when will your 80 wear out?

[wileetoyote]

I believe how long ANY vehicle lasts is dependant on is use and care of said vehicle. If you use ur fj80 for a daily driver and dont wheel it much, the engine heads should last between 200k-250k and the rings may last 350k. If you use it to tow (a lot) I'd expect to drop those numbers 20% less.

Those 80's that are full time 4wd, drivetrain pieces parts are anyones guess.

My '96 currently has 80k so I'm good for a while

on a side note, my '89 4Rnr 3.0 v6 has 250K but I had to swap the heads at 238k.

WET

 

[BOUNDER]

"Not to bring up sad stories or anything but 4 girls from a neighboring high school of ours got in a car accident the other day. One died, the other 3 are in very bad shape, its a horrible story and what were they driving? a little tin can...i think things would have been a little different if they were in a tank like an 80. And an older 80 wouldnt have been any more than some '03 cavalier."


It's HOW they were driving that counts...someone was negligent and /or wreckless/lacking skills. Stay paranoid and we'll all be driving (gulp) Hummers...nuff said.

 

[IdahoDoug]

I used to work for Lexus's US HQ. The Chief Engineer for the LandCruiser 80 Series was in a Lexus meeting (as I recall, he was also CE on the Lexus SC/Supra) and I remember him mentioning that the design target for the 80 was to last 250,000 miles in a typical offroad environment. Obviously, this assumes a maintenance program matched to the use.

So, don't figure on yours wearing out anytime soon. Will some components go earlier due to a previous owner's mistake? Sure. The more you personally work on your 80, the more you'll come to understand how there are many little durability decisions that were made throughout the vehicle to achieve that objective. I bought my 93 new and if it doesn't hit 400,000 miles without a major failure I'll be disappointed. I have a brother in law (not to be confused with my brother on this list) who's taken casual care of his 93 and he's got around 280,000 miles on it. I drive it every year or so and have a vehicle development background (Lexus, GM, Toyota) so it's significant that I can discern literally no difference in the way it drives compared to my overmaintained 80 with half the miles.

Here's a micro example. When mine hit 100k, I put fresh factory shocks on it. When I took off the old ones, I cycled them and examined them. None of them exhibited the slightest change in damping or smoothness from the others. I found out why when I first drove it after I put the new ones on. Only the faintest difference, and I have a well tuned butt. A typical owner would likely never notice. So, a lot of component decisions were made in favor of higher grade stuff in addition to the fundamentals of frame, axle and powertrain strength and durability.

I think that most of us will step out of our 80s for the last time simply to get into something different, rather than because it's become an unreliable high mile rig. My brother in law routinely jumps in his and drives thousands of miles on vacations with his family and never gives it a thought. And that thing's never so much as missed a beat in all those miles. They were designed to be continuously maintained in return for hundreds of thousands of miles of use, and the ratio of maintenance:usage stabilizes at around 120k and just goes on and on and on...

DougM

 

[wileetoyote]

Well put Doug.

That "design target of 250k" is a valuable piece of information to know. I've been an Engineer in high volume Mfg. for 17 yrs half of which was in the Automotive Industry. I've supplied parts for Toyota, Honda, Ford, and (unfortunately) Chrysler so I can relate to those types of meetings and can really appreciate your comments.

Of course I never a would have admitted to a customer that his parts were tested by a "well tuned butt" but(t) hey, to each his own!

WET

 

[IdahoDoug]

Ah, I've seen test rigs that told us the car remained flatter at max cornering G's than the 4 vehicles in the competitive set, and that it's transitional roll was better damped, and it's max G's were better, blah, blah, blah. But then you drive it on the street and all manner of frame harmonics, or pothole induced hops appear and wonder anew at how archaic many "sciences" (like suspension tuning) really are despite all the software and data points. There's clearly a place for both objective measurements and subjective opinions and I'm no Luddite, but I'm kinda proud of my butt. Wait a minute, that didn't turn out quite right....

DougM

 

[OZCAL]

I stop to look at 80s at used car lots around southeast Queensland and routinely come across good condition trucks with 2-300,000 kilometers on the odo. They don't seem to be much lower priced than 80s with 1-200,000 ks.

In classified ads, mileage is often not even mentioned in the copy. It seems high mileage does not cause the same concerns and steep dropoff in resale value it does in the US market.

 

[nyk438]

I REALLY like the LC. I can only see myself getting rid of it for another (80 series) Land Cruiser - maybe one with less miles.

Only way I would get rid of my 80 is to get a newer one with the electric lockers....


Plans for when the 3FE dies is Tundra engine

Oh I can't wait for the day when I can afford that.

 

[mooker82]

There was one on ebay a while back that had 330,000 on a 96 ...now thats a lot of miles a year..it still got like $6000 for it...with maintance i believe these things will go for atleast 250,000 without major problems

 

[cruiserdan]

We have one irregular service customer with a 93 that has well over 250k. The head gasket is original and the vehicle is not over-maintained at all.

 

[OZCAL]

There was one on ebay a while back that had 330,000 on a 96 ...now thats a lot of miles a year..it still got like $6000 for it..

That's 100 miles a day (including weekends) for nine years!

 

[White Shark]

I killed the 3FE and put in a 350tbi. When that dies, I'll transplant another heart, maybe a Toyota diesel or 100 series v8. Who knows. These things last forever. I figure that prices are going down now, but 40 prices have doubled and tripled over new, so I figure I'll clean it up and sell it for $120,000 in 20 or 30 years.

 

[JoeMerc]

My dad has a '92 80 with 266k on it. He beats the snot out of the thing. Irregular oil changes, cheapest parts, no love. That's the reason he drives it. He knows it'll take whatever he throws at it. He spends all day in that truck, it's basically his office.

It has the cloth interior and it's getting pretty ripped up, so he's going to throw a plow on the front and use it in the winter. He's going to buy a 100 come summer. He said he'd buy me a truck for school under one condition, it was a land cruiser. You just can't kill the thing.