2022 Toyota LandCruiser Sahara ZX on/off-road review (inc. 0-100) 300 Series

CarExpert

We are making our way through every 300 Series Toyota LandCruiser and the next stop on our ride is the 2022 Toyota LandCruiser Sahara ZX 300 Series. We are doing an on- and off-road review, including a 0-100km/h performance dash. Let us know what you think of the new LandCruiser in top-specification trim!  Toyota LandCruiser off-road review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls55_rMYFzM  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Toyota content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota More Toyota LandCruiser: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota/landcruiser  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 00:56 Interior 03:31 Infotainment 05:00 Safety Tech 07:00 Practicality 08:07 On Road 13:25 0-100 km/h 18:36 Off Road 19:23 Verdict 27:11  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #toyota #landcruiser #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. Another week, another Land Cruiser 300 series review.

00:04 We're slowly making our way through the range, and if you want to see our other 300 series reviews,

00:08 you can click up here to catch those.

00:10 Today, it's all about the very top of the tree. If it's not all about off-roading, but it is about touring,

00:15 it's this one here. It's the Land Cruiser Sahara ZX.

00:18 So it is very much the most expensive one you can buy, and it comes with all of the bells and whistles.

00:24 Now, this competes with things like the new Range Rover, the Land Rover Defender, and the Nissan Patrol.

00:31 The top spec of this is priced at just under $140,000,

00:34 but the entire range kicks off at a little under 90 grand if that's too expensive for you.

00:39 Today, we're going to do a detailed review of this car,

00:41 so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of the review, you can use the time codes on the screen,

00:45 or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below,

00:48 and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.

00:52 That's going to tell you every single time we drive one of these big things.

00:55 Okay, so you've got 10 exterior colours to pick from, all but black and white are an additional $700-ish.

01:04 I really like this blue, it stands out so nicely, and here in the top spec Sahara ZX trim,

01:10 you're getting a whole bunch of chrome highlights, and what you'll notice down the bottom here

01:13 is a very low lip. The approach angle of this isn't anywhere near as good as the rest of the range,

01:19 so they haven't really designed this too much for off-roading, but we'll go into a bit more detail

01:23 when we do some light off-roading later on.

01:25 Up the top here, you've got a big Toyota logo, got these silver highlights that sort of mix in

01:30 well with the body colours there. Camera down the front here for the 360 camera.

01:35 I think overall, this design is really nice and it suits the Sahara.

01:38 You'll see as we get around to the sides and the back as well,

01:41 you've got more chrome highlights that really sort of give it a little bit of character.

01:45 Over here, we have a set of full LED headlights with LED daytime running lights and LED indicator

01:52 as well. I think that's a really cool design. In terms of this, I have mentioned this a few times

01:57 now, but headlight washer, if you do get mud and stuff coming over your headlights as you drive

02:01 off-road or through a water crossing, this will blast all of that away so you can actually see

02:05 and you don't need to come out and manually clean that yourself. Whip around to the side,

02:10 got a set of 20-inch alloy wheels and an all-terrain tyre, even though it looks kind of

02:15 like a highway terrain. If you're going to be doing some off-road driving, I would be

02:18 going down the path of all-terrains or something similar to that to make sure you can actually get

02:22 off-road. You'll see here as well, you have the body coloured wheel arch protectors there too.

02:27 Bigger brakes here for the 300 series over and above the 200 series, so four-piston calipers,

02:32 354mm rotor, so it is some decent stopping power there because this is now, I guess,

02:38 a more powerful, more torquey V6 diesel engine as opposed to the last V8 diesel,

02:42 so you need some decent stopping power there. You've got chrome mirror caps here with a camera

02:47 built into the bottom there, LED indicator, you've got these side steps, they're very sort of,

02:51 I guess, innocent, they don't really stand out too much, they do make getting in and out easier.

