2021 Toyota Land Cruiser Heritage Edition Review and Snow Test

Toyota's Land Cruiser is considered to be one of the most capable SUVs on the market. Today we're going to put it to the test as we tackle fresh powder in the Cascade Mountains. That's coming up right now on Driving Sports TV. The Land Cruiser has changed very little since 2012. That means there are certain parts of this SUV that are dated to put it lightly. But when it comes to off-road capability, even in 2021, there are very few vehicles that can beat it. It competes against the Mercedes GLE, Land Rover Defender, Nissan Armada, and in some cases, buyers may even consider its cousin, the Lexus LX570. The model we're testing today is the Heritage Edition. This seats 5. All the seats are wrapped in leather. Mud mats are standard, as is the Yakima Mega Warrior roof rack. You also get these amazing BBS 18-inch wheels. Prices you see it here, $89,689 US dollars, including delivery. Under the hood is Toyota's classic naturally aspirated 5.7 liter V8. Here it puts out 381 horsepower and 401 pound-feet of torque. It's connected to an eight-speed automatic transmission. The Land Cruiser has two four-wheel drive modes, four high, which is full-time, sending up to 60% of power to the rear wheels, and four low for more challenging situations. There's a separate button to lock the center differential for a true 50-50 split, but no dedicated rear locker. Towing capacity is rated at 8,100 pounds, and the tow hitch is included under this plastic piece. In the back, the Heritage Edition is missing a third row. It is optional, but I think two rows suit this vehicle better. Cargo space is good at 41.4 cubic feet with the seats up, and 82.8 with them folded down. Note, however, that Toyota claims the same space with or without the third row installed, so we're going to have to say that it's actually more than the claimed volume. Now let's take a look inside. Okay, climb up here. And it is a climb. Oh yeah, this is pretty good. I have a commanding view. It's like stadium riser seats. Materials are okay, nothing to get excited about. Now there is this pull-down right here, flip up, and I guess you can put a phone in there. Cup holders in the front. I can also slide my seat forward and backwards. Let's see, where's that lever? And the back reclines. I also get my own air con. I have two levels of seat warming and a 12-volt socket, but no USB. Now it's funny, this being basically the same vehicle as the LX570, I kind of expected it to look more similar in the front seat, but it doesn't. Where the LX570 has a broad widescreen display, this one gets more of a 4x3 ratio, which I actually think works better in vehicles like this. We also have a JBL sound system. Down here we have a charging pad for an iPhone. Does it fit? Can I close the door? Oh, it barely fits my iPhone 11. Let's get more practical here. The seats. They are covered in leather. Very comfortable. Much more comfortable than my 4Runner seats, which aren't bad, mind you. I do like those, but these are definitely next level. I also get seat heating, three stages of it, as well as seat ventilation. And I can also go auto mode. Again, just like in the Lexus LX570. I have a heated steering wheel. I have a leather-wrapped steering wheel, which actually looks a lot like the one out of the LX570. And then we have a multi-function gauge cluster with lots of dials. I have traditional dials for the engine temperature, the oil pressure, battery levels, and of course fuel level. In the middle is a digital multi-function display that gives me some additional data, but it's not as comprehensive as something you would find in, say, the Land Rover Defender. But that's okay. This is also where I can configure driver safety stuff, and this does have a few options. It has lane detect and blind spot monitoring. It also has, of course, federally mandated rear view camera, which I can put in reverse there, with a satellite surround view, which is kind of surprising. I guess at $90,000 it should have it, but I don't know. It's such an old vehicle, I kind of expected it not to for some reason. And then this display gets even fancier when I switch into four low. Let's put this into neutral. Let's go into four low. Now I have a comprehensive off-roading camera system. This shows me my front wheel tracks, as well as side clearance, in addition to a gauge that shows me my tilt. This is very cool. It is low res, and the graphics do look like something off of, oh, I don't know, a Commodore 64. But the functionality is good, and I'm glad they have it. As much as I complain about the infotainment system, it does have one feature that is critical if you're doing off-roading, especially in off-grid areas, and that is built-in maps. That means that you can use the maps anywhere. You don't need a cellular data connection. And furthermore, it even has a feature called route tracing that will breadcrumb your route so that you can always find your way back. That is awesome. I wish more nav systems would do that. But I should point out my 4Runner has that feature as well. Switching back into regular. Let that shift. Four low and four high. And that brings us actually to the drivetrain here. This has two drivetrain settings. It has four high, which is your everyday driving. And in this case, it actually has a torsion limited slip in the middle, so you can drive four high all the time without that front-to-back binding that you get with a truck. It also, of course, has a four low. Now, four low is, you know, for the more complicated stuff. If you need to multiply torque or use any of these special off-road modes, most of them require you to be in four low. Also, you get that cool off-road camera system when you go into four low. But we'll get into the box of off-road goodies a little bit later. Right now, this interior. It's got a sunroof, which is nice. I have excellent commanding visibility. The materials are kind of old school. The plastics are kind of hard and cheap looking. But unlike the Lexus, there's none of that corny. Okay, there is a little bit. There's a little right there of the corny plastic masquerading as a piece of metal. It's right there. But this is actually brushed aluminum. And I have to say, it looks