After nearly four years of Landcruiser ownership, it finally came to an end today as my wife and I said goodbye to our grey 200 series, having sold the white one a few months earlier.
I can't say I ever loved either of these cars, but I greatly appreciate their capabilities. They were bought out of necessity of living in isolate places where we both had to drive for extensive periods on our own for each of our jobs. Between them they've hit hundreds of kangaroos, 30 or so emus, and any number of sheep, dingos, eagles etc and nothing other than cosmetic damage ever really occurred. Even with a driving light through the front grill and into the radiator my wife still managed to make it 200km home with only a light flashing on the dashboard - not an advisable move but the incident that lead to the light through the radiator happened at 9.30pm when she was on her own on a 330km dirt stretch of road that you could more often than not drive on and not see another car.
As I never loved them I wasn't too said to see either of them go, needless to say owning them was expensive and running them in the urban area we now live in means we were constantly filling up the tanks which was really annoying. A company car has ensured we still have a Prado, not too bad a four wheel drive really, but we also don't pay a cent for it or the diesel so it's actually fantastic.
We will need another car though and I hope to deal with that in the next week or two, nothing exciting, just something small and cheap for around town that won't use a lot of fuel - something in a Swift, Alto, Mazda 2 or Fiesta area I think.
In conclusion if you need or want a four wheel drive you'll never be sorry you bought a 200 series Landcruiser - more power than you'll ever need, even with a full 4 horse float, and interior wise it was never too different to the Vogue as both were whisper quiet, however the Vogue and later the Defender broke down CONSTANTLY. Between both Landcruisers they travelled about 250 000km and never had an issue. Bravo Toyota
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