02:57 Handles have chrome built into them too, so following that theme. You've got privacy glass,

03:03 and then if you walk around to the very back, you have a Land Cruiser here, big Toyota logo,

03:08 LED taillights and LED indicators there as well. You've got your wiper there,

03:12 spoiler along the top here with a shark fin aerial, more of that chrome highlight down the

03:17 bottom there, and then a cover here for your towing, 3.5-ton brake towing capacity if you

03:21 do decide to go towing as well. So, let me know what you reckon about the design down there,

03:26 do you reckon the Sahara ZX is the pick of the bunch or are you looking elsewhere in the 300

03:30 series range? So, we are inside the Land Cruiser, we'll start off with the key, so you've got lock,

03:36 unlock, boot, you've got Panic, Toyota logo down the bottom there with a little bit of garnish on

03:42 the side, then on the back it says Land Cruiser. It's a proximity sensing key, so you leave that

03:47 in your pocket, once you're inside you've got a push button start just there. So, what do we

03:51 reckon about this design? Look, I really do think it's a big step forward over the 200 series and

03:57 they've kind of kept it traditional Land Cruiser which is just making it look like it's full of

04:02 useful things. You've got a big screen up the top there, lots of buttons as you work your way down,

04:07 but because this is the top spec, you've got these metallic finishes along the buttons there and also

04:12 on the steering wheel, this gives me BMW vibes and I really like that they've gone to the effort

04:17 of differentiating that stuff from the plastic buttons. Then, if you look at the materials,

04:21 there's this sort of soft material along the top there, these sides are soft as well, so when you

04:26 are driving you can rest your knee up against that and it feels just nice and relaxing. And then all

04:30 of this stuff is soft too. In terms of your touch points, that is not too bad and not too bad over

04:36 on the door as well. How soft are they? Well, we've got our durometer, tested the main surfaces

04:41 in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before,

04:45 have a look at the link in the description. Now, build quality, right, let's have a look.

04:51 That all feels very solid to me and our door test

04:56 sounds really nice and solid and European. Let's talk about infotainment. So, up the top here,

05:03 you've got a 12.3-inch infotainment system. It's a colour touchscreen, but you do have shortcut

05:08 buttons down the bottom here as well. It's an interesting setup because you've got climate and

05:14 other shortcut features on one side and you can move them to the other side just by pushing this

05:20 button here and switching them back and forward. It's an interesting placement because it's

05:25 different to the way other companies do it, but I think they kind of make it work here.

05:29 In terms of audio, you have AM, FM and DAB+ digital radio and that's all plumbed through

05:35 a 14-speaker JBL branded sound system. Sound system is really good, so pretty impressed with

05:41 that. The other cool function here is remote connectivity with the car and it also comes

05:45 with an SOS switch up the top. So, if you are in an accident or you do need assistance, you're

05:51 able to hit that and it will use an embedded sim to call remotely to get assistance. You also have

05:56 over-the-air updates that come through the infotainment system as well, which is pretty

06:00 cool. In terms of smartphone mirroring, you have both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. This is what

06:04 Apple CarPlay looks like. So, yeah, not a full screen integration and ever so slightly laggy

06:11 as well. I would love it if this took up the entire screen like it does in most other cars,

06:15 but you can just move it left and right. You can't really make it go full screen,

06:19 which is a little bit disappointing. And this is what Android Auto looks like.

06:22 So, there you go, same thing. It just takes up that portion of the screen and slightly laggy as

06:28 well as you sort of move through that. Now, in terms of your other functions, this also has some

06:34 pretty cool four-wheel drive features and we'll go through those later on. We actually shot a

06:40 separate off-road review specifically for the LandCruiser 300 series and you can click up here

06:45 to watch that, but I'll take you through those things a little bit later on. Now, ahead of the

06:48 driver is another LCD display. This gives you details such as the trip computer, also off-road

06:54 controls, and it's an easy way to switch off some of the safety systems while you're driving,

06:58 so that's a pretty handy setup there. Righto, moving on to safety, you have autonomous

07:02 emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection. You have an auto-dimming rear vision

07:08 mirror. You have a lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant, but because this is a

07:12 hydraulic steering rack, it just pulses the brakes. It doesn't actually self-steer back into the lane,

07:17 which is a little bit disappointing. You have rear cross-traffic alert, radar cruise control,

07:22 blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror, a driver attention monitor. You also have both

07:27 front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera. I'll show you what that looks like. So, you have,

07:32 actually, I'll switch the car on first because it'll beep at us endlessly otherwise. Now, once

07:37 it is up and running, you hit the view button here. You get this top-down view that gives you

