2024 Toyota Land Cruiser Review // Idiot Proof

Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got us in this situation. Well, why don't we rewind a bit, and I'll tell you the story. You're watching Throttle House. I'm Thomas. And I'm James. And today, we're going on a mini Throttle House adventure. With the all new Toyota Land Cruiser. We're gonna do highways, we're gonna do back roads, we're gonna do sand dunes, and we're gonna do a little bit of camping. I hate camping. I don't know why I let him talk me into these things. Anyway, we're starting here, by the sun-kissed, gentle-waved shores of Coronado. And then our plan is to head east, out of San Diego, through the mountains, and deep into the desert, to the Algodones Sand Dunes, which look straight up like someone grabbed a piece of the Middle East, and dropped it into California. Not even scientists really know for certain how the dunes got there. So, consider us investigators, with the new Toyota Land Cruiser as our vessel. I was more excited for this trip than any other in recent memory. Because for some reason, lately, I've become totally obsessed with Toyota Land Cruisers. I spent some time in Costa Rica, and on top of touring around in a last generation Land Cruiser Prado, I fell in love with the endless array of old and new Land Cruisers. They were everywhere. It has become apparent to me, just how prolific, long-lasting, and important the Land Cruiser is to the world. So much so, that I'm actually thinking about buying an old one for myself. This does mean, however, that my expectations for this new Land Cruiser are very, very high. And, considering it's close to the same price as its six-cylinder Lexus counterpart, and is supposed to be a price point above the new 4Runner, let's see if it has its place. All right, I wanna talk about this first, because some people might say that this isn't a real Land Cruiser. Oh, why is that? Because this is technically a 250 series Land Cruiser Prado, and the Prado is kind of like the rest of the world. It's like a light-duty Land Cruiser. Because you can still get the 300 series Land Cruiser in different markets. You can actually still get it here. It's called the Lexus LX. Right, yeah, because in my head, LX was to Land Cruiser, as GX was to 4Runner. Right, and now that we know that the new 4Runner is kind of like the same platform as the GX and the Land Cruiser, it's all very confusing, right? Those are triplets, basically. Those are triplets, essentially, right? So it becomes trim level, we'll talk about that later. But the thing that I believe, I don't think it matters. This is still a Land Cruiser. Land Cruisers are Land Cruisers. They can be called many different things. And if you really want to get pedantic, the 70 series Land Cruiser still exists. We don't get that. That's a crazy off-road, body-on-frame, solid axled, leaf-springed. It's been the same since the 70s, essentially. You can still buy that. That's called a Land Cruiser. So this is a Land Cruiser, that's a Land Cruiser. Everything's a Land Cruiser. So let me get this straight. The Toyota lineup is everything's a Crown. Yeah. Or everything's a Land Cruiser. Yeah, and except Land Cruiser actually means Crown. Now that we know what this is, first impressions. We've done a few miles. Well, you just put your foot down and fired us forward with the new i-Force Max engine. So this is our first attempt with this engine. It's a 2.4 liter, four cylinder. Hybrid. That's the important bit. Yeah, and this is the only engine option for this car. Yes. And in the 4Runner, there's going to be a non-hybrid. And then this engine, and the same as the Tacoma. There's the normal four cylinder, and then there's the Max. See, I was kind of sold on this i-Force Max engine being like this powerful, exciting, Baja style thing. Because the numbers are almost the same as the V6 and the GX. Yes. But it's not really that. No. It just moves you forward with a bit of drone-y four cylinder noise. Yeah, there's nothing. It's not a monster. I don't need my Land Cruiser to be exciting and cool sounding. I just need it to get me to a place and back reliably. And with good fuel efficiency. Forever. Yeah. Which we're not getting. No, we're not getting. It's not very nice. You have a very large object stuck to the hood so that we can go camping. Yes. It's a good word. So basically, that tent is ruining everyone's day. It's like a good punchy word. There's value to it. Right away, though, this is a very comfortable car to cruise down the highway in. Yeah, I'm not going to let you ruin my mood. Because the car's doing fine. It is. You know, you think the Lexus GX is this more refined, beautiful, silent one. Yeah. And I remember you doing an impression of the Bronco in the GX. Oh, you want to hear my impression of a Bronco on the highway? Ready? Ah! That's a Bronco at all times. This is not like that. No, this is very