Toyota Land Cruiser review

Is the Toyota Land Cruiser a good car?

The Toyota Land Cruiser has long been a legend of toughness and reliability, and this latest generation is no different. But what has changed are its levels of sophistication and tech, which only add a new dimension to its all-around capability. It’s not quite as refined as a Land Rover Defender, but counters with Toyota’s ace card – an unstoppable sense of strength and reliability.

How much does the Toyota Land Cruiser cost?

In some ways the Land Cruiser 250’s price is immaterial because, as we write this, the UK’s allocation has sold out for the foreseeable future. Nominally, it’s an almost £75,000 car in standard Invincible trim, while First Edition cars cost closer to £80,00. This clearly didn’t put anyone off, given the aforementioned ordering situation. In reality, if you want a Land Cruiser 250 right now, you’ll probably end up having to pay a lot more than either of those two figures to take a car off the hands of the lucky few.

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All Land Cruisers in the UK will be fitted with a 2.8-litre four-cylinder diesel engine and eight-speed automatic transmission. This is shared with the Hilux pick-up and some of its other commercial relatives in overseas markets, but Toyota has done a comprehensive job of improving both its power delivery and refinement. 

Power is rated at 202bhp and 500Nm of torque, those figures being available across a very wide rev range, with peak torque coming in at just 1,600rpm. There’s impressive responsiveness at low revs and very little turbo lag. The transmission does its part to keep the engine on the boil, and itself makes quick decisive gearchanges. Drive is then sent to a permanent four-wheel drive system, and there’s both a central and rear-differential lock, plus a dual-range transfer box with both high and low ratios for the gearbox.

The overall powertrain is also much more refined than its application in the Hilux, with some distant four-cylinder rattle at low speeds quickly dying down to a gentle hum when moving at more pace.

How does all of this feel on the road? There’s no hiding the fact this off-roader has been designed to conquer off-road situations. The steering has a slow rack, and even on the smaller 18-inch wheels there’s a patter to the ride at low speeds it can’t quite fully isolate. You won’t, for instance, feel this in a Land Rover Defender with its optional air springs, and even at higher speeds, where the Toyota does improve significantly. It just can’t quite match a Defender’s near luxury-car levels of passenger comfort. 

Driving on smaller roads isn’t a problem, thanks to excellent visibility, and when working through the on-road drive modes, the Land Cruiser cuts a fine balance between response and refinement. Sport mode isn’t actually as defunct as it might seem, either, because the more aggressive engine and transmission mapping help the whole car feel more responsive and generally nicer to drive. The brakes are a particular highlight, with excellent feel, and they make short work of slowing the car’s considerable mass. 

Factor in its more isolated powertrain and suppression of road and wind noise – a very surprising factor given the flat-faced windscreen – and the Land Cruiser’s cruising skills are actually very impressive. Off-road, however, this Toyota lives up to the legendary toughness of its forebears. 

Entering an extremely muddy off-road course in our test location of the Scottish Highlands, the Land Cruiser had no trouble finding incredible traction up or down steep, rutted tracks or plunging into deep waterlogged ravines. A relatively tight-turning-radius steering angle made avoiding tighter corners a simple process, and when slip was detected, the clever all-wheel drive system managed to find traction out of nowhere, with no wheelspin or chattering traction control systems. In fact, we didn’t even bother engaging the locking differentials or anti-roll bar disconnect, even with the car sill-deep in sticky mud.

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Toyota says the Land Cruiser will do 26.4mpg. We averaged around 25mpg during our testing, including some fuel-sapping off-road driving, so the estimate seems fairly accurate. What’s clear is that this isn’t an especially fuel-efficient vehicle by modern standards, despite keeping things relatively sensible with a four-cylinder diesel engine. Ultimately, it’s working against a lot of weight and barn-door aerodynamics, so if you want great economy, this isn’t the car for you.

To compensate for this thirst, and probably to give the car some endurance when miles away from civilisation, the Land Cruiser gets an 80-litre fuel tank. At current diesel prices (around 144p/litre in January 2025) you’re looking at a fill from empty of £115, and at 25mpg, an absolute maximum range of 440 miles. Call it a real-world £100 fill for 400 miles of range.

UK Land Cruisers get a three-year warranty as standard, but Toyota does let you extend this to 10 years/100,000 miles if you keep returning to Toyota for your servicing, and this should give you some peace of mind that the 250 is built to last. Insurance is unlikely to be cheap given that it is in the highest group of 50.

One crumb of comfort is that the Land Cruiser is expected to hold its value well. According to our experts, the Land Cruiser range is predicted to maintain between 63 to 64 per cent of its value over three years or 36,000 miles, whichever comes first. That’s better than most large SUVs, although it can’t quite match the Land Rover Defender, which maintains up to 69 per cent of its original value, depending upon which version you go for.

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This is not a small vehicle, despite being seen as the more compact global Land Cruiser model (there’s an even larger Land Cruiser 300 available in other markets like Japan, Australia and the Middle East), at nearly five metres in length and more than 2,300kg.

The chassis is a traditional ladder frame with a body mounted on top, but both have been fundamentally redesigned compared with the previous model. The torsional rigidity of the frame and body have been increased by 50 and 30 per cent, respectively, and thanks to a new electric power steering system, there’s now little to no kickback through the steering rack, even over extremely tough terrain. 