07:41 like a 360 around the car, which is kind of cool but old school, and then you also have this view

07:47 here that allows you to see through the car effectively, but then when you do put it into

07:52 reverse, you actually have a really good-looking camera. So, it moves with the wheel there in terms

07:56 of the grid lines. It's super high resolution out of this display. Top-down view is okay,

08:01 but not amazing, and then you can also go wide-angle out of the back as well. So, yeah,

08:06 not a bad setup. Now, what about your practicality? We'll start with your connectivity options. So,

08:10 you have a 12-volt outlet, a USB-C port, a USB-A port. You have wireless phone charging,

08:17 and in terms of storing your phone, you can pop it down there on the wireless charge pad,

08:21 or you can pop it here in the cup holder. That's no dramas. Now, what about your coffee cup? Well,

08:25 that can easily fit into here. So, you've got two different tiers. You've got a sort of higher tier

08:30 there and then a lower one there. In the higher one, the coffee cup's easy to get at. You also

08:35 have teeth to hold it into place. But then, in addition to that, you've got this that allows

08:39 you to change the height. So, if you do migrate to your water bottle, you can go from having it

08:44 there to having it all the way in. So, pretty decent setup there, and I like the way that

08:49 they've actually thought about that stuff because there's nothing worse than not having enough room

08:53 for your drink bottle. Now, drink bottle inside the door fits easily. What about our big bottle?

08:59 We'll give that a shot. So, it fits into there, which is good, and doesn't fit into the door,

09:06 which is a little bit annoying, but anyway. Now, what about the rest of your storage? Now,

09:11 this centre console opens a number of ways. So, it'll open that way, it'll open that way,

09:15 and then it will open from this side as well on the back, so your rear passengers can get stuff

09:21 out. Once you are inside, though, you have a little coin tray. You also have a fridge here

09:26 in the top spec, but this fridge is significantly smaller than the previous generation, so a little

09:30 bit disappointing that you don't really have as much room to pop your things in there, but

09:35 yeah, it has a fridge. That's the main thing, I guess. Then you also have a glove box over here.

09:40 Glove box is reasonably sized. You've got enough room up the top there in addition to the manual

09:45 to put your things, and likewise down the bottom, and then finally you have a sunglasses holder up

09:50 the top here. Finally, what about your comfort? Well, you have dual zone automatic climate

09:54 control up the front here. You then have another two zones of climate in the second row. Heated

09:59 and cooled seats up the front. You also have a heated steering wheel up the front as well with

10:04 little bits of wood grain on it. The seats, okay, so they're interesting. So, beige interior,

10:10 and it is very beige, so you get that impression that if you are doing some muddy off-road driving,

10:14 you probably don't want to go for the beige, but they are perforated to accommodate the cooled

10:18 seats. They're quite comfortable. They hug you in nicely, and they have a stack of electric

10:22 adjustments. So, forwards, backwards, up, down, backrest forwards, backwards, and then bolster

10:29 adjustment as well. Driver's side has memory. Passenger's side is electric. Steering wheel

10:34 offers electric adjustment both in and out. In terms of our reach test, most of this stuff is

10:39 easier to reach. It's only when you get to the outer edges of this screen that it is a bit

10:42 trickier, but you can solve that by moving all of your stuff over to the right-hand side.

10:47 Okay, second row of the Land Cruiser. So, let's start off with room. Look, it's okay,

10:53 but not amazing. So, knee room's okay, but toe room is really strange. I'm sort of wedged into

10:58 the centre there, which is kind of weird. Headroom is not too bad. We do have the sunroof up the front

11:03 there, but it kind of capers in a little bit up the top there to give you a bit more room.

11:08 But yeah, outside of that, you've got a grab handle to get in, another handle up the top here

11:13 if you need to hold on to things. You've got a little coat hook there as well. Air vents, you've

11:16 got one set up the top here, one set down here as well. This is where you control your third and

11:21 fourth zone of climate control. Outboard seats have both heating and cooling. You've got two

11:26 USB-C ports down the bottom here. You've got a 12-volt outlet, HDMI port. This is where you plug

11:31 your headphones in and control your volume. These media screens are adjustable, so you can move them

11:37 up and down. Now, you have all your standard sort of connection types. What I love about this is

11:41 they actually have a DLNA server, so you can run a server rather and then connect into the access

11:48 point here and stream stuff from that application on your phone. So I think that is really cool,

11:53 and it means you don't have to have cables for HDMI and stuff, and you can actually just stream

11:57 stuff from a DLNA server. So yeah, love that set up. In terms of the rest of your creature comforts,

12:03 you've got a center armrest here with two cup holders. I'll try our bottle in there.

