Before i start a " i love my landy and landys are best" argument, this is a disclaimer....
I have a landy beacuse i have tried loads of others and they werent for me.
As far as rangers are concerned, i have found only one advantage, which was the puling power which was quite impressive. I have done loads of work with a fencing contractor who has one, and off road, admittedly with all terrains not mud terrains, it is awful. The chassis on the ranger is mickey mouse compared to a landy, the body is steel not ali. yet it weighs thesame as a landy of similar size- lightweight chassis. They are in two wheel drive with selectable four wheel drive and selectable lo-hi range, but no central diff lock (i think). They are great on road, and that is what they are really marketed at. My landrover garage, Mid Cornwall 4x4, has the servicing contract for the hundreds of vehicles that are used by the china clay industtry, Imerys, and are owned by Daimler-Benz on a leasing contract. They have two landys that are running 24-seven, and are totally abused. Daimler wanted to know how it was that they could buy a £20000 defender and 3 years later be lucky to get £300 for it at auction. So they bought 10 rangers. After 6 months they got rid of the lot and went back to landys. They have tried all sorts of 4x4's in the clay pits, and the only ones that survive are landy's, and the other problem was getting spares, and rot. I have had a couple of hi-luxs too, and have to say that if Toyota made a bigger version of the hi-lux pick up, then i wouldnt touch the green oval. They are bombproof. I am aiming to be fairly un-biased in this, but i would advise against a ranger if you want to do any serious off road work, they just arent tough enough imo. Hopefully someone on herewill have more experience of them and may give a better view. I think the fact that a brand new ranger is half the price of a new hi-cap defender (the basis for most tippers) says a lot too. A landy is basically a glorified tractor, and as for reliability issues, an all honesty, they are no more or less reliable than anty other 4x4 which works hard and is looked after, but they are very very cheap on parts, and there is a very good availability of parts new and second hand, which for me is one of the things that gives them an edge too. Ill stop gibbering now. Sorry.