The suspension system is a coil-spring set-up, with a double-wishbone design up front and a tough four-link rigid rear axle. Overseas models will have the option of adaptive dampers, but all UK cars will be fitted with a passive option. New for Toyota is the option to decouple the anti-roll bars, improving the overall wheel articulation by 10 per cent compared with models fitted without.

Visually, the latest Land Cruiser references the ‘J60’ Land Cruiser of the 1980s, with squared-off styling that hasn’t been seen for a few generations now, but there are hints too of the ‘J70’ – a separate model wearing the Land Cruiser nameplate that was also launched in the 1980s, but is still in production in some markets. It’s not the first retro-inspired shape we’ve seen in recent years, but it’s another successful reinterpretation of a much-loved model from the past.

The cabin has a chunky, boxy, and hard-wearing feel that could have come from the 1980s too, though there are no overt retro cues to be found. Instead, you get a distinctly modern twin display screen setup, though, in a slightly old-school touch, a large number of the car’s controls are still operable not just with switches, but actual physical buttons rather than haptic ones. We’re not sure this feels like the cabin of a £70k car, though, with a distinctly utilitarian feel where rivals like the Land Rover Defender ladle on the luxury at this price point.

Sat-nav, stereo and infotainment

Toyota has kept things blissfully simple with the infotainment system. Yes, it’s another touchscreen, but it’s supplemented by curious devices known as buttons and knobs that allow you to operate some functions by feel and a quick glance, rather than staring at a screen. Notably, the air conditioning, seat heating and seat cooling controls are all physical switches. Driving modes likewise, with a rotating knob near the gear selector, and while most audio controls are indeed through the touchscreen, you still get buttons on the steering wheel and a volume knob on the dash.

The 12.3-inch touchscreen is standard Toyota fare, using the brand’s Smart Connect+ media interface, which many owners will barely interact with since Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration is standard. Smart Connect+ does have a native navigation system though, and sends sound through a 14-speaker JBL audio setup in all variants. There’s a wireless charging pad for a phone too, though Toyota has provided plenty of USB-C ports for charging various devices whether you’re popping to the shops or out in the wilderness.

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The cabin combines hard-wearing surfaces with a smattering of elegant materials to create a sense of total solidity. In fact, the entire cabin feels almost infallible as none of the cars tested (which once again were all prototype vehicles) made even the tiniest creak or rattle, even when articulated over an obstacle off-road with a wheel dangling two feet in the air.

In terms of outright practicality, the Land Cruiser also scores. Both five- and seven-seat configurations are available, and in five-seat mode, there is good rear legroom, and excellent head and kneeroom.

The boot is vast, with 620 litres of space as a five-seater. That does drop to only 120 litres with seven seats in place (though Land Cruisers do look good with a roof rack, so that can provide extra storage if you’re filling every seat with people), and if you drop all the rear seats, space expands to 1,063 litres.

If there’s a downside to the vehicle’s practicality, it’s that you don’t get a drop-down tailgate like a Range Rover or BMW X5, so you don’t get a good place to perch on picnics. 

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Safety body Euro NCAP hasn’t yet tested the Toyota Land Cruiser; in fact, it’s not tested any Land Cruiser, so we’re not sure how this chunky 4x4 will perform in a crash. Toyota doesn’t tend to cut corners on safety, and the sheer amount of car around you will no doubt be beneficial for occupants should the worst happen. Even considering that the Land Cruiser still uses an old-fashioned separate chassis, modern 4x4s like this still have better crumple zones than they used to. For now, you’ll just have to be reassured by the usual suite of airbags and crash prevention measures.

The latter includes Toyota Safety Sense, marketing-speak for risk-detection features like collision avoidance emergency braking tech, emergency steering assist, Proactive Driving Assist to warn of risks at low speed, and even Acceleration Suppression, a system that reacts to sudden throttle inputs in low-speed driving, such as the kind you might make if you want to stop suddenly but accidentally hit the accelerator instead. An emergency driving stop system is also a welcome feature, and after detecting a lack of input by the driver (should a driver fall asleep or have a medical emergency) it brings the car to a safe halt and activates the hazard lights.

Reliability is typically a Toyota strong point. The Land Cruiser has a reputation for longevity, but ultimately as a brand new model, time will tell whether it can live up to its predecessors in terms of lasting forever.

Toyota Land Cruiser alternatives

The latest Toyota Land Cruiser is a serious 4x4, and has some serious 4x4 rivals. The most obvious is the £56k-and-up Land Rover Defender, which, while being less rufty-tufty than its predecessor (while the Land Cruiser has, if anything, gone the other way), is still a proper off-roader with a rugged feel, chunky styling, and a great deal more variety in its range than the Toyota – you can get three different body lengths (90, 110, and 130) as well as four, six, and eight-cylinder engines, and a mix of petrol, hybrid, and diesel, to the Toyota’s sole inline four-cylinder diesel.

Next up is the car that, for some, has replaced the old Defender, the Ineos Grenadier. It has a few different body options, including the Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster pickup, and two engine choices, both BMW inline sixes, one petrol and one diesel. It’s designed to match the Toyota off-road and starts at a similar price of £72,000, but the Grenadier makes heavy on-road compromises that the Land Cruiser has more successfully avoided.

Finally, there’s the Mercedes G-Class. Like the Toyota and Land Rover, it has a long heritage to fall back on and a no-nonsense attitude. However, while it’s still incredibly capable as an off-roader, it’s certainly aimed more at those who appreciate its image rather than those who enjoy spending their days driving over rough terrain. It’s expensive, with pricing beginning at £137,000.