BTW, here is a page about the Land Rover Defender

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~lloyd/4/LandRover/Defender/

The answer is yes. Product loyalty is apparently more important than top end quality. If it's made in England, you can be sure the English will be preferential to it, just the same as the French, Italians, Germans, Japanese, and yes even us Yanks are preferential to our own native manufacturers.

The best military SUV I've seen was the South African Wolf, at least so far as expeditionary grade goes. It beats out the Humv, the Land Rover, and all the rest. However, it is not the most practical rig for urban environments. If I were to go with an All Around rig, I'd probably get a Humv (not that domesticated poc hummer breed, but the real thing, if I were to want to stay in that size class.

I still think that International rig is the best way to go, though.

Lowest bidder?

I was in the same boat as you trying to replace my Jeep Cherokee. Money was sort of not an object (I could have gone up to 50k) and since I planned to finance the vehicle I was looking also at the possibility of modifining it without worrying about breaking lease agreement. I looked at landrovers at they were overpriced. Great cars and I rode quite a few but you are not getting enough for your buck. The new versions are much softer than original since they are considered a luxury SUVs. Now maintanace is also expensive and if you plan to keep the car around every freaking part cost a lot of money.

In the end I also looked at Toyota FJ which is a great car but too new to purchase and there is a lot of feedback in the field about problems with first year run.

I eneded up buying an Xterra Off Road edition. Great car, nice stiff ride and with few mods (better side skids, better rear bumper with extra tire, and skid plates and front gourd) it makes excellent all around vehicle. I'm taking it to Alaska this year.

Just my 2 cents....

nissan patrol isn't available in N. america.

hahaha. your red tacoma now has lots of holes in its body. <img src="/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />

the Wolf...man, that is one ugly truck <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
web page

The BBC TV programme 'Top Gear' did some destructive testing on one that may be of interest. (Google will find stuff.)

eeph

:

All of the above reasons previously mentioned. Just because some government choose a particular vehicle, doesn't mean it's the best one for the job. I'm sure there is internal pressure from the government in choosing a vehicle for their own military. How would it look to choose a foreign vehicle over ones that your own country produces? Cost and availability probably have to be factored in too. I've heard that the reason Land Rovers were so poplular in Safari expeditions from a long time ago aren't neccessarily because they're great vehicles, but because there was no other option at the time.

Either way, I don't think I've ever heard the words "Land Rover" and "reliability" in the same sentence without some sort of laugh or degrading comment. But you can't ignore the obvious, they're consistently ranked last in reliability from almost every automotive source. All that negative publicity can't just be a rumor, there must be a least a little bit of truth behind it. It's just that for some people, reliability isn't very high on their list of priorities. Capability, looks, status, comfort, are all things Land Rovers excel at. For some, that's enough to outweigh the reliability aspect. Especially considering if you have enough money to buy a Land Rover in the first place, the cost of maintenance probably isn't a very big issue. IF I had the money, I wouldn't mind getting an older LR Defender.

Edmunds did a comparison test of small all-wheel-drive SUVs a while back. They compared the 2007 Mazda CX-7, 2006 Toyota RAV4 and the 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe. Might be worth a read. I read it when I was bored one evening and was a little surprised to find they preferred the Mazda. Here's a link to the report...
http://www.edmunds.com/apps/vdpcontainers/do/vdp/articleId=116618/pageNumber=1

Oh, and I like Land Rovers and Jeeps both. They are both extremely capable off road machines and if you want either one of them then buy one. However, reliability (as so many others have already mentioned) is not one of their calling cards.