EVERY LandCruiser 300 Series Toyota 4WD feature tested
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TechTranscript
00:00G'day, I'm Paul. That is the new Toyota Land Cruiser. It's the GR Sport version.
00:04So, it's the most capable off-road version of the 300 Series Land Cruiser that they sell.
00:09We've already done a detailed review of it for on-road driving and what it's like to live with.
00:13You can click up here to watch that or scroll down and look at the link in the description.
00:16Today, it's all about off-roading in the GR Sport. So, in this video,
00:20we're going to focus entirely on off-road driving. Look, we're not four-wheel drive
00:24experts, so this isn't going to be any hardcore off-roading where we,
00:27you know, climb a vertical hill to see how it goes and when it rolls over.
00:30Today's going to be all about testing each of those four-wheel drive controls,
00:33the center diff lock, the rear diff lock, the front diff lock, to see exactly how it works.
00:36So, it should be good fun. Now, if you do want to skip ahead to a particular test in this video,
00:40you can use the time codes on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube,
00:43you can scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already,
00:46subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon so you can find out every
00:49single time we do fun stuff like this. But let's get stuck into it.
00:53Okay, so let's kick things off. Before we start, I'm going to run you through all of the
00:56off-road specifications of the new 300 Series LandCruiser. We'll start off with ground
01:00clearance. It's 235 millimetres, 10 millimetres higher than the 200 Series LandCruiser,
01:06and that is the amount of clearance you have under the body before you start
01:09whacking any of those components. You have an approach angle of 32 degrees,
01:12that's the angle of the face you can approach before you hit the front of the car,
01:16and a departure angle of 25 degrees, which is the same but in reverse.
01:20If you are going to go through some water, you have a 700 millimetre weighting depth,
01:23so that's the maximum height before you start affecting electrical components,
01:27diff breathers, all that kind of thing. And in terms of the actual hardware itself,
01:30you have a high range four-wheel drive, low range four-wheel drive, centre diff lock,
01:35front diff lock, and rear diff lock, so it is pretty well equipped there.
01:38You've also got e-KDSS, so that's the Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System. It's effectively a
01:43set of electronically controlled sway bars at the front and rear, so they help with performance
01:48on-road, so the car stays nice and flat, but off-road, they will hinder your wheel articulation.
01:53When you are off-road, they're able to effectively disconnect those to give you
01:56free wheel articulation, so you kind of get the best of both worlds there.
02:00And then finally, I'll call out some of the electronic controls here. So,
02:03you have a multi-terrain select system, so they're drive modes specific to off-roading.
02:07You've got auto, dirt, sand, mud, and deep snow. All they do is vary the throttle sensitivity and
02:13the traction control intervention and whether your forward collision warning systems are on.
02:17You then also have downhill assist control, which I'll demonstrate shortly,
02:20and crawl control as well, which regulates the speed going up and down hills.
02:24And finally, we have a turn assist, which tucks the car in when you're going around
02:29tight turns off-road, because often when you have the front and rear diffs locked,
02:33it will increase your turning radius, so that will sort of help sort those things out.
02:37Now, there was a lot to get through there. If some of that doesn't make sense to you,
02:41or if you haven't really done much off-road driving before,
02:44click up here to watch a video that we've shot before on four-wheel drive controls,
02:48where we explain what they all mean and how they all work.
02:50But let's get started here. So, the first bit of our course is going to be Log Mountain.
02:54Has rained overnight, so it is a little bit sketchy up there with mud and stuff covering it.
02:58We'll then go down the other side to test hill descent control.
03:02I'm just going to leave everything in high-range four-wheel drive.
03:04In terms of multi-terrain select, I'll just select mud for this,
03:08so we have a little bit more wheel slip in there, but I'm not going to lock any diffs just yet.
03:12We'll see how it goes in its standard form. Alrighty, here we go.
03:15So, you do have adaptive damping on the suspension as well.
03:18When you go through these multi-terrain select modes,
03:20it adjusts that too, so you actually get a slightly softer ride as well.
03:26So, throttle control coming up here is excellent. It's not surging.
