Drove from Santa Fe to Montrose, CO Wednesday with my pup Lutie to run in a K9 trial and encountered heavy snow about 15 miles from the southern CO border, then it really started snowing. Land Cruiser/LC performed like a boss, only felt a minor tire slip (running on KO3's) one time, mostly driving 30 - 50 mph on some rural roads and got on 114 from the south to Gunnison and dealt with the switch backs. Manual shift mode was very helpful on the snow/ice going through the switchbacks. Ice had really built up in the wheel wells and the step bar, could hear the grinding in the wheel well and had to use a wooden long handled wiper at a gas station to break off enough ice to reduce the grinding. I don't know how well these cheap plastic black wheel wells will hold up but I I didn't see any damage. I also drove round trip to Granby, CO in October with Lutie for 5 days of training and total mileage back at home is up to 2,355 and 19.7 average mpg running mostly Sinclair premium. Manually computed total trip to Montrose and back at 678 miles and 21.4 mpg. Had to pass some vehicles stacked up behind a tractor trailer in the NM mountains coming home and looked down and was going 96 mph, this thing has some pep.
I had the first oil change at 598 miles due to mostly putting slowly around Santa Fe and the oil was pitch black and had a tremendously strong gas odor in the oil. Checked the oil when I got back after 1,757 of miles on the new oil (Pennzoil 0W-20, Ecogard synthetic filter) and the oil is very light yellow and only a very faint smell of gas which is to be expected so I am not concerned about an engine issue anymore. I really love this vehicle but I am really getting tired of the warnings I keep hearing at start up, etc. It was heavy on check tire pressure on this last trip and the KO3s have very stiff sidewalls and I checked PSI at 34.2 and I am not going to put 37 psi in the tires as they handle great with no body lean. Is there anyway to let the warning system know your vehicle is in an enclosed garage with heavy duty roll up doors and it doesn't need to tell me the LC is unlocked, etc?? Probably not.
I had the first oil change at 598 miles due to mostly putting slowly around Santa Fe and the oil was pitch black and had a tremendously strong gas odor in the oil. Checked the oil when I got back after 1,757 of miles on the new oil (Pennzoil 0W-20, Ecogard synthetic filter) and the oil is very light yellow and only a very faint smell of gas which is to be expected so I am not concerned about an engine issue anymore. I really love this vehicle but I am really getting tired of the warnings I keep hearing at start up, etc. It was heavy on check tire pressure on this last trip and the KO3s have very stiff sidewalls and I checked PSI at 34.2 and I am not going to put 37 psi in the tires as they handle great with no body lean. Is there anyway to let the warning system know your vehicle is in an enclosed garage with heavy duty roll up doors and it doesn't need to tell me the LC is unlocked, etc?? Probably not.
