We wanted to include this off-road content in our standard review of the 2022 Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series GR Sport, but the video was going to be too long so we've split into two.
In this video Paul Maric tests every single 4WD feature in the new 300 Series LandCruiser. That's the centre diff lock, front and rear diff locks, turn assist, crawl control, downhill assist control and low range, plus the drive modes.
To watch our detailed review of the 2022 Toyota LandCruiser GR Sport go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQqTIwjBQB0
More Toyota content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota
More Toyota LandCruiser content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota/landcruiser
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
High range 4H: 00:53
Centre diff lock 4H: 04:35
Turn assist 4L: 09:18
Front/rear diff lock 4L: 11:44
Verdict: 14:15
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#toyota #landcruiser #offroad #review
In this video Paul Maric tests every single 4WD feature in the new 300 Series LandCruiser. That's the centre diff lock, front and rear diff locks, turn assist, crawl control, downhill assist control and low range, plus the drive modes.
To watch our detailed review of the 2022 Toyota LandCruiser GR Sport go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQqTIwjBQB0
More Toyota content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota
More Toyota LandCruiser content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota/landcruiser
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
High range 4H: 00:53
Centre diff lock 4H: 04:35
Turn assist 4L: 09:18
Front/rear diff lock 4L: 11:44
Verdict: 14:15
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#toyota #landcruiser #offroad #review
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul.
00:01 That is the new Toyota Land Cruiser.
00:02 It's the GR Sport version.
00:04 So it's the most capable off-road version
00:07 of the 300 Series Land Cruiser that they sell.
00:09 We've already done a detailed review of it
00:11 for on-road driving and what it's like to live with.
00:13 You can click up here to watch that
00:14 or scroll down and look at the link in the description.
00:16 Today, it's all about off-roading in the GR Sport.
00:20 So in this video,
00:21 we're gonna focus entirely on off-road driving.
00:22 And look, we're not four-wheel drive experts.
00:24 So this isn't gonna be any hardcore off-roading
00:26 where we climb a vertical hill to see how it goes.
00:29 And when it rolls over.
00:30 Today's gonna be all about testing
00:31 each of those four-wheel drive controls,
00:33 the center diff lock, the rear diff lock,
00:34 the front diff lock, to see exactly how it works.
00:36 So it should be good fun.
00:37 Now, if you do wanna skip ahead
00:39 to a particular test in this video,
00:40 you can use the time codes on the screen there.
00:42 Or if you're on YouTube,
00:43 you can scroll down and use the chapters below.
00:45 And if you haven't done so already,
00:45 subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon
00:48 so you can find out every single time
00:49 we do fun stuff like this, but let's get stuck into it.
00:52 Okay, so let's kick things off.
00:54 Before we start, I'm gonna run you through
00:56 all of the off-road specifications
00:58 of the new 300 Series Land Cruiser.
01:00 We'll start off with ground clearance.
01:01 It's 235 millimeters,
01:04 10 millimeters higher than the 200 Series Land Cruiser.
01:06 And that is the amount of clearance you have
01:08 under the body before you start
01:09 whacking any of those components.
01:11 You have an approach angle of 32 degrees.
01:13 That's the angle of the face you can approach
01:15 before you hit the front of the car.
01:16 And a departure angle of 25 degrees,
01:18 which is the same, but in reverse.
01:20 If you are gonna go through some water,
01:21 you have a 700 millimeter wading depth.
01:23 So that's the maximum height before you start
01:25 affecting electrical components,
01:27 diff breathers, all that kind of thing.
01:28 And in terms of the actual hardware itself,
01:30 you have a high range four-wheel drive,
01:32 low range four-wheel drive,
01:34 center diff lock, front diff lock, and rear diff lock.
01:37 So it is pretty well equipped there.
01:38 You've also got EKDSS.
01:40 So that's the kinetic dynamic suspension system.
01:42 It's effectively a set of electronically controlled
01:45 sway bars at the front and rear.
01:47 So they help with performance on roads,
01:49 so the car stays nice and flat.
01:51 But off-road, they will hinder your wheel articulation.
01:53 When you are off-road,
01:54 they're able to effectively disconnect those
01:56 to give you free wheel articulation.
