unfortunately thats the way thing are going nowadays, the rebadged chrysler jeep was a good unit in ww2 then they aimed it to the young yuppies and made all sorts of modifications and thereby destroying its original appeal and strength, I remember when me and a couple of mates replaced the morgan to whyalla pipeline we had a toyota fj55 to get to the heavy machinery, climb anything pull anything, never breakdown, from memory I think it gave about 12 miles to the gallon, we also ran a toyota short wheel base didnt even have a heater, as I got older I had a nissan patrol, 4wd low range one could easily plow the back forty with a 14 row set of discs, my brother was mad on cruisers ( had 3 new ) replaced it every 2 years, had to put fairey overdrives in them because they were geared too low for highway use, he eventually went to nissans and then ended up with a mitsubishi pajero, he has been around aust, about 5 times, as the toorak tractor gets more and more humanised it loses a certain ammount of continuous ability, sacrifices one for something else and so they inevitably get weaker, the big 2 (in my opinion) are still the strongest and most capable, but having said that I was passed and left looking pretty silly off road on an off road track in pichie richie pass by a suzuki soft top, the people who give respite to us for our son have a hyundai terrican and it seems very comfortable and capable although they dont take it off road (few do), I didnt think that the jeep would have such a flaw and I am surprised that you were left to deal with it yourself, but now that you have a cruiser I am sure the worry is gone from driving, I run a toyota Hi-ace camper with a bullet proof 3y engine, been around aust. twice with it and would go again without hesitation, I think there are good vehicles and bad vehicles and you just happened across a bad one, next will be good so it seems to go, as a mechanic you would know that most vehicles have a "life" of their own some good others bad. anyway thats my thoughts for what they are worth.

I would not buy anything else but a Toyota anymore can get it serviced anywhere