Santana

[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.

[dew1911]

We've got a Dealer near here (Well, there's a place that sells them near Preston) so that wouldn't be too much of an issue, but still, I think they could do with getting into a couple of chain dealers or supermarkets or something.

[karlo]

http://www.santanauk.com/

[Manicminer]

bad points are no diff lock as standard and options are dear

Depends what kind of difflock you are talking about.
LR don't do a difflock as standard other than the center diff one.
Probably the Santana has a transfer box and they have no need for a central difflock as they don't have a diff there.

[defenderdan]

Don't forget the fact that the santana has used the plain looking features of the defender and thrown away the character then added some really ugly bits. Then there is the leaf springs (or cart springs as my dad calls them), parabolic or not it's a step backwards if you want to go proper off road. I'll go and hide from the series owners now. Good luck to santana, i hope they do well but for me it's always got to be landrover. :)

[David santana]

I have been running a PS10 for 12 months  on the road the power and the ride is  excellent 70 mph at 2600 rpm.I did some green laning  in the lakes on one hill with loos rocks two 90s I was with were struggling the ps10 went up no problem. The articulation is as good as  a 110.

[blackbeltbob]

they are also getting a 6 speed gearbox next year

[bezzabsa]

had a look at them at peterboro 2 years ago.. £19k for station wagon land rover want nearly £30k..ok slighly cheaper build quality - but with land rovers niggles i'd rather save £11,000 ... that would pay for a load of fuel and servicing!!!

[tenpolequint]

Landrover Owner International did a test with the Santana against a defender 110 and oddily a series 3 sometime last year. I made a comment in this forum about the article and how biased it was toward the defender which came out tops.

[Evilgoat]

Santana Built Vit here :)

Hadd some odd spares issues as Santana used different p[arts to Suzuki in places but it seems well enough put together/