The Jags def ain't upto much. But the land rovers do take a beating. I Used to hang with a bunch of guys in the UK who use them for off roading and they sure do perform well. Unreal off road and seem to last forever. Some of them had them more than 40 years and still going strong. I also believe they have the most % vehicles built still on the road.

My transit used to be able to do 24000miles between oil changes. But i used to change it every 12000miles. The UK people def change their oil less.

 

Historically the filters on all fords from the factory are too tight.

I have bought a lot of new fords, and each and every one was a bitch to get the first oil filter off of it.

My 2004 F150 was so tight, I finally drove a lign up bar right through the filter and twisted it off that way.

 

Now that I'm thinkin of it, that guy that put a million miles on a E-150 van often went over 50K miles before changing oil.

 

I'm going assume that your predominately refering to the older Rovers. I'm not familiar witht he new ones but the oldies are definately well built and extremely capable in all conditions.

Tim

 

I can speak with some experience on this... I had a 68 SII Land Rover SB safari that I bought with 58K miles on it. At 90K I sold it to a salvager as the frame was rotted beyond repair. Despite all new seals, it ALWAYS leaked oil. The 4 cyl. engine was reliable, but the Lucas ("Prince of Darkness") electronics were crap. Mine didn't have overdrive so you'd be lucky to reach 50 if you were willing to white knuckle it and risk overheating. That said, you could take the whole vehicle apart with just a screwdriver and wrench. There's even description in the manual in some models of how to make temporary head gaskets with swamp reeds. I bought a '76 Toyota Landcruiser to replace it, put 120K miles on it without issues, and sold it for what I originally paid! That led to me buying nothing but Toyota trucks until this year when I bought my first Ford. I did dabble in-between with a 2006 Range Rover Sport SC...but that was another weak-moment mistake! There's a reason why Rover's are consistently at the bottom spot in reliability/satisfaction surveys!!

 

I wasn't trying to say that rovers aren't capable vehicles off road....they clearly are. However, I have always been under the impression that at least in recent decades they have been plagued with reliability issues. I was making the sarcastic point that if the British don't change their oil but once every 5 years, maybe that is one reason their cars have a bad reputation for reliability.

This is off wikipedia, but it seems to have reliable sources:

"Land Rover marque ranked last on the US J.D. Power and Associates Vehicle Dependability Survey for 2005 (published 8 July 2005) (Kia second last). This is the fourth year that it has been in the last or second to last place in the survey. This study was based on responses from more than 55,000 US based original owners of 2000 model year cars and light trucks at three years of ownership. [1] In 2004, it narrowly dethroned Kia, as the least reliable nameplate, but swapped places in 2005. (Kia last, Land Rover 2nd last).
Tied for last (with Hummer and Porsche) in the 2006 Consumer Reports (US) car reliability survey. It was only one of 6 makes that did not have a model whose reliability was "Good" or above (joined by Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Jaguar); its highest-rating car was the LR3, which got a rating of "Poor". In addition, 56 percent of people who owned a 2003 Range Rover reported problems, as did 61 percent of 2002 Freelander owners--both the highest among all cars for that model year.
Ranked second-to-last in the 2007 Consumer Reports (US) car reliability survey. (Mercedes-Benz took the bottom place.) In the same survey, the LR3/Discovery with a V8 engine was ranked the second least reliable SUV in the midsized category. (The 2006 model year M-class of Mercedes-Benz took the last place in that category.)
It also was ranked as one of the 3 least reliable over the last 10 years in 2007.[27]"

 

Your spot on my friend. I had a buddy that had a 66 series II as well and all that you said was the gosphel. My old '88 F-150 pulled his non driving a$$ off the rutts more than a few dozen times. Other than ground clearance issues, it was good. It too rusted into a bucket of crap, but, it was 40 years old when it did.

Back to oil changing, the Brits change thier engine oil when they brush thier teeth. Sorry Bsimmer3000, I couldn't resist!

Tim

 

just to stay on the safe side,,, I'm planning on taking my 09 f150 to the Ford Dealer and having the oil changed by the book and making sure they stamp my maint manual, and saving the bill in the glove box, so in the future if the engine blows up they can't say the warranty is rejected because it wasn't serviced by the book!

been there in the past, won't make the same mistake again!

 

Your spot on about the theeth thing though Tim lol. The british dentists are in a word, Crap lol. When my wife cam over to the UK everyone was just stareing at her theeth saying wow how do you get them so white lol.

 

That's funny!!