12:08 Fits in nicely, and then this also fits inside the door. Now, in addition to that folding down,

12:14 you can actually fold the entire thing down, and that sort of gives you access to the boot plus

12:19 another armrest. You also have two ISOFIX points on the outboard seats and three top tether points.

12:25 Now, what about your cargo space? So because this isn't a seven-seater, you only have

12:30 the five seats here, you do get a little bit more room, but it is a bit curious because,

12:36 yeah, they've taken the seats out, but they've kept stuff like the air vids and the cup holders

12:40 and stuff in, so it's kind of like a half removal of your third row. But anyway, under the floor

12:46 here, you've got a little bit of storage there. You've got some hooks off to the side. You also

12:50 have a power outlet over here. You've got those randomly placed cup holders over there as well.

12:56 You have a little over 1100 litres of cargo space available here when it's in this configuration.

13:01 I'll show you what it looks like with the bags in there. So, lappy bag in there. Get the dust off

13:05 this. Whip that in. So, yeah, stacks of room in there. And then, if you do want to expand that

13:12 space, what you can do is drop the second row. And that expands the space to just over 2000 litres.

13:25 Righto, we're on the road in the Land Cruiser. Now, powering this is a 3.3-litre turbocharged

13:35 V6 diesel. I know, shock horror, V8 diesel is dead and it's only available with this V6 diesel here

13:41 in Australia. It produces 227 kilowatts of power though and 700 newton metres of torque, which is

13:48 a pretty healthy slab, I reckon. And that's all mated to a 10-speed automatic transmission. And

13:53 that 10-speed is new to this Land Cruiser and I'll tell you what, it is a really nice engine

13:59 and transmission. I've driven a few of these now and, I don't know, it just puts a big smile on

14:04 your face every time you punch the throttle. It's ready to mumbo and the 10-speed auto is never

14:08 really hunting either, which is important for a car like this. You want to just really get up and

14:13 go without any delays. Toyota claims a combined fuel economy of 8.9 litres per 100 k's. We are

14:19 currently sitting on 13.3, which is a fair way off that number. This car has been doing a fair

14:27 bit of idling today. In fact, the battery went flat. We had to jump start it, so it has been

14:31 sitting for a little while. So look, I think if you do highway driving, this is probably going to

14:36 be more efficient, but if you're in and around the city, do expect it to sit above 10 litres per 100.

14:40 It's worth pointing out with the fuel now as well. It has a 110 litre tank, which is an 80 litre main

14:45 tank and a 30 litre sub tank. It means you're going to be able to do over a thousand kilometres

14:50 to a tank of fuel, which I think is pretty impressive, especially if you're towing. With

14:53 a three and a half tonne brake towing capacity, you want to know that you have enough fuel in the

14:57 tank to get you to the next stop and you don't want to have to be stopping all the time because

15:01 it's a miniature tank. Now let's talk drive modes. So you've got a stack to choose from. So we've got

15:07 Eco, Comfort, Normal, Sport, no Sport S rather, and then Sport S Plus and then Custom. Now they

15:15 may all sound a little bit silly, but as you move through each of those, they're going to vary the

15:18 way the car responds to throttle inputs and things like that, but in this particular grade, they're

15:23 going to respond to the way it rides as well because this has adaptive damping. So right now

15:28 in the Comfort setting, it is dead smooth and it's quite surprising when you think of the size of

15:33 this and that the dimensions really haven't changed much over the 200 Series Land Cruiser,

15:37 to think that they're able to make a vehicle this size ride as nicely as it does, I think

15:42 it's quite impressive. And as you move your way through these drive modes, it becomes progressively

15:48 firmer, so we'll have a little punt in the Sport mode shortly, but here on the straight ahead,

15:51 it is significantly firmer and you do definitely notice that. So Comfort is comfortable and that

