.
4lo and CDL work like butter now. Were super sticky initially.
Light off-roading felt almost exactly like the 100 albeit wider.
Future plans are simple tire upgrade, probably go up in size a small amount but stay under 33 inches. Maybe some sliders. Had white knuckle sliders on the 100 and they were really nice.
Already had someone ask me if it was the new Grand Highlander so I'm part of that club now.
Have done simple stuff so far like new OEM carpeted mats (I'm a sucker for carpet mats up front in the summer, rubber in the winter and always in the second row), new OEM air filters inside and out, OEM wipers, fixed the a pillar weatherstripping, etc...
Will start base lining fluids here soon but so far truck runs near perfect and it's been a pleasure getting back into a cruiser!
Oh and I never did make contact with the PO so not sure of history.
