Can new 4WDs really last like the old ones?
CONSIDER THIS ARTICLE
YOUR CRYSTAL BALL!
A
million kilometres
is a bloody long
time for a 4WD to
keep chugging
along! However it’s
not at all unheard of, and in
fact you’ve no doubt spoken to
someone or heard of a mate of
a mate whose old Cruiser, Lux
or Patrol has run around the
clock at least once. Probably
hasn’t even had the head off it
either! Seems like old-tech
4WDs really were built to go a
million kays or more, but as
much as we hate to admit it,
the days of leaf-sprung 75
Series Cruisers and 4.2 diesel
GQs and 80s are done and
dusted. The big question on
everyone’s mind is whether
new vehicles will hold up to
the same type of long-term
usage as the old rigs, and it’s
a bloody valid question too.
Common-rail fuel injectionis considerably more complex
than old school mechanical
diesel injection, and that’s just
the fuel system. Modern
common-rail rigs run
bucketloads of electronic
systems, controlling
everything from the seats to
the power steering. Then
there’s DPFs, EGRs and other
various emission systems that
give more than a few 4WDers
the cold shivers any time
they’re mentioned. What’s
even worse is with the advent
of social media these days, we
now have access to more
real-time, real-world reports
of vehicle failures than ever
before. Geez, it ain’t looking
good for us 4WDers who like
to keep our 4WDs until they’re
well up in the kays!
As more and more of us
make the step up out of our old
rigs and into newer, higher-tech 4WDs with these
complicated systems, the
question about what state
these newer vehicles will be as
they approach their golden
years is getting more and more
important. After all, it’s one
thing to buy a new vehicle and
turn it over every three years
when the warranty runs out,
but that’s not typical of us as
4WD owners. We spend a lot of
money modifying our vehicles
to suit our needs – money that
you’ll never get back if you
update vehicles every couple of
years. Then there’s the worry
about manufacturers
increasingly pushing out their
servicing schedules to
15,000km or even 20,000km oil
changes – a far cry from the old
‘5,000km oil and fi lter’ that
most of us are used to!
Unfortunately, we don’t
have a crystal ball in ourpossession, but what we do
have here at 4WD Action is
access to the 4WD industry’s
leading experts. These are
blokes who live and breathe
vehicles, and between them
see literally tens of thousands
come through their workshops
and yards every single year,
year in, year out. They see
what goes wrong, what stays
strong and have an incredible
insight into high-kay common-
rail 4WDs that few do have. It’s
not quite a crystal ball, but it’s
bloody close. We sat down
with them this issue and
chewed their ear to fi nd out
what they have to say about
whether we’ll see common-
rail rigs approaching the
million kay mark, plus what
you can do as an owner of a
modern rig to give yours the
very best fi ghting chance of
doing so.WWW.4WDACTION.COM.AU
Could you expect a ZD30
common-rail Patrol to clock up
the kays like an old TD42?