2025 Toyota Land Cruiser 800 mile review On off road in Toyota s new Defender rival

Welcome to a new Harry's Garage video and today's car is the new Toyota Landcruiser. Now this is the 250 series Landcruiser. I tested the 300 series, the big Landcruiser, out in on the Dakar Rally earlier this year but this is the one that has been causing huge excitement from the moment we first saw the photographs of it. This is a potential defender rival. It's Toyota saying they're going back to the origins of Landcruiser with this model and it's such a great style. It's going back to its roots, it's square, it's tough and there's been a huge clamour and all dealers have had so many inquiries for this car. So why is there so much excitement around this car? Let's go have a closer look. Just to get around the confusion of the naming policy on this car, in the UK it's called a Toyota Landcruiser because it's the only Landcruiser we get. Other regions get other versions of the big one and say 300 series. Other markets call this either 250 series or Prado is another name for this car in certain markets. All very confusing. The other thing is that is a first edition model which is even more classic looking if you like because you get two-tone paint and you get round headlights instead of these square headlights and that seems to be the one, if I look on Autotrader, that's the one getting premiums should we say in today's market. But it's such a chunky thing. It is, I can't get over the face of it how complicated, look at how many panels there are on this. They say it's to make it easier to change if you do stuff a panel that you just have to change a little bit of it rather than a great big wrap around but it's very purposeful and a proper sump guard. If you look underneath this car it's very definitely off-road orientated and it's huge. I can't get over this is the the smaller model you know the 300 is even bigger but really tall. It's 1.9 something meters so over six foot tall. It's the same size actually as Defender and Ineos Grenadier which I see this as a potential rival for. Around the side you can see it's off-roadness. Part of the reason it's so tall is because it's on coil springs rather than air springs that might go up and down you could have an access mode as you get on Land Rover. But the other reason it still has a separate chassis and this is a hallmark of Land Cruiser and I've spent quite a lot of time with this car. I've had it a week here in the UK but I did also spend two days with it out in Morocco and the lead engineer was there as well and it was really fascinating talking to him the ethos behind this and it's all about durability quality and this off-roadness is right up there and that's why it's on coil springs and still has a chassis. Shame I can't show it. It's actually got twin wishbone suspension at the front and the other giveaway it's so tough six wheel studs holding it on. Normal car would have four or five because the strength of this car is inbuilt six holding the wheels on and you also see how tall the tyres are. Tyre size is 265 60 by 20. I don't think there's a wheel option on this one. This particular model is called the Invincible 2.8 litre four-cylinder diesel that we'll get to in a moment. Big square wing mirrors, reasonable space inside, grab handles, very traditional, sidesteps come as standard but a proper shame this car is so dark but we'll have a look a better look at it outside and all UK cars are seven seats and they also have this quite neat arrangement where you have a separate area you can open the tailgate like that or underneath here and it does whirls and pops and does up it goes and you're wondering why there's yeah we collected the Christmas tree in it the other day so that's why it's got some some remnants of Christmas tree in there. Seven seats I can operate the switches here and I can make it go up and down there we can't really see any I'll drop in how that all works. Yeah another interesting point on this it's actually got the camera for the rear view mirror you choose between a conventional mirror or have a camera at back which is a bit odd but I suppose if you've got it all loaded up it's sort of useful. Also get you can see hiding here a full-size spare hanging underneath and there obviously is a tow bar available and it's not actually on this but it can tow three and a half tons. Let's go and have a look at the engine can't work out how to do it there it is big bonnet that goes in there and as I say 2.8 litre diesel turbocharged diesel slightly smaller turbo on this for better response there's an eight speed gearbox on it and I have to say this engine is not my favourite thing on the car it's it's very definitely diesel it's quite vocal the vibrations through the car it's only 201 horsepower so well down against defender g-wagon even the grenadier is more I think it's about 245 horsepower and they're all six cylinders while this is a four cylinder and I just noticed there's nothing to stop the noise penetration there's no soundproofing on the bolt rear bulkhead there's it's quite often now you see the engines enclosed to try and keep the sound down none of that on this land cruiser is there to do a job and in other markets if you have the petrol version of this car well that's quite a clever engine it's