similar to the GX. Very nice. In fact, I would say it even rides a bit better. I think it might, actually. It still has some body and frame motions. It's a bit lighter, so significantly lighter. Yeah. OK, let's go onward to the best tourist attraction in all the land. I'm very excited. It was a long drive towards the dunes and none of the towns along the way had a ton to offer. But James did manage to find on Google a highly reviewed unique geological formation called, mysteriously, Patch of Dirt. Honestly, I don't know what I expected. Yeah. What did the reviews say? You said it was highly reviewed. It was. There was nothing for hundreds of miles apart from this. I thought there'd be like a historic marker. Yeah, it's not like. OK, this person says, amazing, artistic, and beautiful. I met my husband here. OK. This patch of dirt saved me from 420 zombies alone with nothing but rocks. Wow. This patch of dirt gave me CPR. That makes sense. This patch of dirt saved me from being attacked by a shark. I mean, well, that's true. If there's no sharks there, you're safe from sharks, for sure. Good options to exercise. Sprint back and forth or something. Anyway, you want to get some lunch? Yeah. Leave a review, right? Yeah, we're going to leave a review. What do you think? Five stars? Five stars, 100%. 100%, yeah. Before we left, we opted to use Patch of Dirt's expansive exercise area to build up an appetite, which was easily satiated by a rather quirky and authentic local Mexican restaurant whose decorations were as endearing as the food was good. Even the bathrooms had charm. But before long, we were back on the road and quickly watched the last bit of civilization disappear. Soon enough, the dunes appeared on the horizon, spanning as far as the eye could see in every direction. There must have been thousands of grains of sand in there. But before we actually set off into the desert, we pulled over to prep the Land Cruiser. OK, desert time. Is that a lady's bathing suit? Yeah, you said save money. I didn't know you were going to steal someone's curtains. This was $7. This was $8. I win. All right, so unfortunately, the Land Cruiser right now doesn't come with the most aggressive off-road tires. So we're going to hope for the best. But we are lowering the pressures. I'm going to try about 25 PSI and see how that goes. I'm going to lower the pressures on all the crew cars as well. But I will say that the sand dunes look a little bit more intimidating than I thought they were going to. And so far, the only vehicles we've seen driving on them are very specialty-built off-road things that people are trailering in here. So yeah, our plan is to cross the entirety of the Imperial Sand Dunes down to the end. Let's see how it goes. We were quickly going to find out just how overly ambitious that plan was. Because the further you go into the dunes, the more intense they get. Like Arrakis, but without the colossal sandworms. Or the actor that looks like this shoe for some reason. OK, here we go. We've aired down pressures a little bit. Sand mode. We're in sand mode, OK. And the goal here is not Baja. No, this is get there. Get there. Don't get stuck. Don't de-beat a tire, please. And get back. Please don't roll us. Shiny side up. Those are the rules for the day. Sand mode, which can now be used in four high, is basically a sophisticated traction control setting, allowing slip and diverting power where needed. So that, coupled with locking the rear diff or disconnecting the front sway bar when it was required, meant that the new Land Cruiser was making this business of overlanding easy. Oh, it's smooth. So we've Baja'd before in the Bronco Raptor. This is overlanding because there's a tent on the roof? See, I'm glad that you understand the distinction. And you choose somewhere and you just go. You choose somewhere and you go over the land. Parkour. It's parkour. Parkour. For cars. For cars, exactly. Parkour. Fastest point from A to B. It's exactly what it is. More, more speed. Do it, yeah. There it is. Attaboy. OK, we'll slow down because there might be a cliff. That is the phrase of the day. Slow down because there might be a cliff. As we delve deeper, we started to feel that wildness, that isolation that only a desert can give you. And out here, considering its ability to crush a three-hour highway commute, the Land Cruiser made light work of the sand. It was at home. And the dunes, its playground of wonders. However, the easiness ended quickly. Driving on sand dunes is a very challenging discipline. Not only are the dunes completely unpredictable and random in their shape, it's also very hard to see what's coming next, especially since the Land Cruiser's forward-facing camera annoyingly disappears once you exceed parking lot speeds. Add to that the softness of the sand and the possibility of rolling is very, very real. A low center of gravity is key, which is why dune buggies