15:57 is the thing if you're buying this to do a trip around Australia, it's like the perfect car for

16:01 it because it just sits nice and smoothly, you can drop a wheel off the edge there and it just

16:06 remains really nice and comfortable. Let's talk about road noise, this is one of the big advantages

16:11 of this TNGA platform, it is dead silent. Even here on a course chip country road, we are just

16:16 gliding along nice and smoothly and there's barely any noise coming into the cabin, so it's a really

16:21 quiet place to be seated for a long distance drive. It's worth noting as well in that Comfort

16:25 mode that in and around the city, the ride is fantastic too, so you can collect speed humps,

16:29 cobblestones and it really doesn't fuss, so they've been able to engineer this to work across

16:33 a number of different surfaces and even gravel, which is a surface that you would expect to find

16:38 in the country, it really feels like it has been engineered for Aussie conditions. Let's talk

16:42 steering for a second, so unlike a lot of the competition in this segment, the Land Cruiser

16:47 still uses a hydraulic steering rack, that means you do catch it napping sometimes and it has

16:52 variable load through that steering movement. It is electrically assisted, but it's not a proper

16:57 EPAS system that you'll find in a number of other cars, that also means that things like the lane

17:02 departure warning and the lane departure assistant, they pulse the brakes as opposed to pulling the

17:08 steering back into line and it just gets really intrusive and it's not the best way to handle it,

17:13 I think they really should have gone down the path of an EPAS system. Now here's something

17:17 interesting as well, this car actually has a limited slip differential at the rear, it doesn't

17:21 have the KDSS stuff, but if I dial this into Sport now and we punch it through our corner here,

17:27 and I just load the throttle up there, it's interesting the way that it responds because

17:33 you think to yourself, why would you need a limited slip differential in a car like this? Well,

17:37 it kind of gives you an impression that with the turbo petrol version of this, which we don't get

17:41 in Australia, it's got enough oomph to really sort of give you a little bit of tail happiness

17:44 through a corner, despite the fact it does weigh almost 2,600 kilos, but it also means they might

17:50 do a faster version of this down the track. We understand there's a hybrid coming and if that

17:54 comes and really teams with the turbo V6 petrol, we should see this being quite a sporty car and

18:00 that LSD is going to help it get through corners smoothly. One of the other things that's helped

18:05 the LandCruiser handle a little better is an adjustment to the centre of gravity, now sits

18:10 lower, so that means you're getting better road holding, it doesn't feel like you're sitting up

18:14 on stilts anymore. We did test the GR Sport and you can click up here to watch that video

18:19 with the KDSS system or the e-KDSS system, which was meant to level out the ride when it was sort

18:25 of just driving in its sort of sport mode and it really didn't work that well at all, so I don't

18:29 know if that's been configured correctly or whether that's the intended purpose, but this seems to be

18:35 the best setup for it. Toyota doesn't have an official 0-100 time for the LandCruiser,

18:39 but we've put it up against our stopwatch and this is how it went.

18:42 [Engine noise]

18:53 Let's talk visibility, so despite it being a big car, I can see clearly down the front there,

18:58 I can also see out the sides because those wing mirrors are huge with a little blind spot

19:02 monitor built in. Visibility out the back is good as well and I love the head-up display,

19:06 it's really nice and clear and I can see exactly what's going on ahead of me.

19:10 And finally, turning circle is 11.8 metres. It's actually not bad for a vehicle this size,

19:17 means that you don't really have to be doing three-point turns all the time, it's pretty good.

19:22 [Engine noise]

19:24 Righto, let's do a little bit of light off-roading. Let me run you through the

19:29 four-wheel drive specifications first. It's kind of weird in the 300 Series LandCruiser range

19:33 because not every car has the same off-road equipment. The GR Sport has all of the equipment,

19:38 that's front, centre, rear differential locks and all of the fun stuff. Click up here to watch a

19:43 video we shot with that. So we basically went through all of the four-wheel drive controls in

19:47 the 300 Series, as in the best of the best, so you can see how that performs, but today we'll focus

19:53 just on this vehicle, which means you have 235 millimetres of ground clearance, that's slightly

19:59 up on the previous generation of LandCruiser. Because this has that body kit on the front