01:57 So you kind of get the best of both worlds there.
02:00 And then finally, I'll call out
02:01 some of the electronic controls here.
02:02 So you have a multi-terrain select system.
02:04 So they're drive modes specific to off-roading.
02:07 You've got auto, dirt, sand, mud, and deep snow.
02:10 All they do is vary the throttle sensitivity
02:13 and the traction control intervention
02:15 and whether your forward collision warning systems are on.
02:17 You then also have downhill assist control,
02:19 which I'll demonstrate shortly,
02:20 and crawl control as well,
02:22 which regulates the speed going up and down hills.
02:24 And finally, we have a turn assist,
02:26 which tucks the car in
02:28 when you're going around tight turns off-road.
02:31 Because often, when you have the front and rear diffs locked,
02:33 it will increase your turning radius.
02:35 So that will sort of help sort those things out.
02:37 Now, there was a lot to get through there.
02:39 If some of that doesn't make sense to you,
02:41 or if you haven't really done much off-road driving before,
02:44 click up here to watch a video that we've shot before
02:46 on four-wheel drive controls,
02:48 where we explain what they all mean and how they all work.
02:50 But let's get started here.
02:51 So the first bit of our course is going to be Log Mountain.
02:54 Has rained overnight,
02:55 so it is a little bit sketchy up there
02:57 with mud and stuff covering it.
02:58 We'll then go down the other side
03:00 to test hill descent control.
03:02 I'm just going to leave everything
03:03 in high-range four-wheel drive.
03:04 In terms of multi-terrain select,
03:06 I'll just select mud for this
03:08 so we have a little bit more wheel slip in there,
03:09 but I'm not going to lock any diffs just yet.
03:12 We'll see how it goes in its standard form.
03:14 Alrighty, here we go.
03:15 So you do have adaptive damping on the suspension as well.
03:18 When you go through these multi-terrain select modes,
03:20 it adjusts that too,
03:22 so you actually get a slightly softer ride as well.
03:25 So throttle control coming up here is excellent.
03:28 It's not surging.
03:29 It's really nice and gradual and smooth.
03:31 And being a 10-speed auto,
03:33 it's able to just give you enough flexibility there
03:38 in terms of the torque band of the engine.
03:39 So that was a piece of cake.
03:41 It went up there even with that mud
03:43 without any dramas at all.
03:44 So what we'll do now is put the downhill assist control on.
03:48 What this does, it comes up with a little message there
03:49 on the screen that allows you to select your speed.
03:52 So I'm going to go all the way down
03:54 to the lowest speed possible.
03:55 On our downhill here, we have a few ruts
03:57 and a couple of exposed rocks,
03:59 so this will give us an idea of what our clearance is like,
04:01 but I'm completely off the brake pedal here
04:03 and the car's controlling our descent.
04:05 It's probably going a little bit too quick there
04:06 for my liking.
04:07 It's not too bad.
04:09 I can always take over with the brake if I need to.
04:12 Yeah, that was a piece of cake.
04:13 We didn't knock anything there.
04:14 In some dual-cab utes, we'll knock suspension
04:18 or some other components as we come down over those rocks,
04:20 but that was a piece of cake.
04:22 No dramas there at all.
04:23 So pretty impressive there
04:24 in terms of the hill descent control.
04:26 That both works going down and also in reverse as well,
04:29 so it'll catch you if you do end up going back down a hill
04:33 or something like that,
04:34 that you can't quite make it to the top of.
04:36 Okay, next up, we're going to go up
04:38 the other side of our hill there.
04:40 Now this has a lot of hidden ruts and stuff like that,
04:42 so I'm going to show you two things here.
04:43 First up, I'm going to lock the center diff
04:44 so you can see it activating just there on the little screen.
04:48 Once that's in, that will go solid.
04:50 Then what we're going to do is use the camera here.
04:53 Now where this comes in handy is when I climb this hill,
04:55 normally if you were doing this out in the wild,
04:57 you'd want to walk it first
04:58 just to see where all your ruts and stuff like that are.
05:01 Once you've walked it though,
05:02 you want to be able to point the car
05:03 exactly in the direction you want to head,
05:05 because sometimes on some off-road tracks,
05:07 if you get off the sort of desired line,
05:10 you can end up sideways
05:11 or turned over down a ditch or something.
