thursday 1 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 A Hilux is a van here. Surely not the Prado chassis. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Why not? A Delica is a Mitsubishi van on a Shogun chassis. The HiLux is a van chassis with IFS/AWD front suspension, and live axle rear. Selling low-end van chassis (Prada) to rich Chinese is going to make Toyota very profitable. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Isn't Prada a rather trashy handbag brand? Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 I've driven a Prada once. Nothing with a bright 3.2 litre 4-cam V6 will ever disappoint me, but I have my preferences. My No1 all-time 4wd is a Nissan GQ Patrol. (2.8l, turbo 6 cyl diesel) No1 AWD car is Subaru Legacy. This is my fourth Legacy. My first girlfriend's father was a suspension and handling engineer at Rootes Group (Chrysler) UK. He taught me how to recognise shit. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Quote: "My first girlfriend's father was a suspension and handling engineer at Rootes Group (Chrysler) UK. He taught me how to recognise shit." Chryslers aint that bad are they? Link to post Share on other sites
threep 0 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Mass is the enemy of good fuel consumption, so by definition SUV's will always be poor in comparison to other vehicles. If we are serious about fuel efficiency then we need to wean ourselves off all the heavy bells & whistles vehicles in modern vehicles (why do people need electric seats?) and strip them back to the bare minimum. The "hidden cost" of hybrids like the Prius is the large cost associated with de-comissioning/recycling the batteries at the end of it's life. The batteries are under warranty by Toyota for 5 years with replacement costs being > £1000/$2000. I bet the replacement cost means you won't see many Prius over about 10/12 years on the road. A hydrogen solution is the most likely successor to carbon fuels in the medium term. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Originally Posted By: thursday Quote: "My first girlfriend's father was a suspension and handling engineer at Rootes Group (Chrysler) UK. He taught me how to recognise shit." Chryslers aint that bad are they? Hmm. The squareheads have wasted 10 years and a billion dollars failing to persuade the world to buy Chrysler. Chryslers are so bad that even Americans won't buy them. I use "Americans" specifically, because the major sales are live axle trucks with beam axles. State of the art in 1932. Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Originally Posted By: thursday A Hilux is a van here. Surely not the Prado chassis. Hmm... My bad - I'm not sure what they call it on the HK market... The Prado is the Prado on all markets except the US, where it is the Lexus GX. The Hilux Surf in Japan is the 4Runner in North America. All of those are light-duty SUV's with IFS on non-boxed frame chassis. There is a HiAce and TownAce van on the JDM that is built on a modified 80-series Land Cruiser chassis... Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Does the Prada sit on its own chassis, or is it a HiLux? Originally Posted By: Ezorisu Originally Posted By: thursday A Hilux is a van here. Surely not the Prado chassis. There is a HiAce and TownAce van on the JDM that is built on a modified 80-series Land Cruiser chassis... Which van is this? Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Prado is built on a Hilux Surf chassis, but might be shortened in wheelbase a little. The IFS front unit and the rear axle and suspension are the same, as is the engine/transmission/transfer case. There is a North American "Toyota FJ Cruiser" built on the same platform too. The Prado was meant to replace the light-duty 70-series Land Cruisers ("Land Cruiser II" short wheelbase in Japan), so Toyota built it on an existing platform to save development costs. This van is the bad boy: Toyota Hiace Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Sometimes life delivers soulfood with a little gravy. Nine years in Exploration and Mining at the CSIRO gave me lots of opportunity to do some serious offroading, all over Australia. Beating the crap out of someone else's 4WD and at their expense is good. There's no doubt in my mind that a 4.2 diesel Nissan GQ Patrol is the pick. It's a 3 tonne truck with a powered front axle. Nissan copied the Range Rover coil suspension. As a result they steer beautifully on and off road. I've had my (own personal) Patrol in a screaming 20 degree all-wheel drift on dry bitumen, and it is utterly vice free. Fully controllable at max attack. Our workmanlike Patrols were exchanged for sexy curvy new coil sprung Land Cruisers at launch. Orgasmotronic! The ovoid environmental interior has no flat surfaces. No-where to put a map, a cup of tea, or my copy of Monthly Roger. Early coil-sprung Land Cruisers were shite. Turn in to a corner and the roll-steer tightens the line. Back off and the unroll loosens you. The evil handling was fixed by lowering and stiffening the suspension. My point is that Toyota build tough shit, designed to get you out of the caravan park at max cred. Land Cruiser and Prada are the first to leave behind if you want something serious. I have mixed feelings about the HiLux. I'm too big and stiff to fit in one comfortably. However, some of the longest and most offroad trips I've done have been in these. Digging a HiLux out of a sand dune is a doddle. Prancing up a 45 degree mountain slope is a piece of piss. HiLux utes are light and have ripper entry and exit angles. Our ANU 2.8d would run from Canberra to Perth on two tanks. The Toyota 2.8 diesel is total shite. There is a simple rule in life that no cylinder should exceed 500cc. Boring out a 4 cylinder to 2.8 and then 3.0 litres is a sign of desperation. They roar and vibrate and scream. I guess the accolytes are grateful. Basically they vibrate and piss oil like old British motorbikes Meanwhile the super smooth Nissan 2.8 6 cylinder turbo diesel in a GQ chassis is ready to perform. Rinse one of these through the Skyline GT gearbox, (this is a GQ Patrol) Toyota are re-convening the marketing that has spent $500 million per year for 5 years. That is: Toyota have spent 25 million dollars, per year. The result is that the products are shit, and Toyota = looser. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 Originally Posted By: threep Mass is the enemy of good fuel consumption, so by definition SUV's will always be poor in comparison to other vehicles. If we are serious about fuel efficiency then we need to wean ourselves off all the heavy bells & whistles vehicles in modern vehicles (why do people need electric seats?) and strip them back to the bare minimum. The "hidden cost" of hybrids like the Prius is the large cost associated with de-comissioning/recycling the batteries at the end of it's life. The batteries are under warranty by Toyota for 5 years with replacement costs being > £1000/$2000. I bet the replacement cost means you won't see many Prius over about 10/12 years on the road. A hydrogen solution is the most likely successor to carbon fuels in the medium term. The hatchback Prius battery in Japan costs 112,000 yen new in Japan and simply drops in, so that would be half the cost you mention. There is also a salvage/reconditioned market developing as people have writeoffs, so the estimated future cost is 750USD/85,000 yen or so. To put that into perspective, shaken on a Prius-sized car is going to be 70,000 yen every two years, even if you take the car to the shaken center by yourself. A Prius gets 10km/l more than a normal car of the same size, so at 150yen a liter, the current battery replacement cost can be made up in 8000km of driving. God knows how much fuel will cost in 10 years time mind. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 I'm not a big Clarkson fan, but what Top Gear did with a Hilux was quite entertaining. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 I'm getting a little cryptic here. Toyota have spent $500,000,000 per year for the past 5 years in order to put Ralf Schumacher on the back of the grid. If they doubled the budget to a billion dollars per year, I doubt he'd do better. Corporate trousers rule Toyota. Another billion dollars on the budget? Time to head for Saville Row, and buy an even bigger pair of trizers. Toyota's 2.4 diesel is gutless, and the 2.8 and 3.0 litre diesel 4's are total shite. The Toyota is rough as guts, and however much you polish a turd, it is still shit. If I was Toyota QC, none of these would pass me. In contrast, the Nissan 2.8 litre turbo 6 is a sweety. Drive it like a petrol engine (that is use the gearbox as a switch to keep the revs in the powerband ). The only off-roader I've met which challenges the Patrol is a Bell JetRanger. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted December 3, 2007 Share Posted December 3, 2007 Clarkson is the biggest knob jockey in the whole world. Much like the Hiace van. They deserve each other. Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Originally Posted By: soubriquet Toyota's 2.4 diesel is gutless, and the 2.8 and 3.0 litre diesel 4's are total shite. True that. I4's shouldn't go beyond 2.4L in my book. Thankfully the long engine compartment in 'Cruisers accomodates the 4.2L inline 6 intercooled turbodiesel (1HD-FTE). They couldn't cram that into the "driver over front axle" vans. That's a great motor in a TLC, probably not unlike the Nissan powerplant - wish I had one. Regarding the handling of coil-sprung TLC's, I'll defer to your assessment, since the "off-roading" I've taken mine on is mostly dirt tracks with the occasional boulder garden. I will say though, that my solid-axle 80-series will claw and scrabble through a lot more uneven terrain with greater ease than my friend's leaf-sprung 40-series. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 The early coil sprung Landcruisers suffered from roll-steer. When you turned into a corner, the induced roll would cause them to turn in even further. You back off a little to correct the line, the roll steer reduces, and now you have to correct again. You had to concentrate to drive them smoothly and that could be tiring over a 1,000km day. Toyota "fixed" the problem by lowering and stiffening the suspension, but I'm not sure if the fundamental geometrical deficiencies were addressed or not. I'm not complaining though. Having a LandCruiser or a Patrol as an office for a month was as good as it gets. Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Wonder if that's why from the 80-series onward, they used "full-time 4WD" with a selectable center differential - the forced power split to the front axle would reduce that corner dive and help remedy the understeer/wallow/dive-waggy feeling - especially in sand. My 80 has some really stiff sway bars too. Ride height-wise, I actually have more ground clearance than the previous 60-series leaf sprung models. The handling is no where near as good as the S-12 Nissan Silvia that I had before it! Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 mmmmmm.... Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts