2023 Toyota HiLux GR Sport: MORE power and torque...Toyota's Ranger Raptor competitor?

CarExpert

Toyota has just launched its answer to the Ford Ranger Raptor. It's called the 2023 Toyota HiLux GR Sport and it's due to launch late in 2023 with more power and torque than the regular HiLux.  EVERY ute drag raced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJapGI4JT5M EVERY ute dyno tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVkYw0e8-o EVERY ute tow tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZbbJAIl4A EVERY ute tested off-road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6ng66xBRM4  More Toyota content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota More Toyota HiLux content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota/hilux  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Why it exists 0:31 Engine 1:22 Suspension 2:54 Design 4:55 Price prediction 9:06 Paul's take 9:42  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 #hilux #grsport

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. Toyota has just taken the wraps off the Toyota Hilux GR Sport, which

00:05 is expected to be the brand's answer to the Ford Ranger Raptor. So, today I'm going to

00:10 run you through everything we know so far. It's not going to be released until later

00:13 on this year, but I will give you all of the details that we have. If you do want to skip

00:17 ahead to other parts of this video, you can use the time codes that are on the screen

00:21 now, or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below. If you haven't

00:24 done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon so you can find out

00:27 every single time we publish one of these, but let's get straight into it.

00:32 So the important thing to note here before we get into the finer details, why does this

00:35 exist? Well, the dual cab ute segment, the backy segment, the bucky segment, wherever

00:40 you're from, is going upmarket and manufacturers are looking at ways to help you part with

00:45 your money in the most efficient way possible. And that means they take platforms like the

00:50 Hilux, dress them up and then charge a whole lot of money for them. Ford does the same

00:55 thing with their range as well. Toyota actually offered the GR Sport previously, but it was

01:00 never available in Australia. So this is the first time that we'll actually get a sporty

01:04 version of the Hilux that wears the GR Sport name brand. And in addition to that, we know

01:09 that from sources at Toyota here in Australia, they actually do own at least one Ford Ranger

01:15 Raptor that they're using to benchmark this car against. So I'll be interested to see

01:19 how they do compare when it finally does launch.

01:22 Righto, let's kick off with the engine. So I was kind of hoping this would have a V6

01:26 diesel or a V6 petrol under the bonnet, but instead it just uses the same 2.8 litre turbocharged

01:31 four-cylinder diesel engine with a little bit more power and torque. So now it produces

01:35 165 kilowatts of power and 550 Newton metres of torque, and it produces that respectively

01:41 at 3000 RPM and 2800 RPM. That's an increase of about 10%, and that increase, by the way,

01:47 of 10% is over 150 kilowatts and 500 Newton metres, which is standard in parts of the

01:51 Hilux range at the moment.

01:53 According to Toyota, they've been able to get this increase, and this is their words,

01:57 by turbo supercharging and better fuel injector control. I don't know what turbo supercharging

02:03 means. Maybe they wound up the boost pressure or something like that. This car is available

02:08 exclusively with a six-speed automatic transmission, and what they've done here with the gearbox

02:12 is increased the lock-up area, so it's a wider lock-up area. Now, they've also mounted paddle

02:18 shifters to the steering wheel to give you finer control over those gear shifts. It also

02:22 has a sportier tune now as well to take advantage of the more power and torque that it is working

02:27 with.

02:28 That's it for the changes. It's not the V6 diesel or the V6 petrol we were expecting,

02:32 but it should mean that this gives it a little bit more punch behind the wheel. When we did

02:35 test the Rogue recently, which received a raft of suspension geometry changes, it was

02:41 heavier because of those changes, and as a result of that, it felt slower in a straight

02:45 line. So, I'm thinking here the 10% increase in power and torque should actually give this

02:49 the same straight-line performance that we currently feel in the SR5 without all of these

02:54 changes.

02:55 OK, beneath the skin, this is where things get interesting, and Toyota is very short

02:59 on details at the moment. All they've done is announce this product now, so I am working

03:03 around the edges here and piecing together what I can from the information that we have.

03:08 So, according to Toyota, the front and rear tracks have increased by 140mm and 155mm,

03:13 respectively. There's now disc brakes on the rear axle, which replaces drum brakes

03:18 that are fitted to the standard Hilux. The front brakes are bigger, and Toyota doesn't

03:21 quote the actual figures, but I suspect they're the same as the Rogue, and in the Rogue, it

03:26 uses a 338mm rotor with four piston calipers, and the rear disc setup is a 312mm rotor with

03:33 a single piston caliper.

03:35 Here in the GR Sport, they paint the caliper red, so it gives it a bit of a sporty look

03:39 here. The rear dampers now sit outboard of the chassis rails, that is similar to the

03:43 Ford Ranger. I think that gives them better body control when the car is tipped in. When

03:47 you look at this wider track that this is featuring on the front and rear, when you

03:50 do tip it in, you really need those dampers to be outboard of the chassis rails so that

03:54 it is all sitting upright instead of on a sort of triangulated angle.

04:00 There's changes to the wishbone design. There's also reinforcements on the rear axle with

04:04 stiffer coil springs, monotube shock absorbers with higher damping force. Again, reading

04:08 around the lines here, this all kind of feels the same as the Rogue in terms of the changes.

04:12 I'm sure that given this has more power and torque, they may have tweaked it a little

04:15 bit there, but in terms of the actual changes, I think most of this stuff is the same as

04:19 the Rogue. They haven't mentioned it, but the Rogue does get a rear stabiliser bar as

04:23 an addition, and I suspect this is going to have the same feature set in terms of that

04:27 suspension change.

04:28 In terms of the off-road equipment, there are no real changes here, so if they did want

04:32 this to be a proper Ford Ranger Raptor competitor, Ranger Raptor gets a front differential lock,

04:37 it also has a rear diff lock that works in two-wheel drive high range, four-wheel drive

04:40 high range, and four-wheel drive low range. Our Hilux, on the other hand, here in GR Sport

04:44 trim carries over with the same thing, which is rear diff lock, which only works in low

04:47 range and two-wheel drive high range permanently, four-wheel drive high range for unsealed surfaces

04:53 and four-wheel drive low range as well.

04:55 Let's talk about some of the design changes. I'm going to get my iPad out here. We're going

05:00 to have a little look at exactly what has changed. Okay, let's start off here with the

05:04 front. I've got to tell you, the designers have done a really good job on this. Have

05:09 a look at that big grille. So, the grille itself has actually increased in size, that's

05:12 for additional cooling, and I think they've really emphasised that as being the big mouth

05:17 that's going to keep that engine nice and cool.

05:19 Then, if you look at this as well, Toyota lettering at the front there, so similar to

05:23 what Ford has done with Ranger Raptor with Ford F-O-R-D, individual lettering on the

05:27 front, Toyota's done it here. They've also done this to the Land Cruiser 300 Series in

05:31 GR Sport trim as well, so it seems to be a theme that they're carrying on there. GR down

05:36 the bottom here as well. Have a look at this too. This is kind of cool. I like this little

05:42 inlet here, and you can also see if we zoom in there as well, a little bit of aero happening

05:47 off to the side there too. So, this feels a whole lot more like a big design change

05:53 from the rest of the Hilux range. It does feel like they've put a fair bit of effort

05:56 into this to give it that visual differentiation.

05:59 Have a look down the bottom here as well. You have steel reinforcement under the front

06:03 there. This is designed to be an off-road capable vehicle, so this is going to prevent

06:07 a nasty little rock ripping the sump off the bottom of your new Hilux. Now, off to the

06:12 side, let's have a little sticky beak around here. My iPad drawing skills are still coming

06:18 together. These are rock sliders, so I'm pretty sure they used something similar here in the

06:22 previous generation of the Rugged X. I remember going to the launch of that vehicle, and they

06:26 did this section at the launch where we were able to drop the car onto some rocks, and

06:30 you can actually feel a big difference there with the rock sliders, because if you hit

06:33 a standard sort of side step in any other car on a set of rocks, it basically dints

06:39 it and it's entirely pointless for driving off-road. This will actually support the weight

06:44 of the vehicle on rocks, and it's not going to deform in any way.

06:46 Over here as well in this shot, you can also see the red brake caliper there with GR Sport

06:51 insignia on it. They're also using an all-terrain tyre here, so it looks like a Bridgestone

06:55 Dueler. I mean, look, an all-terrain tyre is absolutely necessary for a vehicle that

07:01 is billed as an off-road vehicle, and I think that is a really good addition for them to

07:04 have here for what is going to be an off-road capable vehicle. It's also worth calling out

07:09 as well, if we have a look at this front side view, I love how wide and pumped this looks.

07:16 Like, it really is quite an imposing stance, and if you see this coming towards you, you

07:21 can visually see this is a significantly wider vehicle than a standard Hilux, and I just

07:26 love that look. It really does look nice and meaty out on the roads. They've done a great

07:29 job with that. And just in case you're wondering too, this little section here is the radar,

07:34 so that's where they've plonked that, and then a GR badge just there as well.

07:38 Let's jump inside the cabin. I'll show you some of the changes there as well. Look at

07:42 this, straight out of the Ford Ranger Raptor playbook, they've got this little red marker

07:48 here on the steering wheel. They use this in rally and drifting as well. It gives you

07:52 an idea of where the centre point of the steering wheel is, so when you are doing some quick

07:55 steering wheel motions while you're drifting, that's going to tell you where you need to

07:59 return back to centre. GR badge there on the steering wheel as well. The rest of this all

08:04 looks pretty similar. There are some other changes here to the instrument cluster though

08:08 that I did notice. A little bit hard to see in our pictures here, but do zoom in just

08:13 a little bit there. You can see that some of those gauges look a little different now

08:18 as well, so I'll quickly highlight those so you can see exactly what I'm talking about.

08:21 There's a little bit of red there on the gauges. I don't know if that's the same as the rest

08:25 of the Hilux range, but I suspect the red stuff kind of fills in with that GR sport

08:30 theme. If you like badges, you're going to love what they've done here to the seats.

08:35 They've got GR insignia there on the seat headrest. I actually think that looks pretty

08:39 cool. They've done a good job with that. It kind of just gives the interior a little bit

08:42 of a different look. You can also see there on the seats, they've got some Alcantara trimming

08:46 and some metal plates there on your brake and accelerator as well.

08:53 And just wrapping up our design changes section, this is what your paddle shifters look like.

08:57 So they're located just here. Nothing sort of too crazy there. I think they're plastic

09:01 paddle shifters and not like the metallic setup you see in the Ranger Raptor. Okay,

09:06 so enough about design. Let's talk about launch timing and pricing. So according to Toyota,

09:10 this is going to launch in Australia second half of 2023, so it's at least another sort

09:15 of six months away from when this video is published. Pricing is still to be confirmed,

09:18 but if I have a look at the outgoing Rugged X, which is what this replaces, that was priced

09:23 at around the $70,000 mark and the Rogue was about $2,000 less expensive than that. If

09:27 you have a look at the Rogue pricing now, that's around the $70,000 mark. Given this

09:31 has more power and torque and a number of other changes, I suspect this is probably

09:35 going to be around that $75,000 mark before on-road costs. But let's see when it actually

09:40 does launch and where they land with that.

09:42 So what is my take on this? Is it a Raptor competitor? Look, I'm going to reserve judgment

09:47 until I drive it. I actually really did enjoy driving the Rogue. I spent a lot of time in

09:51 that car and drove it back to back with the SR5 and they're kind of chalk and cheese.

09:56 The changes they made to that chassis are very noticeable. When you go for a fun drive

10:00 and really get stuck into it, it does feel like a completely different vehicle to the

10:04 SR5. So as long as they carry the same characteristics here into the GR Sport, it will be engaging

10:09 to drive. Now that it has more power and torque, that was the only thing I didn't really like

10:13 about the Rogue. It was a little bit down on power and torque compared to the SR5 because

10:17 it was heavier. Whereas now that they've bumped this up by 10%, I think we're going to see

10:21 a nice difference there in terms of handling behind the wheel and a sort of nice meaty

10:26 feeling steering wheel.

10:28 But is it enough to take on the Raptor? Look, if you look at the Raptor and what they've

10:31 done with the twin-turbo V6 petrol, it is going to hose this in a straight line. You've

10:35 got a front diff lock for off-road driving. It is quite a capable vehicle in general.

10:40 So let's see what happens there. We do have a stack of dual-cab Ute content coming, including

10:47 with the Hilux Rogue that this GR Sport shares a lot of components with. If that story is

10:51 live at this point, you'll be able to see links in the description below. But the Rogue

10:54 actually performed incredibly well during all of our tests. So I think that Toyota is

10:59 onto a good thing with this. Perhaps in the future, though, I would like to see like a

11:03 V6 diesel or a V6 petrol get dropped into Hilux. Maybe that is for the next generation

11:07 of this. Who knows?

11:08 Let me know what you think in the comments section below. Do you think the new Toyota

11:12 Hilux GR Sport is a worthy competitor to something like a Ranger Raptor, a Navara Pro 4X Warrior?

11:18 Let me know what you think down there. Are you going to buy one of these when they come

11:21 out? Are you going to put your name on the waiting list? I'm really keen for your feedback

11:25 and to see what you think of this product.

11:27 Now, if you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your

11:30 friends. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell

11:33 icon. But until next time, take it easy.

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