05:13 So I know that I want to point for the rock up there,
05:16 so this angle shows me the tires,
05:18 but it also shows me which direction the car's heading in.
05:21 So I'm able to look out the front,
05:23 and then as I approach that rock,
05:25 I know that's my desired line.
05:27 Here we go, we're about to touch it now.
05:29 Here it is there, and then I lean into the throttle.
05:31 With the center diff locked,
05:33 what it's doing is sending 50% of torque to the front axle
05:36 and then 50% of torque to the rear axle.
05:38 So that basically means
05:39 that you're not going to get into a situation
05:41 where you get all of the torque going to the back
05:43 or the front when you get wheels off the ground.
05:45 So it's a really easy system to use.
05:47 Now the push of this brings up this kind of,
05:49 I don't know, pointless view
05:50 where you can see through the front of the car,
05:53 but then it says it's not live.
05:54 So it is kind of a little bit pointless,
05:57 but I do like these things here
05:58 that show you the roll angle that you're on,
06:00 just so you can get an idea of how far you can go
06:02 before the car disappears underneath you.
06:05 So yeah, look, easy climb there with that center diff locked,
06:08 and that works in high range as well,
06:10 unlike the front and rear diff locks
06:13 that require you to be in low range.
06:15 Righto, this is our offset mogul.
06:16 This is where we're going to test chassis rigidity
06:19 and also what it's like when a wheel comes off the ground.
06:22 I'm going to kill the parking sensors
06:25 as we get tilted into the air.
06:27 Always scared you're doing that.
06:30 Okay, so I've got another view active here
06:32 on the screen now as well.
06:33 So you can see right there
06:34 that we have the center diff locked,
06:37 and then you can also see how much brake I have applied there.
06:40 I can move my foot on that,
06:41 and then it also has the angles that we're on.
06:43 What I'm going to do now is open and close the door.
06:46 I want to see how rigid this chassis is.
06:49 Excellent, so we have the thing fully flexed here.
06:53 That means that in theory,
06:55 if the chassis wasn't quite strong enough right now,
06:57 we wouldn't be able to close the door,
06:57 and that has happened before on some cars.
06:59 So we'll roll out of this now,
07:01 and we'll head towards our lift condition.
07:03 This is where we're going to have
07:04 one wheel lifted off the ground.
07:07 I'm then going to hop out just to give you guys an idea
07:08 of what it looks like on the outside there
07:10 in terms of the rear suspension,
07:12 and then we'll see how the car deals with that condition
07:14 where a wheel is sort of fully lifted off the ground.
07:17 Okay, I'm going to quickly run you through
07:21 what's going on here,
07:22 and we'll take a closer look at the suspension.
07:24 So 300 Series Land Cruiser has a live axle
07:27 with coil springs at the rear,
07:29 and it also uses KDSS, which is what I mentioned before,
07:32 which is an electronic sway bar system
07:35 at the front and the rear,
07:36 and then you have a damper in there as well,
07:38 which is adaptive for on-road driving
07:40 and also for off-road driving as well.
07:41 Currently, we've got it set up in a situation
07:43 where this tire is almost at full flex,
07:46 so there's a stack of articulation there.
07:48 Most of the cars that we test here,
07:49 like dual-cab utes and stuff like that,
07:51 will actually have this tire completely come off the ground.
07:53 So you can see immediately there
07:55 that this suspension setup is designed for off-road driving
07:58 because you can get that better articulation.
08:00 More articulation means you're able to stay in contact
08:02 with the ground for longer,
08:04 and it also means you have more traction.
08:05 So you can see that part of the wheel there has traction,
08:08 that doesn't.
08:08 So that is what's going on there.
08:10 If you look behind our damper there,
08:12 you've got that KDSS system.
08:14 Right now, it's effectively off,
08:15 and it allows the sway bar to not have any influence
08:18 on what's going on here.
08:19 In a road car or a sports car that uses a system like that,
08:23 let's use like the Porsche Taycan as an example,
08:25 they have a 48-volt sway bar at the back there
08:27 that's able to tighten and release
08:29 depending on what the car's doing through a corner.
08:31 If that system was to be fitted here,
08:33 you would have no wheel articulation
08:35 because it's a rigid connection there to the chassis,
08:38 whereas here, they're able to say,
08:39 "Hey, this car's off-road now,
08:41 so let's forget about the on-road driving performance.
08:43 We'll disconnect it, and we'll give this full articulation."
08:46 So what we'll do now, we'll hop back inside the car,
08:48 and we'll see how it goes
08:49 in terms of getting us out of this hole right here.
08:51 I don't think it'll be too much of a drama.
08:54 Okay, so yeah, hope that explained
08:56 what's going on there with the suspension.
08:57 So right now, because this is in four-wheel drive,
09:00 and we've got that center diff locked,
09:01 it should get out of here without any dramas,
09:02 but in theory, if this was rear-wheel drive,
09:05 and I just let go of the brake here,
09:07 we probably wouldn't get anywhere
09:08 because that wheel would just start spinning on its own
09:11 without any traction.
09:12 So yeah, for basic situations like that,
09:14 a center diff lock in high range
09:16 is going to get you out of most binds.
09:18 Righto, so far, everything has been in high range.
09:20 I reckon we give low range a crack here,
09:22 and there's one function in particular
09:24 I wanna show you before we start locking
09:26 the front and rear diff.
09:27 So to activate low range, you go into neutral,
09:29 flick this switch down to L4.
09:31 It goes into low range down the bottom there.
09:33 You can then put it back into drive.
09:35 So the thing I wanna show you here
09:36 is called turn assist.
09:38 It's a function that allows the car
09:40 to reduce its turning radius.
09:41 You activate it through a crawl control.
09:43 Now, crawl control is a function of low range
09:46 where the car is able to maintain a set speed,
09:49 and you can then vary the speed
09:50 using the mode select dial here,
09:52 and that can be uphill, downhill, you name it.
09:55 So that's all pretty straightforward,
09:56 but turn assist is a function of crawl control
09:58 that I'm more interested in.
10:00 What happens when you try and turn hard
10:03 when you have the center diff locked,
10:04 or the rear diff locked, or the front diff locked,
10:07 or all of them, your turning radius increases,
10:10 and that is because the car's trying to make
10:12 the wheels move at the same speed
10:14 depending on which diff's locked.
10:15 And as a result of that, you can push wide
10:17 if you're on a tight four-wheel drive track.
10:18 So turn assist fixes that.
10:20 So let me first demonstrate what our turning circle
10:23 here is like with just the center diff locked
10:25 in low range.
10:26 So we're pulling wide.
10:27 I can feel the car skipping a little bit
10:30 as we try and make this turn
10:31 because that center diff is locked,
10:33 and then we come out to this position just here
10:37 where I'm facing straight ahead towards the camera.
10:39 But what we'll do now is reverse back.
10:42 We'll do that again with turn assist.
10:45 What this is going to do is basically start
10:48 locking inside wheels to tuck the front end around
10:51 to reduce your turning radius.
10:54 So as I start turning right now,
10:56 crawl control is deciding how quick we go,
10:59 so we'll turn that speed up a little bit.
11:00 But what I can feel right now
11:02 is that back tire locking,
11:05 and the car is kind of shunting around here.
11:08 And we're doing a U-turn right now
11:17 on what feels like half the turning radius
11:20 of what we were doing before.
11:22 So you may think to yourself, "What use is this?"
11:25 Well, if you do come to a section on your off-road track
11:28 where you do have a tight turn
11:29 and you can't unlock your diffs,
11:31 this is what's going to help you get around there.
11:34 So really cool setup,
11:35 and I haven't seen this in other four-wheel drives before.
11:37 It might be available on others,
11:38 but I've only really seen it on the Land Cruiser,
11:40 and it's definitely a handy function
11:42 if you are doing some off-roading on a tight course.
11:44 Okay, it's time for our next test.
11:47 This is where we're gonna see
11:48 how the front and rear differential locks help us
11:51 when we get to situations
11:52 where we've got tires off the ground and that kind of thing.