03:30It's really nice and gradual and smooth, and being a 10-speed auto,
03:33it's able to just give you enough flexibility there in terms of the torque band of the engine.
03:40So, that was a piece of cake. It went up there even with that mud without any dramas at all.
03:44So, what we'll do now is put the downhill assist control on.
03:48What this does, it comes up with a little message there on the screen
03:50that allows you to select your speed.
03:52So, I'm going to go all the way down to the lowest speed possible.
03:55On our downhill here, we have a few ruts and a couple of exposed rocks,
03:59so this will give us an idea of what our clearance is like,
04:01but I'm completely off the brake pedal here, and the car's controlling our descent.
04:05It's probably going a little bit too quick there for my liking.
04:08It's not too bad. I can always take over with the brake if I need to.
04:12Yeah, that was a piece of cake. We didn't knock anything there.
04:15In some dual cab utes, we'll knock suspension or some other components
04:19as we come down over those rocks, but that was a piece of cake.
04:22No dramas there at all. So, pretty impressive there in terms of the hill descent control.
04:26That both works going down and also in reverse as well,
04:30so it'll catch you if you do end up going back down a hill or something like that
04:34that you can't quite make it to the top of.
04:36Okay, next up, we're going to go up the other side of our hill there.
04:40Now, this has a lot of hidden ruts and stuff like that,
04:42so I'm going to show you two things here.
04:43First up, I'm going to lock the center diff,
04:45so you can see it activating just there on the little screen.
04:48Once that's in, that will go solid.
04:50Then what we're going to do is use the camera here.
04:53Now, where this comes in handy is when I climb this hill,
04:55normally if you were doing this out in the wild,
04:57you'd want to walk it first just to see where all your ruts and stuff like that are.
05:01Once you've walked it though, you want to be able to point the car
05:03exactly in the direction you want to head,
05:05because sometimes on some off-road tracks,
05:07if you get off the sort of desired line,
05:10you can end up sideways or turned over down a ditch or something.
05:14So, I know that I want to point for the rock up there,
05:16so this angle shows me the tyres,
05:18but it also shows me which direction the car's heading in.
05:21So, I'm able to look out the front, and then as I approach that rock,
05:25I know that's my desired line.
05:27Here we go, we're about to touch it now.
05:29There it is there, and then I lean into the throttle.
05:32With the centre diff locked, what it's doing is sending 50% of torque to the front axle,
05:36and then 50% of torque to the rear axle.
05:38So, that basically means that you're not going to get into a situation
05:41where you get all of the torque going to the back or the front
05:44when you get wheels off the ground.
05:45So, it's a really easy system to use.
05:47Now, the push of this brings up this kind of, I don't know,
05:50pointless view where you can see through the front of the car,
05:53but then it says it's not live.
05:55So, it is kind of a little bit pointless,
05:57but I do like these things here that show you the roll angle that you're on,
06:00just so you can get an idea of how far you can go before the car disappears underneath you.
06:06So, yeah, look, easy climb there with that centre diff locked,
06:08and that works in high range as well,
06:10unlike the front and rear diff locks that require you to be in low range.
06:15Righto, this is our offset modal.
06:16This is where we're going to test chassis rigidity,
06:19and also what it's like when a wheel comes off the ground.
06:22I'm going to kill the parking sensors as we get tilted into the air there.
06:28I always get you doing that.
06:30Okay, so I've got another view active here on the screen now as well.
06:33So, you can see right there that we have the centre diff locked,
06:37and then you can also see how much brake I have applied there.
06:40I can move my foot on that, but then it also has the angles that we're on.
06:43What I'm going to do now is open and close the door.
06:47I want to see how rigid this chassis is.
06:50Excellent.
06:51So, we have the thing fully flexed here.
06:53That means that in theory, if the chassis wasn't quite strong enough right now,
06:57we wouldn't be able to close the door,
06:58and that has happened before on some cars.
07:00So, we'll roll out of this now, and we'll head towards our lift condition.
07:04This is where we're going to have one wheel lifted off the ground.