still four cylinder but 2.4 litre turbocharged two electric motors on it giving an extra 48 horsepower and then a peak power of 326 horsepower against 201 for this and torque goes massively up this is 368 pound foot 500 newton meters and the petrol version is actually 465 pound foot 630 newton meters so much more powerful in petrol form but in europe we only get the diesel anyway let's take it outside take it for a drive you know what to do when you've got sidesteps on a car can never get used to actually using them but I also noticed when you when you open and close the doors on this car they're beautifully engineered they've almost got a soft close with no electrical assistance it's just fantastic engineering and that's I suppose what you get with Toyota Land Cruiser on a model like this I'm right away from the car for some reason it must have a comfort setting I haven't discovered how to get rid of it so I'm going to start it up and you might just notice the diesel thrum as I do that but all very logical how it's all set out in here the wheel I've got cruise control on here I can control things on the dash as well and volume and mode for stereo and things and this screen you can alter what I'm staring at there if I want more car information and also I'll do that on this and then these buttons good law hurrah not through the screen for heated seats cool seats front and rear screens all the heater controls heated steering wheel even all that sort of thing is on there and there's a volume control there as well and then down here I've got the off-road stuff as well and I've also got I don't know if this will work yeah I can change between sport and normal and eco when in sort of road mode or I press mts and then suddenly I've got a choice of auto dirt sand mud or deep snow yes it's very definitely off-road orientated this car I've got when I was out in Morocco we did all sorts of things and it's got a cruise control crawl control so you can take your feet off and go up and down slopes at a certain speed which you are just on here just mad cruise control like that but here I've got a track control I've got a rear diff lock center diff lock but no front diff lock because even better I've got a stability bar decouple which is the anti-roll bar at the front you can decouple it and the idea that that is the wheels that have super free movement up and down and they can reach down to the ground and not be restricted by the anti-roll bar and gain traction that way very clever and that tells me this is a proper proper off-road to have anti-roll bars that you can disconnect is terrific space in here it's pretty good nice to have the roof there what have I got in here I've got yeah cool box in there I've got wireless charging it I have a glove box yeah it's got a manual I ought to read the manual on this because I'll come to that later bottle holders that sort of thing and lots of space in the back well really pretty reasonable space because it's a big car you notice as soon as you step in just the height of it because of that um yeah the fact it's on a chassis and springs that automatically give it height here terms of use dear wife was looking at this you always just press I agree don't you about actually reading it but this is actually use of multimedia services implies the vehicle will connect to Toyota's server and data resulting from using the vehicle including geolocation data will be used and stored so big brother Toyota is watching every drive you do in this car I go not agree on that so I don't really want big brother knowing what I'm up to but yeah all their proper gear control there as you can see and let's head out and there you go there's the diesel thrum very no mistake in that four-cylinder diesel anyway head out go find some better roads they are quite noticeable isn't it that diesel hum um three-quarter throttle there but it's got a punch there and there's 60 miles an hour yeah it's it's quite a relaxing car it's you know obviously it's such good visibility the height of it the steering feel is really but much nicer than that 300 series I drove out in Saudi and it's quite direct the steering it's it's quite a friendly device for doing this sort of thing eight speed gearbox on it and you can see it's quite often having to change gears to get the torque that it needs to one thing you might notice every now and then is a ping from the speed warning I'm going into a 40 zone here I'm all right I'm under it I just can't find a way of turning it off and I've looked everywhere I'm sure there is a way but uh yeah bear with me if I'm doing 21 in the 20 limit down here apologies I just can't get rid of it there's another one actually which is actually when I look away looking the camera it will also notice that I'm not looking ahead and it will warn me for that as a Toyota thing only I did measure it on noisy bit road it is hushed actually more hush than you expect it's 70 decibels which is very good for this sort of car especially the diesel version right there's a car there's a car behind me that's why it's warning about there it's full of warnings this car Toyota are overboard on it I just wish they were easier to turn off I can do the lane assist that's a button on the wheel just like a GR Yaris I think half the reason it's so refined is that