I carry around two large dogs and had the same concern. I got the factory quilted trunk cover which i can really recommend. it fits perfectly and protects the cargo against scratches, spills, hair, etc. and fits very nicely. Also has a lip. Dealers sell it for horrible prices but ordered from LRparts and they had a much better price (still not cheap).

 

It's hard to fathom how this can happen...unless there was bourbon at play

 

my single change would be to bring Toyota reliability to JLR

 

The task was to name a "single, SIMPLE change". Bringing Toyota manufacturing processes to JLR would not be simple. That, and I hope you are ready for a six-figure price tag for everything.

 

^^ ??? The implication seems to be that we buy cheap land rovers in order to avoid the six figure price tags that a reliable Toyota would cost us? Am I mis-reading that somehow?

 

Camry's are pretty cheap and seem to lasts forever...

 

If Toyota spends $60m on an R&D project, they would have to recoup $6 per unit sold in one year to break even.

If Land Rover spends $60m on an R&D project, they have to recoup $143 per unit sold.

$60m in R&D is a fart in the wind when we're talking about the auto industry.

Let's also remember that we expect LR to outdo Toyota with the very latest cutting edge tech and features which requires a lot of very expensive R&D. Toyota can continue to make Quaker Oat boxes as long as they run.

Volume cures a lot of evils.

At some point, if you love LR, you have to want then to make money and it's just not easy.

 

Fairly confident Lexus has tremendous cutting edge tech - in fact Toyota just won the 24Hours of Le Mans today...

Quality is the cure for volume

 

You are absolutely misreading that. Toyota sells 200 Highlanders for every 1 Defender. Think about that.

 

Yes, yes they do. But Toyota used to sell one vehicle in the US for every 200 General Motors sold. Why do you think that has flip-flopped? I have lived through their ascendancy, and at no point did it involve having to charge more than European brands in order to deliver the type of quality the Europeans were delivering. In fact just the opposite. In other words: Toyota today enjoys a quantity advantage specifically because they delivered higher reliability vehicles back when they had low volumes, without charging the type of prices you infer are necessary for high reliability.

Full disclosure: out of 43 cars I’ve purchased over the years, only one has been a Toyota, a 1977 Celica GT liftback I had in college that was pretty much a tired old POS at 100,000 miles.