fantastic. This is the type of interior that will stand the test of time. I even have three memory settings for the seat and wheel, which of course is powered. Again, you kind of expect that at this price point. Okay, well, I think enough of the interior. Let's head into the mountains and play with the good stuff. So the plan today was to go up to Powerline Park and run through all the various courses and show off both the new filming location that we have, as well as the features of this Land Cruiser. However, we just got a bunch of snow. So we're still going to do that, but it's going to be a lot different today because snow just makes everything harder. But I think the Land Cruiser can do it. The biggest issue today is going to be these tires. These are the Dunlop All Seasons. They aren't great, and we'll just see what we can do. So we're going to go up there. We're going to try things out, and we're going to give it our best shot. Because we covered most of the major details last year in this vehicle, I'm not going to repeat what I said. So if you want to see more about the turn assist feature, which is a feature exclusive to the Land Cruiser, also check out that last review because I cover it extensively. Today, we're going to see what we can do to get through the courses up at Powerline Park, and then we're also going to test out the Crawl Control and MTS features, hopefully pretty extensively. Before we dive into the mountains, let's first do a 0-to-60 with our GPS timer. The question, is it faster than the 6.85 seconds we recorded for the Land Rover Defender 110 P400? There's nothing to really change here. It's all-wheel drive all the time, and there's a drive mode. I guess I could slot it to sport. Nah, because then I have to manually shift. Let's just do it in regular drive. The road's a little moist, but not too bad. Three, two, one, go. Whoa, mercy! Feeling that. 60 at 6.74 seconds. Interesting to note, that is almost a complete second faster than the LX570. Okay, let's head into the woods and have some real fun. Already, the road is turning to ice and snow. I'm probably only halfway in, of course, this is no big deal for the Land Cruiser. In spite of the iffy tires, it has all the capabilities necessary. And also, one thing I want to point out is how this KDSS suspension works. This is standard on the Land Cruiser. It's also available on Select 4 Runners, and it also comes on the Lexus GX. KDSS is a hydraulic system that will disengage both front and rear sway bars to give more articulation. It really allows the wheel to reach down and grab some pavement, or dirt, or even snow in this case, to propel the vehicle forward. It's a really cool system because it works automatically, and when you don't need it, it doesn't do that. And it rides smooth on paved surfaces. So it's really kind of a brilliant setup for creating a best of all worlds driving suspension condition. To prepare for the conditions, first I'm going to air down the tires from 33 psi to 18. We could go lower, but for the sake of this example, I think 18 will be just fine. Airing down creates a softer and wider contact patch, which improves grip. To remove air, we can just push the valve stems in by hand, but there's a quicker and more comfortable method. Several companies make these deflators. They're not expensive, and we have one by ARB and another by Builder Tools. To use it, screw it onto the valve stem. Using the second knurled knob, twist until you have a snug fit. Then undo the same knob and remove the valve pin. This allows the tire to air down extremely fast. Once the target psi is reached, return the pin and remove the device. Repeat for all the other tires. Okay, now that we've let the air down, we can head on our way. Oh yeah, so much better grip. I did notice that these tires are mud and snow rated, and they do have some siping on them, which should help out in, you know, conditions like this. Now the gauge cluster here actually does indicate that all four wheels are 18 psi, and it's also telling me that my spare is still at 30, because they actually have a sensor in the spare, which is nice. With the vehicle prepared, we can now continue with more confidence. Snow can be very heavy on trees, so watch for low hanging branches. No reason to scratch up the vehicle. Wow, this is pretty today. Love it. Fresh fallen snow. Now let's see if we can even get into Powerline Park. A little tricky. It's a bit of an incline. It's a good indicator of what kind of problems we're going to have today. Okay, I'm already having issues. So I'm going to go ahead and switch it into four low, which means putting it into neutral. Okay, we're now in four low. I'm going to turn the MTS system into rock, because I want the least amount of slip here. I want to try that first. Put it into drive. Let's lock that center, and away we go. I'm just going to see if the system can figure it out. Let's get a little running start here. Let's give it a fighting chance. Seriously, can we even get into Powerline Park? Okay, obviously rock mode is not giving me enough slip, so I'm just going to go ahead to the far extreme of that and go to mud and sand. Again, I'm going to back up a little bit to give myself a fighting chance, and away we go. More side slip. Oh, oh, here we go. There we go. Okay, we're crabbing, but we're making it up. Got to watch that hole on the left. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Well, already a good demonstration of multi-terrain select, huh? Now that we're into the park area, let's take a quick drive around and see what our options are. I don't know if we're going to be able to do any of the tough stuff, because honestly, just getting in here was a little tough. Okay. Watch those branches. Wow, that's a lot of snow. That's a lot of snow. That's like half a foot of snow has dumped here since I was last up, and it's just been a few days. Okay. Fresh snow. Yeah. So today we're up at Powerline Park, and we're going to see if we can do anything. My original plan was to go through some of the challenge areas and see how well this system worked. However, we got six inches of snow on top of everything, which is going to make it really difficult. So instead, I think we're going to have to go along the main line and just show off some features and see how that works, because everything just got a lot harder. Okay. Let's do it. Fresh snow. And I'm doing it this order because A, I can show you how crawl control works going downhill. And then on the way back, I can show you how MTS works going uphill. And uphill should be more challenging once I've packed the snow down, because lighter snow with no ice under it is usually easier to traverse. Once you pack it down, it creates a little layer of ice that actually makes it slipperier. I'm going to go ahead and crawl this whole thing. It's already in low range. I've already aired down my tires to 18, but they've actually gone down to 17 because it's so cold. Crawl control is activated. I have the center locker already engaged, and that is basically all I need to do. Away we go. Let crawl control do its thing. Crawl control, of course, doesn't just apply brakes. It's actually using throttle and brakes on individual wheels and managing the all-wheel drive system to give optimal results. It's way better than anybody could do with a single brake pedal, even if it sounds awful. Now, if you haven't watched a video on crawl control, just be aware that those horrible noises are totally normal. That's the sound it's supposed to make. Now, the trick here too is that if you haven't been in into a location before, you don't want to just crawl through fresh snow because you don't know what's under that snow. It could be a rock. It could be the top of an engine block. Who knows? Maintaining control, I'm going to go ahead and kick it up just a little bit faster. That's just park assist. Let's turn those off. Okay, we're doing really good here, just crawling along. Put crawl control down to slow, and we're actually going to put the wheel, the front wheel, and the back wheel into a hole on the left here, and I'm just going to see if we can just keep on moving. Whoa, that's deep. Now, from the back here, you should be able to see the articulation, how that wheel just reaches down and grabs whatever traction it can. At the bottom here, it's going to be a little tricky because it's pretty steep, and I don't want to slide down it, so I'm just going to... Wow, that's some horrible noise. It is really having trouble with how slippery it is, but it's doing just an amazing job of maintaining control. I mean, I'm doing nothing. I'm not doing throttle. I'm not doing brake. I'm pointing to where I want to go, and that's basically it, and most important, I am not stopping. Now, this one, I remember I have to go a little bit more to the left because it's a very tilty ridge right here, and I don't want too much tilt, so we're going to just go down. Oh, I guess we're going to slide that way. Okay, and I am not stopping. We're just going to keep on going because you don't want to stop in the snow. We've shown that before, and sometimes it's fun to do a recovery, but that's not the point of this video. I need to turn that down. I actually need to use... Oh, it doesn't want to... It's too slippery to use turn control. It's telling me I can't do it, so this is nice and flat, so I'm going to stop for a moment, and I'm going to put in reverse, and yeah, crawl control also works in reverse. Let's go a little quicker. Oh boy, are we going to get up that? I don't know. Let's see. I think we need a little momentum, so I'm going to increase crawl to the maximum speed, and I'm just going to see how well it does. Now, with snow and ice, you have to be really careful about slide points. Where is the vehicle going to slide, and is it going to high center? Yeah, that's a sheet of ice like that. It's not going to get up it. Physics, you know? So I'm going to deactivate crawl control. We need more speed, but I want to keep MTS on, so I'm keeping it in mud and sand. I'm going to reverse here, so I can get a little momentum to get up this lip. Oh yeah, I can see that also. It was a little too far to the right, which actually was a danger of high centering. I can see I was scraping on the underside there. Let's go ahead and just give it some speed. Let's see if we can get up this. Whoa, slippery. Slippery. Okay, that's not going to work. Let's back down a little bit. Make sure you don't hit things when you're backing down. I'm pretty sure I can make it up there. I just feel like I need to get a better angle, maybe. So I'm just going to push up there a little bit, change my rotation, get a better line. Sometimes you need a little momentum. Okay, away we go. Yes. Yes. No problem, man. It was actually super easy. Now I'm going to keep momentum through this, even though there's a hole on the right. I'm not going to stop. We're just going to keep on pressing through as we're going up this incline. All this articulation. Oh, if I stop, I feel like I am done for. So I'm going to keep those wheels spinning. This is where MTS's mud and sand setting is really good because it keeps those wheels spinning, which helps with momentum. And we're through. Okay, well that was fun. You never really know what you're going to run into when you go into the mountains. Even though it wasn't the original plan, I'm still really happy with how well this Land Cruiser performed. We were able to go up and down the ridge road, even though it had half a foot of snow on it. And then after I compacted it with ice, the MTS system was able to get us up through it. If you air down the tires in the Land Cruiser, that plus the features that it has, allows you to get through quite a lot, even with the stock all seasons. And I think that just really shows the brilliance of the engineering that goes into this vehicle, that you don't see it up here, but it's definitely down there. For Driving Sports TV, I'm Ryan Douth and thanks for watching. This has been my review of the 2021 Land Cruiser Heritage Edition. If I was to get a Land Cruiser, yeah, it would be this one. However, I just bought a 4Runner and I could buy two 4Runners for the price of this. So I think for now, I'm good. That said, if you're in the market for a highly keepable machine and you're okay giving up on some of the creature comforts that you would find in say the Mercedes, BMW, or Audi, this is an excellent choice. Actually, some may say it's the best choice.