are a thing. And yeah, for all its wonderful headroom, the Land Cruiser doesn't have that, especially since we've added to its height with a heavy tent. All right, more power, more power, more power. Up and over, up and over. Yes, boys. No, no, watch the edge. OK, just get up here and stop for a second. Get up here and stop. OK. We needed a bit of a rethink. These dunes are classified as double black diamond, and there just wasn't a way through in the Land Cruiser safely. All right, so about five minutes in. Yeah. You're going to admit that we've bitten off more than we can chew? No, no. We're going to take an alternate route. This is a Land Cruiser, not a magic carpet. It might look like Aladdin. OK, hard left hand down. You're going to give it some gas, and we're going to go that way. Having lost sight of our crew, we did some route finding to get out of this giant bowl of sand, and then we pulled over for a quick breather. See, what the Waterhouse has done is made an error, because we're a bit cowboyish. We don't go on the traditional launches. We carve our own path, and that is not great right now. Yeah, see, the path involves cliffs of sand that you can't see until you're right there. It's a good moment to talk about the fact that right now, this is the most aggressive tire you can buy on Toyota Land Cruiser, and it's not that aggressive when you compare it to things like the 35-inch tires on a Bronco, the 37-inch tires on a Bronco. And those are like off-road, AT, all-terrain things. These are OK. They're doing all right. Anyway, we're going to skirt the craziness of the dune there, and we're going to cross the desert that-a-way. You see where there's some shrubs? Yeah. The shrubs are a happier place for this thing right now. OK. We don't quite have the balls. Why don't you give it a go? OK. All right. Good. Let's do it. We started off on a slightly different route, skirting near the edge of the biggest dunes. Keep your enemies close and all that. And as much as Thomas would credit what I can only assume is a spirit Halloween Indiana Jones costume, the Land Cruiser was being an absolute workhorse, and we started to cover some serious distance. We're going out. Woo! Yeah, maintain speed. That was great. Honestly, it's doing an extremely good job, even with these tires. Like we haven't felt close to stuck once. No, and you end up feeling like pride in the car. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Overlanding. We're overlanders. The day surged on, and even though we'd been driving for hours and the sun was starting to set, we hadn't even broken the back of the Imperial Sand Dunes. They were vast. Not a chance we could make it the rest of the way in one day. So defeated, we found camp, which meant locating some element of shelter from the relentless winds, which we noticed were getting stronger as the day went on. All right. This is not windy as it gets. By the way, that is not a very like. I was just about to say. That's not a very confident door slam sound. Doesn't sound too great. It's just a bit. That's OK. I mean, whatever. And a bit of solace from the wind. Yeah, it's not that much solace, but it'll do, right? All right, this is rooftop tent time. Rooftop tent time. I have absolutely no idea how this tent sets up. I've never done it before. I'm kind of grateful it's on the roof right now, because there's lots of holes. Holes that look like scorpion sized holes. Yeah. Very much a scorpion area. Or snake. Yeah. Or desert bear. Is that a thing? Would you help? No, I was going to. We just stand there looking at you like, oh, the scorpions. I was going to see how you did that corner. Right, yeah, right. And I was going to handle the other three corners. I can't even get the one piece of Velcro off. It's completely pointless. I think, Thomas, the only move is a hotel. Is it leaving and going to a hotel? Is that what you're going to say? That Velcro's going to give you trouble. Right, of course. All right, I'm going to do a jump. Ready? Yeah. Nice. Despite James's allergy to camping, he did actually manage to almost be helpful setting up that tent. But I think the novelty of a bed on a roof of a Land Cruiser was about to wear off quickly, as he started to realize that that little bit of nylon was the extent of it. Hey, that's pretty cool. That is such a small space to spend with you. Listen, I didn't design it. We'll sleep, we'll do this way. It's my fault, because I suggested Mexican for lunch. We'll go this way. Totally my fault. Yeah, I told you that was a bad idea. There's no food that goes in your stomach that doesn't cause issues in the evening. Either way, as the sun was setting on our very remote campsite, spirits were high. And our team got to work setting up the rest of camp. And thanks to Ironman 4x4 America, who reached out before this trip to supplies with a ton of overlanding gear, we had everything we needed for them to