I was reading the thread about Jeeps vs. Land Rovers and couldn't believe what I was reading. I grew up with Jeeps. I've had a 75 Wagoneer with a 360cu 4bbl, a 77 CJ-5 with a 302, a 90 something Wagoneer with that awful 4 cylinder and a 97 Cherokee. I took every one of them off road, on the beach, through ice and snow. I now own a 01 Disco and can honestly say that I am more secure in the LR than any of the Jeeps. And all the vehicles were stock, with the exception of the CJ-5 (3 inch lift and sand tires). In the fall of 2005, my dealer sponsered an off-road event at Paragon Park in the Poconos. It had rained for weeks before the event. Honest to God, I took that Disco places I would NEVER had taken the Jeeps. In fact, we were with a goup of Jeep guys and they wouldn't even follow us where we were going. About 3 months ago, I went off road at Uwharre National Park and metsome Jeep guys there. They were all modified Jeeps. I hung with all them in my stock Disco while they continually had problems and broke things. All of them agreed the LR was superior off road, but they also agreed it was an expensive toy! Of course this is all my opinion, but it is in fact based on experience. I will agree that Jeeps are less expensive to maintain and easier to work on. But here is the question:

If you were dropped off in the middle of nowhere and had a choice of a Jeep or a Land Rover, which would you pick?

 

I would pick any one of my 3 Land Rovers. I started by purchasing my first Land Rover May of this year, traded a Benz and a Blazer forthe 01 Discovery. After taking many trips with it, my wife said she wanted one, so after looking around the area for a fewmonths found her a1 owner 95 Disco, and she loves it. Then by being in the right place at the right time, a friend of mine who runs a finance company called me and said that hehad a Range RoverClassic '88,that he took back (repo), and I said I'm in and bought it, so that my oldest daughter would have something to drive in the winter. Still have a few things to do on it,but at least if I needed to go somewhere I could go with it, and a friend of mine who is all Jeep, has challenged me to go play in the mud and snow, and I'm going to take him up onit (with the '88)as soon as I get correct retrieval points installed (you never know), and I'm going to do it with street tread tires. I do have a '93 Jeep GC, that I bought to fix up (just because I like working on stuff), but it is for sale. Just a foot note, I was out running errands the other day and we had some real ice/snow, and I don't know what this guy was doing but could not climb a hill in his Jeep Cherokee 4X4, and I just had to pass him illegally in the turn lane (even with my 3 Amigo Lights on which means the TC was not working). I should have stopped and got my ****** rope out and pulled him up the hill, but,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, he had a Jeep!!!!!!

 

I have an XJ, a YJ and a Disco 2 and I love all of them. In fact, I wanted a Land Rover before I even got into Jeeps, in particular the Defender then as time went on the Discovery, but at the time I was younger and really didn't have the income to afford one. I've wheeled the XJ and the YJ for many years stock and in very interesting situations, I've also wheeled the XJ and YJ in moderately modified configuration in more challenging places and finally the YJ in very difficult situations once I had it quite modified, though not insanely so like some of the tubed trailer queens you see out there. I've taken the Disco off road a few times to feel out her limitations and spent a week doing some overlanding and light wheeling in it and I was quite a bit more comfortable on that long trip that in either of my Jeeps.

Before I answer the OP's question, I should point out that with anything, it is 90% operator, 10% equipment and in a lot of cases that ratio is more like 95/5. Chrysler caused a huge problem with the off road industry with their heavy pushing of the Jeep brand and all "trail rated" nonsense with their whole lineup for that matter, most especially with the Jeep Wrangler "Rubicon" model. Their efforts have caused a massive boom in the 4WD industry over the last 10 or so years that has been a real double edged sword. On the one hand, it is great to have more exposure, awareness and generally more support for off roading from a larger base of people, on the other hand there are that many more people off roading and in most cases putting more pressure on the ecosystem than it can handle. The Rubicon trail is a great case in point, over the last 10 years I've watched that trail get, pardon the expression, run into the ground. When I was out there last year it was an absolute zoo; there were so many people out there it was completely insane, Buck Island lake was a circus. The trail has seen so much traffic areas in recent years that ares that used to be fun have pratically been paved and the old entrance that was relatively challenging has been blown apart to make it easier for the inexperienced people to get in. There has been so much abuse over the years that they have actually had to close parts of it down and those closures are not likely to stop; it is really sad, that used to be a great trail.

Another part of the problem is that it seems like every time I turn around there's another "fabrication" shop opening up, as though every redneck with a welder thinks he can reengineer a truck's suspension for the better and while it is true in some cases, there are more bad "shops" out there than good lately. There are a lot of people getting off road with very well equipped vehicles these days, in many cases direct from the factory, but no skill to back it up. I've handed the keys of my sprung over YJ on 35"s over more than once to someone that watched me do a rock obstacle in a few minutes and then proceeded to watch them spend 45 minutes and not even get more than a few feet into it- 90% operator, 10% equipment. And while speed isn't the focus with that observation, skill is; though the speed issue brings up speed and skill based rock crawling competitions and their insanely destructive influence altogether but that's a topic I'm going to avoid for right now.

So what does all my complaining about how the off road industry has screwed off roading in recent years have to do with the OP? Well, it explains a few observations. There are a lot of Jeeps off road, a lot, but there are not neccessarily a lot of competent drivers off road. There are a lot of very modified Jeeps and again, not neccessarily driven by experienced off roaders. There are a lot of fabrication "experts" that think they can completely reengineer a trucks suspension and more often than not, you see those trucks/jeeps/whatever with broken parts because they quite frequently do not engineer things correctly and end up beefing up one area only to add more stress and worse angles to another potentially stock or underimproved area. I think some of these fab guys should have paid more attention in Calc.

If you take a competant driver and stick them in a decent truck of any sort, they can do things you wouldn't think possible. So...

Leaving brand out of it first, then adding it back in I would quite simply choose the most reliable vehicle with the simplest design that was easy to work on if something failed. Given those requirements, the Jeep YJ for me wins hands down in the boonies challenge.

Imagine having a coil pack in your Disco go south in the middle of the Jungle/desert/ice storm wasteland, even if you have spares on hand you're screwed.

Now imagine having a problem with a distributor in a Wrangler. Not only is it easy to get to and repair, but the part is cheap and easy to find.

If you add in location, in my case America, I can get Jeep parts in just about every Jerkwater USA boondock town on the map. Good luck finding Rover parts in BFE.

Just my 2 cents and I'm stickin' to it.

ps: I do love my Rover

 

I just sold my Jeep today.It was a fine looking vehicle. I had a lot of memories, went a lot of places and put a lot of work into it and it never let me down.

Now I've got my Disco though. Hopefully I'll enjoy it just as much. I can't wait to modify it some day when I have the time and the $$$$.