The Toyota Landcruiser Owners Club

[Springate’s]

I’m researching before buying in the Spring. Looking at a budget of upto £15K for a 150.
Trawling through various forums/FB here and in Oz has revealed the issue with piston failure. I’m struggling to assess what the possible causes are, I’ve seen the following opinions:
Injector issues
EGR blanking/delete
ECU re-flashing
Tuning chips
Long, hard towing
Poor maintenance
Weak Piston design

So quite a list!
Is this issue confined to the 150 version of the D4D or are earlier iterations also affected?

Should I be concerned or are there many 150 owners out there happily running up galactic miles?

[Google]

[Ghawk2005]

I was also worried about this after watching Anthony of forty four diesel YouTube channel.    But he’s in Australia with much much higher temperatures,  much longer journeys I’d say,  different quality of fuel and generally extremely high mileage…. 300,000 -  400,000km etc

He also says the number one cause of failure is chip / tuning which I have always avoided doing after a very bad experience with a car 9 or 10 years ago.    

Compared to the Land Rover V6 diesel problem with snapping cranks and engines seizing ( amongst all the other crazy problems they have ) I would say we are fairly safe over here in the uk.    Of course it must happen occasionally,  not everyone looks after their car etc….  But it’s not appearing to be an epidemic.

I am just throwing Forte Diesel Treatment and Turbo Cleaner through the tank every 3-4 months, and always run it on premium diesel,  not chip / tuning it, not towing and hoping for the best.  In addition to regular oil changes and good driving consideration,  not going mad the first 10 mins …

I am no expert but I certainly don’t think we have an issue over here.    

By the way,  coming from land rovers and range rovers for 10 years,  I cannot recommend the 150 enough.   Just sublime and wonderfully put together vehicle.    Not missing my Range Rover one bit.  

Best of luck