Boy, this thread makes me feel old.
We bought our LC new in 2006. It's kind of a detailed story. Bear with me...
My wife and I both wanted a LC all our lives. For me it started with a ride off road in an FJ40 when I was a kid. For some reason, I just thought it was so much cooler than the jeeps we were with.
At 16, I tried to get one, but didn't have enough money. At 20, I tried to get one, but didn't have enough money so I bought a jeep YJ (kept it forever - now owned by a close friend.) We drove everywhere in that thing. Off road, trips to the snow, Death Valley, Sedona, trips to Baja. In my late 20s, we wanted something bigger, more practical and with a roof. But we wanted to continue our off road adventures. I didn't have enough money for a Land Cruiser, so we bought a Cherokee. It wasn't a very good car. It was super sketchy at highway speeds. The brakes were horrible. It felt unsafe. So, when my daughter was born (I was in my early 30s), we sold it and were in the market again. We wanted a Land Cruiser, and we finally felt like we had enough money to get one.
During our search for a Land Cruiser, we went to an auto show. We sat in tons of vehicles, trying to be open minded. Here's the hard part to admit: The brand new Land Rover LR3 was pretty cool. It just felt more modern. It kinda made the 100 feel old and the sticker price was at least $10K less. So, I made one of the worst mistakes of my life. We bought a new LR3. It went bad from the start. The first time I took it off road, just a couple months into the ownership, the suspension gave out. It was in the shop for weeks. They ended up swapping the entire rear axle from a different car on the lot, because LR didn't have replacement parts. It was in the shop for a couple of other things. Then, the last straw, after the first rain that winter, I took my daughter out to head off to preschool that morning, I opened the door and a flood of water poured out onto my feet. The moonroof drains weren't big enough to handle rain. Not clogged, mind you. Just not big enough. In 2006, how in the world can a car company not design a proper moonroof drain? That was it. Lesson learned. We took it straight to the toyota dealer and traded it in on the Land Cruiser we have now. I should say, my wife did. She dealt with the whole thing cuz she's a badass. She got a pretty fair deal on both the trade in and the Cruiser purchase while I took care of the kids.
So, in the end, we finally got the truck we both always wanted. It's been perfect for everything we've needed. Although it's been to the mall (it was my daily driver for years) it was not purchased for that. From babies and car seats, to 7 kid carpools back and forth to school, to trips to the snow, to progressively more and more isolated and treacherous off road adventures. It went full circle this past summer when my daughter and her friend, now 18, took it on a three week summer camping trip in the high sierra. I'd say we've gotten our money's worth. Even if you include the loss we took on that stupid LR3!!