separate chassis just keeps the noise level down and further insulation they say they've got a stiffer mounting onto the body there we go I'm doing 21 miles an hour and they've glued and they've got better brackets but it's still it's not part of the car it is definitely a separate chassis and they try and insulate as much as possible but they do it for strength is the do it now I'm going to eventually get to my squirt up the hill once I'm out of this 20 zone and to do that I'm going to yes yes I know 22 it's so naughty there we are I'm going to put it into sports mode and I think it just energizes the gear changes and that sort of thing oh it's so tedious the speed woman is just go away I know it's not that naughty 21 miles an hour right here we are eventually here we go it only revved to 3,800 yeah this takes quite a while in this car and we're at 60. Oh he didn't warn me it's just yeah we just dropped back yeah it is slow it's got a lot of weight to move 201 horsepower and it's got a lot to do that engine and with 8 speed gearbox I thought it'd go through it there were no performance figures on the sheet I was given from Toyota I did look up though and the Toyota Hilux comes with the same engine and auto gearbox and is 300 kilos lighter so we're well into well past 10 seconds to 0 to 60 in this car and you think well defenders I think the slowest 110 defender with a d250 is rated at 8 seconds to 60 and the 350 300 is 6.7 seconds 60 you do notice it it just really runs out of breath once you're trying to do an overtake or something oh this is taking a bit longer than I expected but I want to go back to my two days in Morocco because they were exceptional suddenly I saw this car where it was designed to work and having the lead engineer there as well being able to talk to Noah it's just the knowledge and how they approached this car they felt the previous version was a bit too towards the luxury end they wanted to get back to its roots they wanted to make it a proper workhorse and they test to destruction that's their mythology with Land Cruiser they test in the hardest parts of the world and if they want to break a component they do everything they've got to break they get a breakage they can make it even stronger and that's what they did in the development of this car and my goodness it showed right I'm just going to quickly turn into that I'm still in sport I'm going to just whip it into there and here there is a bit of roll but it's not outlandish oh god listen to it it's better than you would expect because I think the weight is so low down because of that separate chassis but I am noticing it on these bumps when you get rippled tarmac like this this is when you notice the live axle at the back and the separate chassis there is just a shimmer a bit like being in a convertible or something that's not very rigid that's what you get with this setup it's the downside of having this setup it works when you're off road because it has the strength and the durability but you do notice it here but it rides exceptionally well and again going back to Morocco on the rough tracks I think it rode better than any Defender I've been in or G-Wagon they are more road orientated and this thing you could just tell it lived and breathed being out in Morocco being in Asia if you look at its market main market for this is Asia Saudi all that far east and then it's America and then it's Australia New Zealand and then it's Europe and then UK tiny little bit I think these are only getting two cars each a year it's developed for where those markets were where off-road is a high percentage of its usage you can tell the confidence they had with it off-road because there were sections that we were doing we were left to their own device you just followed a track that was on the sat-nav or google maps and I thought it was tough and I'm a bit of a veteran of doing off-road events and quite a lot of manufacturers modely coddle you and always at the window getting you to press this that the other this one yep see you see you tonight bye and you were two three hundred kilometers right out into unknown roads I did do low should have mentioned that obviously it's got low range on it as well and diff locks and some of the lumps and bumps we're going over I was mightily impressed it does that upon that's what it does extremely well but yeah down here it has the one type of tar it's it's off-road orientated but it's not an aggressive trend that's why yeah it's it's quite quiet yeah I just see it around here it's it's much better steering they've actually gone to electric steering on here and it's just it's just a quicker rack than you would expect it destroys the ineos grenadier on-road it feels much more natural much more and it's much happier with on-road use than the grenadier well probably time to do some likes and dislikes starting with dislikes number one dislike by a country mile is this engine choice come on you Toyota you can do better than this they've got a mild hybrid coming out next year the lead engineer was telling me it's more refined than this has stop start on it but this is way off the pace 200 horsepower it says it's got a towing capacity of three and a half tons this is two and a half ton baby so you'd be six tons with 200 horsepower what's that 33 horsepower per