sleep comfortably and to cook a bit of dinner. Bellies full, we headed to our respective quarters to attempt sleep. OK, so James has decided that he doesn't want to sleep in this tent for two reasons. One, well, I'm a pretty smelly guy. Two, I'm making a lot of noise and flapping in the wind. So he's decided to sleep in the Land Cruiser right beneath me. But it doesn't go totally flat in the back. The seats don't fold all the way flat. And we don't have an extra sleeping pad because this is the pad. It's built into the overland tent. So he's just going to suffer. I'll give him an hour before he gives up and comes and cuddles up here with me. You're already diagonal, eh? I wasn't. I'm going to stay diagonal. This looks so cozy. Exactly. That's what I've been trying to say. It's cozy with you, like. Just give it a go. When I got married, I thought that meant I only had to sleep with one annoying person. Fair enough. Yeah, fair enough. Just give it a go. It's pretty sandy. No, no, no, no, it's not bad. You just like, there's this nice little trough here. And there's actually access to the outside. I don't think this is any better. What are you talking about? This is a bed. It's like a bed. It's official. Here he is. I am Harry Potter. That's the official thing. It was less than an hour. I was wrong. You never have seen Thomas so upset that he didn't have a bed fellow. I just knew that he was going to realize his mistake and then wake me up. So I'm glad that he did it now before I finally fell asleep. As we were trying to fall asleep, we noticed that the wind started to get worse. This was probably going to be a rough night, but we did manage to try and set up some campsite security for our team. Are we worried about scorpions? What? No. We're like eight feet off the ground. How about the crew? Oh, they're fine. I took care of it. It's 3 AM, and there's severe wind warnings. The whole car and the tent are shaking. So we can't sleep. I'm Thomas. I love camping. We should go camping. It feels like we're in a baggage cart behind a jet engine. It's ridiculous. Yeah. I do like camping, though. I actually do. I promise. The next morning, we all woke up windswept and sleep deprived. But at the very least, the scorpion sign seemed to have worked. Oh, and the desert was absolutely stunning. So now that we'd slept on it a bit, we had a quick chat about our thoughts on the Land Cruiser's desert-chic demeanor and the other flavors you can have your Land Cruiser in. I've seen enough musicals to know that I'm supposed to break into song now. So what do you think? I think you are both eight years old and 80 years old. What do you mean? Well, you like camping and trucks. Yes. And you pee 10 times in a night. I may have over-hydrated a little bit. I was so worried about being dehydrated today. I drank like... My voice is even hoarse right now. But I drank like five bottles of Powerade and then I peed four times last night. And they weren't like... It was more than four times. Yeah, but they were like... They were broken up into like... Every time it was, James, are you awake? Yeah. Cool, because I've got to pee. He was always awake. How much did you sleep at all? I have no idea how much I slept. It wasn't good. We're just going to power on. It was just making so much noise. I don't think I can go back from a rooftop tent though, having seen scorpions. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you got to that point because before you were... Like, thank you for removing all the cool accessories from the Land Cruiser. I wanted to create the auto show set piece that this is. This is all stuff you can get from the dealer, by the way. It's pretty cool. The cooler and the recovery kit, the boards, not the firewood, obviously. Yeah. But like... No, it's pretty cool. And then we've used it. I feel like I've only ever seen this stuff and be like, that would be cool one day. And now we've done it. Speaking of cool. All right. We're finally standing in front of the Land Cruiser. What do you think of this thing? Like visually, just straight visually. What do you think? I love this. I agree. I think it looks absolutely fantastic. They knocked it out of the park, styling-wise. So, you know, there's a top trim. There's a first edition. I think there's like 5,000 first editions. And then there's the Land Cruiser trim. That's this. So it still has a bunch of fancy stuff. And it has the squared off lights. And then the base trim is the 1958 edition. Circular lights. Weirdly, I like them like if I had two children. I like them both equally, right? I could not decide between this. I love the idea of the round lights, but I also like this front end. I think it looks great. And it's a slam dunk. It really is. I'm surprised you're not triggered right now. Cause this looks exactly, in this color scheme with the heritage blue, it looks exactly like the FJ Cruiser you filmed. Yeah. And here's