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Santana

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blackbeltbob:
just thought I would post this to see what you all think of them (Santana 4 x 4's)
saw them at the highland show and spoke to the dealer on the stand.
he seemed very knowlegable and spoke of their good and bad points. a lot has been done to correct problems inherited from land rover , for example more elbow room for the driver and passenger, seats can go further back, 2.8 Iveco engine with a three litre coming soon and power upgrades an option.
can tow 3.5 tonnes and do nearly 30mpg.
bad points are no diff lock as standard and options are dear. he also commented on the fact that the dealer network is very poor with some not being able to do the basic work. indeed atrade in in the future will be an interesting prospect. but he said that he had some in a quarry and they were copiing very well with the abuse. unfortunately they only come with a 2 year warranty.
in contrast to that, land rover only had two defenders on thier stand and both were over £25k. they had spotty youths working on their stand who knew nothing of the product or of the forthcoming model. they had no basic model which I thought was poor considering it was an agricultural show.

any comments?

dew1911:
Comment - The Future.

If Fraud take the Debtfinder the way they are wanting to go then the Santana is going to become the Workhorse 4x4 without a doubt, they are very rugged, powerful and still Leaf Sprung.

Right now they are not quite the force that they need to seriously take some market share but the amount I see around are slowly increasing.

They really need a 90 varient to start stealing more sales.

blackbeltbob:
sorry forgot to mention that they have a "90"version coming next year.
they also have parabolic springs.

dew1911:
They have a 90 coming, well, I think we could see a new King coming very soon.

If I was buying new (I Wish!) I'd be having a PS-10 just to avoid the TD5 engine.

blackbeltbob:
keep remembering things, sorry.
he did mention that the new iveco engine that land rover were going touse comes from the transit and that has problems with the clutch and gearbox.
whereas theirs uses a bigger engine and their own gerabox.
I agree, there may be a new king coming.

also while they are "trying to please customers" the dealer was offering to meet me half way when it needed a service. unfortunately they need a service every 9000 miles.

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