Long term review

The orginal seats in my 1986 SJ413 is like sitting on a sponge. You just sink into them! I think on the whole they got the design of the Gen 4 right. They tried to capture everything from the previous Generations into a new car. The Gen 3 was a bit more car like and softer in design. Interior is pretty dull but they did start to improve on the seats with half leather on the later ones and two tone colours with painted plastic parts instead of exposed plastic. The Gen 4 took more inspiration from the Gen 2 SJ. Stripped back interior revealing the metal panels, passenger side grab handle and Dials all in SJ form. Outside is pretty much spot on. It's retro SJ looks is what captured the world and bought the Jimny back into the limelight again as the jimny brand was kind of dying out with the Gen 3 especially in its later years. There is though way too much plastic both inside and out on a gen 4. Which one is the best looking is highly subjective. I love all the Generations of Jimny due to the fact its stayed true to itself and each one has a different vibe whilst still being the same. I'm just as excited to pick up my early 2018 Jimny than I was picking up my 2023 LCV. 

I think you are right with new car cars they have no attraction for me. I would argue that peak car was around 2010 before the full on board nanny systems became legislation.

The greatest hits of the past design and being willfully retro is what stayed my hand from buying a gen4 for as long as I did. It's one of the reasons I love the gen3, it's a product of its era of Japanese car design the soft bubble design speaks to me much like the K11 micra. To be honest when I was looking at buying bellerophon or rather thinking about another car for myself which was the original plan a restomod k11 was very high on the list simply because a jimny in my private budget would have been very tired. Would that have been easier to bond with than the yellow one or would having to weld up a project jimny have left the same off taste I'll never know, I'd probably be a lot poorer though!

I hadn’t really notice the difference in gearing when moving from a Gen 3 to a Gen 4, although I always thought that the Gen 3 had quite high revs for a given speed in 5th. I have to admit to usually been in 5th or in low range, usually 1st.

I found the faux leather seats in my Gen3 not particularly comfortable, so swapped them to semi-bucket seats which were great. I did toy with the idea of fitting them to my Gen4 but thought I would give the GEn4 ones a fair trial and found them to be OK. Not as comfy on a long journey as other cars I have owned, but perfectly acceptable. I don’t slide around as much off-road as the Gen3 seats (probably because they were faux leather) so the stock Gen4 seat stayed and I sold my semi-bucket seats.

As regards stability, I will enter a leave a corner with more speed in my Gen4 than I would have done in my Gen3, both on stock suspension, but perhaps the dampers or springs on my Gen3 were a little more worn.

For the most part the ‘electronics’ work fine on my Gen4, I don’t use the auto-headlights but don’t feel the need to switch anything else off, it all seems to work, perhaps I got one of the good ones?

I wouldn’t swap back, although originally I didn’t like the shape of the Gen4, not compared to the Gen3 but it has grown on me.

That for me really is the saving grace of the yellow one, it serves to allow temeraire to be special and looked forward to. Oh and be clean inside.

I've never noticed anything wrong with the gearing, but my Gen4 is an auto.
I have noticed that the transfer box is a lot louder, which will be all those permanently driven gears compared with the epicyclic reduction in the Gen3.

The headlights work a lot better in the Gen4 too, they were always dim & yellow in the Gen3, only a few weeks ago (a mere 6 years after selling it) it occurred to me that the previous owner might have fitted sporty bulbs, which need more current than the thin wires can handle so end up dimmer than standard.

The super slippery load floor was A Big Problem, soon sorted with a £££ rubber mat though, but the Gen3 was never as bad.



If you like cruise control, you'd love the adaptive cruise that you get in more modern cars, my Citroen uses the lidar to follow the car in front, if it slows down, so does mine- right to a stop if needed, and when it speeds up again mine will go faster up to the set limit. And on the odd occasion that the SatNav has the vaugest clue where it is the car can switch speeds to match the limit that it thinks is correct (It does ask for confirmation, which is handy when it thinks it is on the Toll Road a couple of miles away which is 70 but it is on a 60mph road!) 


Yes, the SatNav in my Citroen is as flaky as the one in the Jimny.......