a ladder. Oh, I did fall off the ladder. You fell off a ladder. Top kit. Yeah, it was really wet that day. It's not wet here. Yeah. I am in no danger. It's very dry. We almost didn't get a heritage blue. We almost got the trail dust, which is the sand colored one. I love that one so much. I love the look of that. I would, a hundred percent, that's the one that I would buy. I would do trail dust. No question. That's my color choice. Yeah. And there's an underground, the gray. Nah, it's boring. And there's a white, which is ice cap. The actually white looks really cool. It sounds like a Starbucks drink. No, it sounds exactly like a Tim Hortons drink because there's one called the ice cap. You can't extradite me to Canada from here. I'm safe. So yeah. So these wheels and tires, this combo is not as aggressive as we're used to seeing on like off-road trims. You know, we've been out in desert dunes with Broncos and F-150 Raptors. Yeah, like right now you can get the new 4Runner with like a whole bunch of different options with like more aggressive tires. This is, I mean, it's the first year. So they got it out there. Maybe in another year or two, or I don't know, there'll be more options. But this has handled everything we've thrown at it. It has, but it's, I still think like, you know, like these tires have been great, but I want bigger tires. I want smaller wheels. I want more lift. I want rock rails. Yeah. No, it's a great looking car. Isn't it awesome? Yeah. I really like it. Okay, well, yesterday we challenged ourselves. Yes. And we tried to build some confidence. Yep. And we overstepped because it turns out the dunes are crazy dangerous. Yeah. Well, we knew that, but like, it's not until you're on the top of them. And you know, like in camera, it doesn't look that dangerous on the camera, but when you look down, it's like six stories. Like, it was like 200 feet tall. Yeah, yeah. It's real scary. No, thank you. Real soft. Yeah. It's softer. Let's go do them again. Okay. I'll drive. We set off back into the dunes. And truth be told, our cell service was very spotty. So we didn't exactly know where we were. And since Toyota had only given us the Land Cruiser for one overnight, making it all the way across the Imperial Sand Dunes was a pipe dream. We had to get it back to San Diego by nightfall, which meant navigating back through miles and miles of a desert that, due to the wind, had no tracks for us to follow and looked quite different to us than it did yesterday. What do you think about the interior of the Land Cruiser? So when we were in the GX, we said you can feel the Lexus-ness. And I think now that we're in here, you can feel the Toyota-ness. Very much. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot much cheaper of an interior, but I'm just not going to fault it for that because I don't really care. The only thing I care about with a Toyota product is that it works. Oh, this is a bit of a hill, eh? It's not flawed. We've got this nice infotainment that's been working fine. My God. There we go. That was easy. That'll wake you up after two hours of sleep. Yeah. So we've got this, the infotainment's nice. Like the GX, the passenger cannot see the gauge cluster at all. It's completely dark for me. Isn't that strange? It feels very strange. Yeah. But the visibility's good. This comes down low. Seats are comfortable. This is the brown leather in here. And as I said earlier, there's not very much knee room, but that's because the whole thing is very narrow. I can pretty much touch your door. And that's good for trails. It's good for trails, exactly. We're not blessed with a moonroof like the GX. We just get the simple sunroof. That's okay. And this is a JBL sound system instead of the Mark Levinson. We've got USB-Cs, we've got wireless charging. This all feels very familiar to the GX. It's exactly the same, pretty much. I mean, with a few minor tweaks and changes. It's comfortable, but you can't get three rows. The Land Cruiser's only a two row. Yeah. Whereas the GX can be had in a three row. But no, I'm a big, whatever this is, is all it needed to be. That is exactly right. I mean, it is a lot of money and Land Cruisers forever have been a lot of money. Yeah. Like if you look at how much a 70 series Land Cruiser costs over in Australia, it's ridiculous. They're ridiculously expensive. They're charging a fortune for it? They're charging a fortune for it, but that's because Toyota knows that you'll buy them because they know that if you actually want to go somewhere, you need one of these. Yeah. Right? And Toyota was, and still is, right. The Land Cruiser was being absolutely bloody magnificent. We spent hours navigating our way through the dunes, route finding paths for us and our crew that our trucks could actually do. As usual, the dunes were being completely unpredictable and that was made worse by the high winds, which move and deposit sand