4x4 Mag - Long Term Test

Long Term Test - Isuzu Trooper
report by Peter Shepherd

The model in question is the Isuzu Trooper LWB Duty, a 1990 model which we purchased in 1996 for the grand total of £7000. With just 100,000 Miles on the clock and a full service history for most of that, it seemed like a fairly decent buy. The Dealer I was getting the car from had obtained it from an Isuzu Dealer who didn't have such 'old' cars on the forecourt. His wife had been using it for shopping and also for a holiday to Skegness. With the car seeming to be reliable enough and his wife telling me that she preferred this car to the 'J' reg Shogun now sat on their drive, I handed over the cash and the Trooper was mine.

The 'Duty Pack' fitted to this model included electric windows, height adjustable driver's seat, central locking and Limited Slip rear Differential (to be covered later). Not what you would describe as a luxury interior, but comfortable and easy to live with. I'd never owned a 4x4 so I found the Trooper to be a little bit strange at first, it was so big! Sitting so high on the road made me feel very safe, and with the big Bull Bar on the front, the Trooper felt invincible. The handling took a bit of getting used to, as the body rolled alarmingly on cornering, but with the tyres always remaining in firm contact with the road, I soon got the feel for when I was pushing the car a little too hard!

Although the Trooper was only two-wheel drive in normal road use, this didn't cause a problem on tarmac, and the car could be hustled along nicely. That isn't really a word to be used when describing the Trooper. After my previous vehicle (a Sierra XR 4x4), it felt really slow, but keeping up with the traffic was never a problem. The 2.8 Litre Turbo Diesel needed to be revved to get the most from it, with the Turbo not coming in until about 2200rpm, and expiring again by just over 3500, the gearbox needed plenty of stirring up to maintain a decent rate of travel. Luckily the Isuzu gearbox was easy to use with no selection problems, and only the large gap between the ratios of 2nd to 3rd causing a problem. This meant that with the diesel engine's power band as it was, it was easy to be caught on a hill where second had the engine screaming, but third was just too high for the car to pull. This meant that you had to put up with the high revs until the top of the hill, but the engine did have a pleasant sound when on full song!

We used the vehicle primarily as a towing car during the week, when the Trooper would often be used for carrying anything upto (and sometimes well over) 3500kg. I couldn't complain about the cars towing ability, no matter what I threw at it, it coped well. The good old leaf spring suspension design used on the rear meant that the Trooper didn't 'sag' at the back when loaded up with excessive trailer weights, as do some coil sprung 4x4's, and this was taken advantage of to the full. It's a good job I didn't pass a Ministry WeighBridge at times.

At weekends the Trooper became a family runabout. The roomy interior meant that the whole family could fit in with ease, and the cavernous boot swallowed anything. At holiday time, my family of four, all our usual luggage, three bikes, a garden table and chairs, sleeping bags etc were all carried with ease. Admittedly a spare wheel mounted bike rack was used, and the car did have a very large roof rack (empty). But we had no need for any luggage in the passenger compartment, the car still sat level with no signs of being anywhere near it's load limit, and she would still cruise comfortably at 80 - 85 mph. The journey from North Manchester to Cornwall passed easily and we arrived feeling fairly refreshed, more so than when we had completed the same journey in cars we had owned before.

The urge to try the vehicle out in four wheel drive had me scouring the pages of an off road magazine for a local event, and I was soon off to Brymbo near Chester/Wrexham where an event was laid on by 4x4 Funday Ltd. The idea of such events being to just play in the mud and try your vehicle out, basically driving within your own levels of ability and not having to go anywhere too severe, unless of course you wanted to. This I did, and spent a lot of the time on the end of a towrope! This wasn't the Troopers fault, it was mainly down to my inexperience and the tyres fitted (Nankang "Wild Conqueror Super Tripper"). The car withstood the rigours of off road use really well. Nothing fell off or broke, and the Trooper and I became regular off roaders and after many off road excursions, the Trooper was none the worse for wear. I soon fitted a decent set of Mud Terrain Tyres and these made a big difference to levels of grip. The original size of 215 x 15 were replaced with 31 x 9.5 x 15, these made the car sit at least an inch higher and caused no clearance problems at all.

The Trooper became a regular visitor to various 4x4 off-road sites, and easily followed Discoveries and other more popular machines around the rough terrain. With good underbody protection as standard, no damage ever occurred, and the Trooper took it all in it's stride.

Breakdowns with the Trooper were really few and far between in the 30,000 Miles that I owned it for. The handbrake was always troublesome, and spent most of the time not working! Even after fitting reconditioned calipers on the rear along with new cables, the handbrake only worked for a short time before giving up the ghost again. Even the local Isuzu Dealership admitted that this particular design could be troublesome and I just took this as being one of the pleasures associated with Trooper ownership and left it, the only real problem being at MOT time, when luckily the Garage that I use couldn't get it to work very well either, and so made allowances for it! The rear axle had a limited slip fitted, which helped a lot off road but caused problems on the road. After any Motorway journey the Diff seemed to stick. This meant that at the first roundabout when pulling away, the back axle would bang and jump as the wheels tried to go at different speeds, but the Diff' wanted to stay locked in the straight ahead position and was forced to suddenly let go of one or other drive shaft. This was never a great problem, and was soon accepted as normal. A local Isuzu Dealer seemed to think that the Diff had probably been filled with normal 90s Diff oil at some stage, and that this had contaminated the LSD plates causing them to stick together. I tried cleaning the Diff out and filling it with the correct LS90 oil, but this only gave a short reprieve, and the banging and snatching soon returned. I got used to it and left it, no harm ever seemed to come of it.waterpump failed on the motorway and the Trooper started to run hot. Being ever faithful, the car limped on and didn't actually overheat, although she did get very close. A replacement pump from Isuzu was priced at £130, but I managed to obtain one the next day at a local Motor Factors. They had it listed as being for a Vauxhall, and at only £30 it was a bargain. Easily fitted, the Trooper was once again back to her reliable ways. After a while the front wheel bearings became very noisy, which I put down to off road use and a lack of maintenance. Again Isuzu wanted a silly amount of money for the parts, so I took the bearings out, obtained the reference numbers off them and put them back in. Local bearing suppliers had the bearings in stock and at a quarter of the Isuzu price, but the hub seals had to come from Isuzu. At least these were reasonably priced.

All in all the Trooper was an excellent car. The styling was not to everyone's liking, certainly not mine. But when a car performs as well as this one did, was reliable and returned no less than 25MPG, the styling was no problem. I would recommend the Trooper to anyone. It is a very good sensible car, and will always serve you well. My particular Trooper has now been replaced by a Mercedes G Wagen, and a comparison would not be fair as these two vehicles are in totally different classes as well as price brackets.