2018 Toyota Land Сruiser costs $85,000. This is a luxury SUV that costs more than almost every SUV from Mercedes-Benz and Land Rover and BMW. And in this article, we are going to explain why.
Durability and Reliability
The main advantage of this vehicle is durability. Land Cruiser can literally go anywhere and it can literally do anything. And it can give you a luxurious experience while you’re getting there. The Land Cruiser first came out decades ago and the original one looked like a Jeep. Eventually, it was refined several times. And this is truly one of the most capable and durable vehicles on the road. It’s often
said that most automakers engineer their parts to last 10 to 15 years, whereas everything on the Land Cruiser is overbuilt and designed to last for 25 years.
The Land Cruiser is tremendously reliable, but it’s also immensely capable. It can go everywhere because it has every off-roading extra and accessory you could want directly from the factory. And it’s incredibly luxurious with basically every luxury feature and amenity you could possibly want. If you were to ask us to pick one car to take a trip around the world or to drive to the Arctic Circle or to ride out a hurricane we wouldn’t even hesitate — Toyota Land Cruiser.
Quirks and Features
The Land Cruiser’s biggest quirk is its simplicity. And we will start under the hood. Here, there is a 5.7 liter v8, 380 horsepower, 400 pound-feet of torque. There is no turbocharging in this engine, there’s no diesel, there’s no hybrid, there’s no plug-in hybrid. You just get a big old naturally aspirated v8 because it lasts a long time.
Styling is another example of the Land Cruiser’s focus on simplicity. If you were driving next to this car, behind this car on the road you would just assume you’re next to another Toyota.
And that simplicity has carried over to several items in the interior the most obvious of which is the parking brake. This car still has the old-school parking brake lever like in an old car from the 1990s. It is surprising to see that in an $85,000 vehicle. But one thing is for sure — it isn’t gonna break. And there are other examples of it throughout the car. For instance, the clock in the center still uses that old 1980s clock font instead of a nice new LCD screen. Toyota has put in a couple of LCD screens but the clock and the climate control temperature is this old simple clock font that Toyota has developed so that it won’t break. The same with the odometer.
But of course, this car has many amenities. For instance, has a 360-degree camera top-down view. It also has all the other modern safety features that you would want and expect from a car at this price point. For instance, it has radar cruise control so it will slow down and speed up depending on the speed of the car in front of you, automatic braking if you’re about to get in an accident, it has a blind spot monitor, and it has lane departure warning. Another cool feature this car has is the automatic climate control seats. You turn on the seats heated or cooled and it does whatever is necessary to get the seat temperature to your exact liking.
Also one of the most important things to talk about with this car is the off-roading features because it has many of them. It has locking differentials that have low range gearing and it has crawl control: it senses the terrain you’re on and you can choose exactly what speed you want to go and it will crawl at that speed knowing that it’s on rocks and so it has to be a little more careful. The really cool thing about crawl control though is it can get the car unstuck.
One interesting item in the interior is adjusting the airflow and the climate controls. This car is all about simplicity and so it’s easy to change the temperature — it’s just an old-school button. It’s also easy to change where the air is coming out. The one thing you can’t change with a button though is how much air is coming out. To do that you have to press climate, then go into the screen, and then you can adjust the airflow.
Another interesting item at the Land Cruiser is its key. For years the Land Cruiser used the same key as every other Toyota which is a little unbecoming of the expensive luxury car the Land Cruiser has turned into. Now it finally has a nicer key and if you flip it over it says Land Cruiser on the back with little tire treads to emphasize the fact that you can take this off-road and that key is the start of your journey.
Another cool feature of the Land Cruiser is that the center console is cooled. The climate vents come into here and they can keep cool whatever you need: a sandwich or water bottles. And it is completely silent even at max cool — you don’t hear it on at all.
Now, let’s talk about the rear seats in the Land Cruiser. We love the leather seating material in this car. It’s tremendously soft, more so than in most other luxury cars. However, there is a surprisingly impractical center armrest. You can fold it down and it works as an armrest but not much more than that. You open it up for storage and there basically is no storage. It just gives you like a quarter of an inch of the depth.
There are a couple of interesting items at the back of the Land Cruiser starting with the tailgate. You can open up the tailgate automatically by pressing a little button on the key, and when you do you will notice that only the upper half of the tailgate opens. That’s because the Land Cruiser still features a split tailgate. The lower half has its own little latch and then it opens independently. So if you’re out having a picnic you can sit back here on the clamshell and a lower part of the tailgate and enjoy your picnic lunch which is very practical.
Lowering the seats at the back is incredibly easy and it takes four seconds. The seat is folded up against the window which is a really inconvenient place for it. This is because they cannot be folded on the floor like in other cars because there is full-size spare tire stuff you’ll need when you go off-roading, which is the primary purpose of this vehicle.
One other interesting item you’ll find at the back of this Toyota is a first aid kit. It’s unusual to see a first aid kit in a Japanese car. It’s pretty common in German cars because most European governments require vehicles to keep a first aid kit with them. But the Land Cruiser has one because you might be off-roading and something could happen.
Now, let’s talk about the infotainment system which has a couple of interesting quirks. You can train the voice recognition system to understand your voice. It gives you a series of different sentences to say and then you say them and then it understands your diction, the way that you speak, and that makes it easier to recognize your voice.
Another interesting option the navigation system gives you is the 3d map view angle. If you have the map set to the 3d view you can change the angle and you can change it with 10 different possible angles.
The maintenance reminder in Toyota Land Cruiser is very cool. In this car, you can set a maintenance reminder for everything. You can select an oil change, obviously, but you can also select an air filter, a tire rotation, brake fluid, transmission fluid. You can select a reminder for basically anything that might need to be replaced in this car. The benefit is you don’t have to save all the paperwork from all your service visits. That is a really impressive feature. And that feature doesn’t only work for service and maintenance. There are also three little icons for personal where you can add in a personal date that you want to be reminded of, for example, an anniversary or a birthday.
On the Road
One thing that we wish Toyota would do better on is fuel economy. This car can run forever, it can pull anything but it is 12-13 miles per gallon. And even if you can afford the fuel, it’s just kind of a mental thing — you don’t have to get 12 miles per gallon to drive a big pickup or to drive a big SUV.
Toyota Land Cruiser is not fast like a sports car but for a massive SUV the size of this, it moves with a lot of power. And it feels like it has power for every situation. In terms of driving, this car is tremendously smooth. This vehicle is reliable and it is really good at holding its value.
In terms of steering and handling, it’s not so bad, it body rolls a lot less than you would think given its size and its heft. It does a pretty good job with controlling body roll. One annoyance for me is that the adaptive cruise control system in this truck can’t bring it to a full stop.
Summing Things Up
Toyota Land Cruiser is a great SUV and it is truly one of the best SUVs that you can buy. For people who want to focus on dependability, reliability, longevity, and capability it is a perfect vehicle. And if you’re looking for that kind of brand name then there is none better than Land Cruiser.