20:03 there, the approach angle is down to 24 degrees, that's the angle of the face you can approach

20:07 before you hit the front of the car, and it's 25 degrees for the departure angle, which is the same

20:12 but in reverse. You've got a 700 millimetre waiting depth, and in addition to that, this is

20:17 obviously a full-time four-wheel drive, but you do have low-range four-wheel drive. You have a

20:21 centre differential lock, hill descent control, you have crawl control, you also have a multi-terrain

20:27 select, which allows you to select the different drive modes while you're off-road as well. So,

20:31 fair bit of stuff there, but it does miss out on the rear differential lock, which I think

20:34 should really be standard on a 300 Series LandCruiser. Now, also, I'm going to keep

20:39 directing you to other videos here, but if none of that makes any sense to you, click up here to

20:42 watch a video we shot on four-wheel drive controls explained. So, you experts, it's going to mean

20:46 nothing to you, but if you don't really know much about it all, it will give you a better idea of

20:50 what I'm talking about. So, first up, let's try Log Mountain. So, I'm going to leave this just in

20:56 four high, which is the high-range four-wheel drive mode. I'm going to select the multi-terrain

21:00 select, we'll pop it into, I reckon, mud. So, what that's now doing, it's disabled, or it's

21:06 partially disabled stability control. It's also disabled our forward collision system,

21:10 because you don't really want to be slowing down if it thinks you're going to hit something.

21:13 I've turned parking sensors off manually. We'll just let it climb up here in four-wheel drive

21:18 high range. It's pretty dry today, so it shouldn't be too much of a drama.

21:21 Yeah, this is really nice and smooth. It's just getting up here without too many dramas.

21:27 That's the thing with a 10-speed auto as well, sometimes...

21:30 Oh, there it is, okay. Yeah, with a 10-speed auto, sometimes it just hunts way too much,

21:41 and you don't know what it's doing, whereas in this case, it just gets up there so nice

21:45 and smoothly without any dramas. Even then, when it started losing a little bit of traction,

21:49 I should have been going much quicker up there, but it just sorted itself out. It's able to then

21:53 just take care of the car's surroundings and just get you up those situations without having to go

21:58 back down and starting again. So yeah, really impressive setup.

22:01 Now for our downhill, I'm going to put the downhill assist on. So what this allows me to do,

22:06 you can see on the screen there, I can adjust our rate of descent. So I'm going to set that

22:10 to the slowest speed, and then this is the other cool thing. I'll pop this camera on.

22:14 You can actually see where the wheels are. You can see where the car's heading. You can

22:17 see our angles as well. And then for me now to place this in the ruts down here, I know with

22:23 confidence where it's going to go. So I'll let go of the brake there. We'll see how this goes.

22:28 Yeah, so that rate is really nice. It's not too quick, and then if I do want to speed it up a bit,

22:34 I just turn that around and it goes even quicker. So yeah, look, that's some basic off-road stuff,

22:40 but you know, this is really idiot proof. So yeah, big fan of that.

22:44 Okay, so you probably can't hear this on the camera, but I am noticing the same sound that

22:58 we had in the GR Sport and also the first Land Cruiser that we tested. It's like a knocking

23:03 sound coming from the suspension or somewhere within this steering column, and it happens at

23:07 low speed on corrugations. And this is now the third car that we've noticed it on. So yeah,

23:13 something's not right here. We have let Toyota know about it. They are investigating, but

23:16 you know, until we get something from them about what this problem is and why it's common to all

23:21 Land Cruisers, I'm not exactly sure what the story is. So I will update in the comments section below

23:26 when and if we do hear from Toyota regarding that noise. And if you are a Land Cruiser owner,

23:29 let me know in the comments section below, do you have that noise as well in your car?

23:33 It's coming from like this side of the car somewhere. So yeah, let me know down there.

23:38 Okay, so next up we have our Offset Mogul. First up though, we've got our seesaw here. So we're

23:44 going to chuck the car up on the side as we reach just under 30 degrees there, and we'll get it to

23:50 the centre here where we have full body flex. I just want to see how we go with rigidity.

23:55 That feels good. That door is opening and closing without any dramas at all,

24:03 which is good news. Now let's get it into our sort of crisscross here at the Offset Mogul.