turn come on that's not enough it needs 300 horsepower which you do get in the other markets in America in Saudi they have the petrol engine much more grunt from that engine two it's quite expensive in this country starts at 75 000 it's more money than we all wanted it be when we first saw the photographs we thought this mid-range Toyota Land Cruiser gonna come in about 50 60 000 undercut Defender show on the way yes this is it it hasn't quite turned out like that partly I suppose it's the limited supply they can shop basically Toyota can charge what they want I think they had something over 40 000 45 000 expressions of interest in this car well there's only like 300 400 coming in a year so it shows you the level of demand for this car here in the UK but yeah 75 000 and then 80 000 for the first edition which is the one you want because it's got the right colours and it's got those headlights on it and I'm just going to say it just feels like a more commercial car than the family car I thought it would and I think we've how user-friendly they are in on-road and in the city as well as doing off-road let's try it around here plenty of roll bit of slip because it's now wet and try and power out of here oh come on you can do this yeah lots of noise lots a lot of go and then also just like the chassis dynamics the on-road it's compromised again you will notice it it just feels loose you sort of want to check that you've done the wheels up sort of thing but I say when I was in Morocco it was top of the tree off-roadness and I say the confidence they had to just let you go out into that beautiful stunning landscape and just yeah come see you tonight just tells you everything about this car and that's where we go on to the toughness with a cup of capital t it is incredible how that I think he would commit carry carry if something went wrong with his car I was asking about air springs why don't you put air springs just to lower it down you've got the advantages of adjustable no way it's it's a part that would has a durability issue was his straight answer they would not fit it you have an air pump in the back adds complication coil springs do not break tried and tested can fix them in any situation this type of suspension they just wouldn't entertain putting air springs on it and that tells you everything about the ethos of how they work with Toyota Land Cruiser back at base another thing I really like is just how easy all these controls are they say they got their Dakar race guys to look at it and they wanted how you could sort of hold yourself against something rough terrain and still operate the buttons and yet it's very clever this is a sort of soft bit on here and your thumb just goes on all the buttons same here if you have to do something on screen you can sort of touch the top and it's all very easy I like that there's some thought gone into this car just the confidence this car has as well in all conditions it would be your loyal companion for decades just won't wear out as far as I can see it would just continue to to deliver what do you expect a Land Cruiser to deliver forever more I don't know if I could live with all the speed nonsense but I'm afraid that's a legislation thing rather than Toyota's problem not a surprise this car just maneuverability the thing is it's got a tighter turning circle that it has any right to hasn't got any rear steer on it but it's just maneuverable the square box easy visibility it makes life living with it very easy so but would I buy one now that's where it gets tricky because I just couldn't live with this engine it's a fundamental flaw I think on the whole vehicle and the shimmy chassis of things it feels it's a workhorse much more than I expected just Ineos Grenadier it's close almost a closer rival to that than it is to Defender and I just don't have the off-road use and those tracks and that isn't how I use a car and I think here for the UK you would choose something else you would have to have a really good reason to go down this route you might have been fed up with reliability on other rivals shall we say without naming names and I've just had enough of it I just want a car that's just going to work well then I can quite understand why you'd buy this car but it is let down by that engine it just should be more refined and because the rest of the vehicle is so refined you just notice it maybe the petrol version maybe you'd get an importer petrol version maybe that's the thing to do I don't know it's not great on fuel either it's 25 26 mpg and it's super high car tax because it's over the 255 CO2 limit so you're in the highest bracket along with Bugatti Chirons and Porsche GT3s and things so next year I think you'd be paying five and a half thousand first year road tax on this car so that's a shame as well but it's fundamentally a terrific car very handsome on the outside will last forever when we have the nuclear war don't worry Land Cruisers will get through that no problem at all but so I've enjoyed I've been mighty impressed I'm so glad I did those two days in Morocco as well but yeah I just don't do enough off-road miles to justify this car but there you go that is my review of the new Toyota Land Cruiser I hope you enjoyed it if you did keep watching keep subscribing more videos coming along very soon