in such a way that you never quite know what the upcoming surface is going to be like. It was a lot of getting to the top of the dune, getting out and then trying to figure out how to make forward progress. But we were figuring it out. We had a flow going and the Land Cruiser was soaking it all up. Soon enough, we spotted the exit in the distance. Is that the parking lot? Yeah. Okay. It's weird to see it. It's not that much further. It's a few dip, dup, dives and dodges. That's dick, duck, dick, dup, dive and dodge? No, there's no dick in it. No dick. Just you? Yeah. However, in order to get there, we needed to get through this last section of the dunes, but we couldn't find a simple path through. The only spot was a run to the top that was much steeper than anything we'd tried yet. Fortunately, and unfortunately, Thomas' confidence in the dunes was at an all-time high. And, yeah. Ooh! Oh my God! So really, what they've done with the Drive Connect- Yeah, I know. I find this, the ride's good. Good, solid. The ride is really good. It can handle- Bigger hits. Cracks in the road, but also- You know, potholes and those sorts of things, yeah. So, yeah, basically what happened was that a large, soft lip of sand made the run look much longer than it actually was. So instead of running up and over the top, we bashed through the soft stuff and the rock-hard lip underneath sent us flying in the air. Ooh! Holy f***. Unfortunately, there was damage. Since the Land Cruiser doesn't get the Forerunner's heavy-duty underbody TRD skid plates, that huge initial impact that sent us flying had mangled the underside and damaged the radiator. Yeah, you see that? That's not supposed to be curved at all. There was nothing left to do at this point, except watch the temperature gauge and get out of the dunes quickly. That, and let Thomas realize that there was still room to make some mistakes. F***ing hell. But thankfully, the temps stayed steady and we escaped back to the parking lot. Well, we made it. 82% of us. Importantly, not the car's fault. No, very much my fault, no question. Driver error. No question. Good boy. So that phrase of, if you want to go somewhere and come back, you need a Land Cruiser. You also need to not be a moron. No, that's fair enough. But listen, even when morons are present, the Land Cruiser takes care of you and that's the moral of the story. Doesn't make me dislike it any less. Right? Yeah, yeah. No, exactly. It's endearing. It's very cool, isn't it? Yeah. Listen, I grow an attachment to everything I sleep with and I have slept with this. You slept on it. You slept with me. I'm just being literal. So, the dunes were over, but we still had hours of driving back to San Diego. So we aired up the tires, made sure no other damage was present, somehow found ice cream in the desert, one of the most undeserved ice lollies Thomas has ever had, and then set off away from the sand and into the mountains. As we gained elevation, the weather kept getting worse, dropping to almost freezing. But the Land Cruiser took it all in. There wasn't even a hint of any suspension damage and it tracked aero straight down the highway. Even the coolant leak managed to sort of stop being a coolant leak and the temps stayed steady. The Land Cruiser sort of did that Land Cruiser thing. It got us home. So, now that we know that the new 4Runner remains a proper off-road go-anywhere SUV and the Lexus GX isn't actually that much more expensive than the Land Cruiser, but gets a bigger V6 engine, more towing capacity, no loss in trunk space due to a hybrid system, and the possibility of three rows, it's actually very hard to see where the Land Cruiser fits. But somehow it feels like it does. It feels like Toyota left some room for it to be a slightly more classy and grown-up 4Runner. And likewise, it feels like a more honest Lexus GX that does benefit from better fuel economy and a 2,400-watt outlet in the trunk. As for its rivals, even though the Land Cruiser currently doesn't sport a wild engine option in its top trim, it's nicer to live with every day and has better road manners than a normal Bronco and Wrangler. And whilst we love the Defender, historically, Land Rover versus Toyota for reliability isn't so much a fight as it is a slaughter. We've talked at length about desirability, and it's certainly very difficult to quantify, but the Land Cruiser seems to have it. Because if someone asks you about your Lexus GX, you might say, well, it's a Lexus, but it's actually a Land Cruiser underneath. Or about your 4Runner, you might say, yeah, think of it as sort of like a North American Land Cruiser. But if you're driving one of these, no questions need be asked. Or at least that's the way I see it, because I'm a weak man, and I've been sold on the nameplate, so I have purchased a special old Land Cruiser, and it's currently on its way from the land of the rising sun. Thanks for watching.