11:54 Now, this hill in front of us,
11:55 it doesn't look all that scary,
11:57 and I know for you guys
11:58 that are big into your four-wheel driving,
11:59 this will probably just be a walk in the park.
12:00 But what this is going to do
12:02 is really test the limits of the car's ability
12:04 to maintain traction
12:06 when there's just varying loads on each tire.
12:08 So first up, I'm gonna go up in low range
12:10 with the center diff locked,
12:11 and what we'll see is just the wheels spinning
12:13 as the car grapples to get traction and make it up there.
12:16 Then we'll come back down again,
12:17 and I'll lock the front and rear diffs,
12:19 and then we can see how that compares.
12:21 So let's give this a shot.
12:22 All right, so,
12:23 climb up here,
12:26 and as we get to this section,
12:29 the car's gonna drop away a little bit there.
12:32 Continue climbing here.
12:33 Okay, so I can feel that wheel
12:36 just slipping there as we climb.
12:38 And I'll just maneuver our way up the top here.
12:41 So basically, it worked, it was fine,
12:44 but it did feel a little bit sketchy.
12:46 And if you were in a position
12:47 where you had to keep powering on
12:48 and it started getting more and more technical
12:50 as you got closer to the top,
12:52 you'd probably want to have locked your differentials
12:54 before you actually started,
12:55 because once you're on the move,
12:57 it's pretty tricky to get this stuff happening.
12:59 So let's give that another shot.
13:00 This time around, I'll lock the front and rear diffs,
13:02 and what we'll see is that the wheels
13:04 are all turning at the exact same speed,
13:07 because when you do lock a differential,
13:08 like your front differential,
13:09 it's sending 50% of torque to each wheel.
13:12 Same story at the back.
13:13 So that means if one wheel is turning at a certain speed,
13:15 the other one is turning at the same speed.
13:17 You'll never have a condition where,
13:18 even if you have a wheel in the air,
13:20 that it's turning any faster
13:21 than the other wheel on the same axle.
13:23 So let's give that another shot.
13:25 Okay, so what I've done now
13:26 is lock the front and rear diffs.
13:29 That means everything is going to be moving
13:31 at the same speed, and in theory,
13:33 that should mean that we can walk up here
13:34 with a whole lot more ease.
13:36 So let's see how we go.
13:38 Wow. (laughs)
13:44 Wow.
13:45 I am seriously impressed.
13:48 It literally just walked up there
13:49 without even trying at all.
13:51 That's seriously remarkable.
13:53 So look here, you don't often find a front diff lock
13:56 on a consumer car.
13:58 A lot of people add them in later on to help them off-road,
14:01 but look, based on what we've done here,
14:03 I think it shows that it makes a really big difference.
14:05 And if you are serious about off-roading,
14:06 this is something that you definitely
14:08 want to add to your Land Cruiser.
14:10 Unfortunately, it's only available on the GR Sport,
14:12 so you're going to have to get this one
14:14 if you do want the front diff lock.
14:15 Well, I hope you enjoyed that.
14:17 It was good fun exploring all the systems
14:20 in the new Land Cruiser
14:21 through our sort of light off-road course.
14:23 I'm actually looking forward to seeing
14:24 what the four-wheel drive experts do with this,
14:27 like the 4x4 27 guys when they go do insane stuff.
14:30 But just as an average person doing some fairly basic
14:33 and average off-roading,
14:34 the stuff that's fitted to this is insane.
14:36 I just think that it can really go anywhere
14:38 that you need it to go.
14:39 And then when you need to go that little bit further,
14:41 it's got all the controls you need to play with
14:42 to make it all happen.
14:44 And it's all pretty idiot-proof as well.
14:45 And a lot of it is practical too.
14:47 So let me know in the comment section below,
14:49 what do you reckon about the new Land Cruiser?
14:50 Is the GR Sport the way to go?
14:52 It comes with literally all of the off-road equipment,
14:55 or are you gonna go spend a little less in the range
14:58 because it is getting a little pricey now.
15:00 And as a reminder, we have a detailed review of this.
15:02 There's a link down there in the description.
15:04 If you did enjoy this video,
15:05 please make sure you like it and share it with your mates.
15:07 And if you haven't done so already,
15:08 subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.
15:11 But until next time, take it easy.