24:08 This is basically just going to test how this performs without that rear differential lock,

24:12 because we'll have one tyre in the air and one tyre almost off the ground at the front there.

24:16 It'll cause this effect where you've only got two wheels with traction.

24:20 This has so much suspension articulation that it's pretty much always in contact with the ground,

24:25 but I'll just roll out of the brake and onto the throttle there. A little bit of wheel slip

24:30 just there as we seesaw, but if I roll out of that brake and onto the throttle,

24:35 that's cool. It's taking care of that all without any dramas. So yeah, pretty impressive.

24:41 Now I do have something slightly more challenging, so let's whip around to that section and we'll

24:45 see how it performs. Okay, so this is our next obstacle. So look, this doesn't look all that

24:51 challenging, but it's a pretty steep rise and then we have lots of ruts on either side. What

24:55 this is going to do is force the car to figure out how to send traction to each side of the car,

25:00 and as we get closer to the top there, we'll reach full wheel extension. We do in most other

25:04 cars and that will also challenge the traction control system. So for this, I'm going to pop

25:07 it into low range, which is flicking that switch down there. It goes into low range. It says ready

25:13 to rumble. I'm also going to lock the centre diff. So okay, let's give this a shot. We'll

25:17 see how it goes. So we climb our rise here. I can already hear some clicking and thuds through

25:27 there. Look at that. Look, it's a little bit dramatic, but it got up there without any dramas

25:34 at all. We did collect a couple of little bits and pieces as we went up, but that is the four-wheel

25:39 drive system doing its work as we climb there. It's the centre diff locked. It's sending 50%

25:44 of torque to the front axle, 50% to the rear, and the rest is being managed by traction control.

25:49 So as we climb, it's basically sorting everything out for us. So look, despite this not being as

25:54 capable off-road in terms of the hardware, I really do think this could pretty much go anywhere

25:59 if you just whack it into low range and just have the centre diff locked. So pretty impressive stuff.

26:04 But if you do want the serious off-roader, I think you're going to have to get the GR Sport.

26:07 Okay, actually, I almost forgot. Before you go buy your GR Sport, I just wanted to tell you

26:13 about Turn Assist. So this car comes with Turn Assist, and when we had the GR Sport,

26:18 we shot a video on how it works, and you can see the footage on the screen here.

26:21 Turn Assist effectively allows the vehicle to reduce its turning radius, and it does that by

26:26 locking wheels as it goes around a corner. Now, this is useful if you're on a technical

26:31 off-road course and you have like a hairpin or something coming up, because when you lock your

26:34 centre, front and rear diffs, you do increase the turning radius because you're asking all of those

26:39 wheels to turn at the same rate. So Turn Assist basically eliminates that problem, and it's

26:44 just incredible to see, and you can see on the screen there, half of it is Turn Assist not

26:48 working, the other half is Turn Assist working. You can see how much extra room you have when

26:52 you're doing a U-turn, so that is standard here on the Sahara.

26:55 So the Toyota Land Cruiser, this is like the third one we've driven now, and I don't know,

27:16 I quite like this one because it is luxurious inside, the limited-slip differential gives it

27:21 a bit of a sporty feel behind the wheel, and it kind of assists it off-road as well, it kind of

27:25 gets it through the stuff that you would otherwise need a rear diff lock for. So, yes, it is expensive,

27:30 and look, in the back of my mind, I keep thinking about Patrol. Patrol's like $40,000 cheaper than

27:36 this, and I'm like, "I wonder if it really is worth it?" And if Nissan updates the interior

27:42 of Patrol, it's going to make this a very hard prospect, especially when you consider how hard

27:46 they are to find at the moment. So, I don't know, let me know what you reckon in the comments section

27:50 below. Is this too expensive? Have they done enough to justify the big price jump over the

27:55 previous generation Land Cruiser, and do you have one on order, or have you had one delivered?

28:00 I'm going to keep you posted on that suspension or steering knocking issue. As soon as we hear

28:05 anything from Toyota, I'll update it in the comments section below. If you did enjoy this

28:09 video, please make sure you share it with your mates, hit the like button, and don't forget to

28:12 subscribe to our channel. But, until next time, take it easy.

Category

Transcript

Recommended