Toyota Land Cruiser (2009 onwards)

What - Toyota Land Cruiser
Where - EJ Churchill Shooting Grounds, High Wycombe
Date - 4 November 2009
Price - £44,795
Available - December 2009
Key rivals - Land Rover Discovery, Mitsubishi Shogun

Summary
Very well resolved large SUV may lack Disco's style, but it does the business

We like - Smooth diesel engine, good ride, build quality
We don't like - Poor access to third row of seats, runs out of puff on motoring hills, complication of off-road settings

Gallery: Toyota Land Cruiser

First Impressions
There can be no doubt that what you are looking at here is a new Land Cruiser. Not for Toyota the arty styling of a Discovery. This is purposeful SUV, designed to suit buyers in any country and any environment in the world.

Despite the sense of familiarity, this one's all new. Oversized front bumpers and ugly headlights dominate the frontal appearance. Underneath there's a rugged new chassis with all manner of electronics to help you out in sticky conditions.

Just one engine is offered in the UK, a three-litre diesel coupled to a five-speed auto transmission. All but the base LC3 get seven seats.

Land Cruisers are outsold five to one by the Discovery in the UK but worldwide it's a very different picture. In 2008 Toyota sold 332,000 of its large SUVs and now the new model has all the potential to equal the Land Rover's sophistication too.

Performance
Three litres is a large capacity for a four-cylinder engine. It's cheaper than a V6 for Toyota to build, but doesn't a car costing £45k deserve something more sophisticated?

Arguably yes, but this four-pot makes a good case for itself. Twin balancer shafts means you could hardly demand anything smoother, and it's easier to get plenty of torque from a four than a V6.

With one exception, this proves to be a very well matched combination. Trickling along off-road in low ratio, the Land Cruiser is never compromised by a shortage of low-down grunt.

On the tarmac the power is sufficient to pull away sharply from road junctions and the 0-62mph acceleration time of 11.7 seconds is ample for a vehicle like this.

Motorway cruising is a relaxed matter, but it's here that the one weakness raises its head. Even with just a driver aboard a long motorway hill stunts the performance. Loaded up, a drop to fourth will be essential.

Ride and handling
Like any 4x4, the Land Cruisers needs to be considered from two separate perspectives, off- and on-road. And though we've heard it all before, Toyota reckons it has "succeeded in refining and improving both of these seemingly conflicting qualities."

That may be true, but with the suspension different on all three versions, not all can be perfect. Base model is the LC3, over which the LC4 gains hydraulic anti-roll bars to reduce body roll in corners.

The LC5 gets air suspension, which can be left to do its own thing or can be modulated from the driver's seat. You can choose the usual Comfort or Sport settings, but it does much cleverer things too.

As well as setting the ride height, there's an ignition-off linked control which prevents the rear height from rising until after passengers get out of the vehicle. The wonder of electronics.

On normal roads the mid-range LC4 rides very well indeed for a car like this. There's some inevitable jiggling on small bumps, but never enough to raise an eyebrow.

The Land Cruiser is immensely stable too, with the result that you need to slow less for corners than earlier. It really is rather enjoyable to drive.

The LC5 is so packed with technology that there's simply not the time or space to go in to the full details here. Briefly, the starting point for all the new Land Cruisers is a hill start and hill descent system.

Hill descent takes over control of both throttle and brakes as you go downhill and makes even the most treacherous conditions child's play. Low ratio is simply selected via a switch on the fascia.

The LC5 gets a multi-terrain system that does the same sort of thing as the Disco's Terrain Response. Simply select Mud and Sand, Loose Rock, Mogul or Rock and off you go. The additional Crawl Control on this version provides extra help on steep up and down bits.

It's thoroughly brilliant. With the right tyres the Land Cruiser tackles slopes full of wet leaves, slippery tree roots and mud, seemingly undefeatable. There are even cameras mounted around the car to help you through tight spaces.

There's a catch, however. Setting up your choices involves the pressing of oh-so-many buttons. Contrast that with the Land Rover Discovery's idiot-proof Terrain Response, where a twist of a knob does it all.

Interior
Toyota has resisted the temptation to enlarge this new generation Land Cruiser. As a result it's still much narrower than a Disco - over 100mm - which helps manoeuvrability but, in theory at least, not interior space.

Yet it doesn't feel short of room, with ample elbow space and loads of legroom in the first two rows. The third row of seats are a struggle to get to, and cramped once you are there, though the middle row does slide forward to ease the situation.

In the interior design Toyota has trodden a fine line between the historic utilitarianism of Land Cruisers and the level of luxury to be expected in a car costing over £40,000.

So it's not posh but the ambience is refined, helped no end by the quality of the new switchgear. The seats are comfortable too, though there's precious little to stop those in the middle row from sliding about.

Access to the large load space is through an enormous side-opening rear door, though if there isn't the space behind, the rear window can be opened to drop stuff in.

An electric motor folds the third row of seats flat, convenient and a bit of one-upmanship for the blokes. It's surprising, though, that with both rows of seats folded flat, the resulting space isn't deeper and more cargo-friendly.

Economy and safety
This four-cylinder engine is an improved version of the previous three-litre. There's nothing much wrong with the economy, and at around 35mpg on the statutory figures, it's little changed.

On a mixed batch of on-road driving the trip computer showed that a 30mpg average was readily achievable, though high speeds in the third lane of the motorway have a detrimental effect.

The engine revisions, coupled to the slipperier body shape, have their major input when it comes to C02 levels, which are down from 244 to 214g/km. In comparison, the latest Land Rover Discovery three-litre V6 has figures of 30.4mpg and 244g/km.

While Volvo pioneered improved SUV safety, both for pedestrians and other vehicles, with its XC90 in 2002, others have been slow to catch on.

The new Land Cruiser does look much improved, with a crash structure set low down at the front to interact with regular cars, and not ride over them and extra thought given to pedestrian injuries.

There are no EuroNCAP crash test results for the Land Cruiser, and probably never will be, but every version comes with seven airbags, including curtain airbags for all three rows, and active front head restraints.

MSN Cars verdict
While British buyers love the Discovery more than any rival, it's easy to see, with this latest Land Cruiser, why full-sized Toyota SUVs are so popular throughout the world. It simply does the job at least as well, and often better, than any rival.

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