07:07I'm then going to hop out just to give you guys an idea of what it looks like
07:10on the outside there in terms of the rear suspension,
07:12and then we'll see how the car deals with that condition
07:14where a wheel is sort of fully lifted off the ground.
07:20Okay, I'm going to quickly run you through what's going on here,
07:22and we'll take a closer look at the suspension.
07:24300 Series Land Cruiser has a live axle with coil springs at the rear,
07:29and it also uses KDSS, which is what I mentioned before,
07:33which is an electronic sway bar system at the front and the rear,
07:36and then you have a damper in there as well,
07:38which is adaptive for on-road driving and also for off-road driving as well.
07:42Currently, we've got it set up in a situation where this tyre is almost at full flex,
07:46so there's a stack of articulation there.
07:48Most of the cars that we test here, like dual-cab utes and stuff like that,
07:51will actually have this tyre completely come off the ground,
07:53so you can see immediately there that this suspension setup
07:56is designed for off-road driving because you can get that better articulation.
08:00More articulation means you're able to stay in contact with the ground for longer,
08:04and it also means you have more traction,
08:06so you can see that part of the wheel there has traction that doesn't,
08:08so that is what's going on there.
08:10If you look behind our damper there, you've got that KDSS system.
08:14Right now, it's effectively off,
08:15and it allows the sway bar to not have any influence on what's going on here.
08:19In a road car or a sports car that uses a system like that,
08:23let's use like the Porsche Taycan as an example,
08:25they have a 48-volt sway bar at the back there that's able to tighten and release,
08:29depending on what the car's doing through a corner.
08:31If that system was to be fitted here, you would have no wheel articulation
08:35because there's a rigid connection there to the chassis,
08:38whereas here, they're able to say,
08:39hey, this car's off-road now, so let's forget about the on-road driving performance,
08:43we'll disconnect it and we'll give this full articulation.
08:46So, what we'll do now, we'll hop back inside the car,
08:48and we'll see how it goes in terms of getting us out of this hole right here.
08:51I don't think it'll be too much of a drama.
08:54Okay, so yeah, hope that explained what's going on there with the suspension.
08:57So, right now, because this is in four-wheel drive and we've got that centre diff locked,
09:01it should get out of here without any dramas,
09:03but in theory, if this was rear-wheel drive and I just let go of the brake here,
09:07we probably wouldn't get anywhere because that wheel would just start spinning on its own
09:11without any traction.
09:12So, yeah, for basic situations like that,
09:14a centre diff lock in high range is going to get you out of most binds.
09:18Righto, so far, everything has been in high range.
09:20I reckon we give low range a crack here, and there's one function in particular
09:24I want to show you before we start locking the front and rear diff.
09:27So, to activate low range, you go into neutral, flick this switch down to L4,
09:31it goes into low range down the bottom there, you can then put it back into drive.
09:35So, the thing I want to show you here is called Turn Assist.
09:38It's a function that allows the car to reduce its turning radius.
09:42You activate it through Crawl Control.
09:43Now, Crawl Control is a function of low range where the car is able to maintain a set speed
09:49and you can then vary the speed using the mode select dial here,
09:52and that can be uphill, downhill, you know, you name it.
09:55So, that's all pretty straightforward,
09:56but Turn Assist is a function of Crawl Control that I'm more interested in.
10:00What happens when you try and turn hard when you have the centre diff locked,
10:05or the rear diff locked, or the front diff locked, or all of them,
10:08your turning radius increases,
10:10and that is because the car's trying to make the wheels move at the same speed
10:14depending on which diff's locked,
10:15and as a result of that, you can push wide if you're on a tight four-wheel drive track.
10:18So, Turn Assist fixes that.
10:20So, let me first demonstrate what our turning circle here is like
10:24with just the centre diff locked in low range.
10:26So, we're pulling wide.
10:27I can feel the car skipping a little bit as we try and make this turn
10:31because that centre diff is locked,
10:33and then we come out to this position just here
10:37where I'm facing straight ahead towards the camera.
10:39But what we'll do now is reverse back.
10:42We'll do that again with Turn Assist.
10:45What this is going to do is basically start locking inside wheels
10:50to tuck the front end around to reduce your turning radius.
10:54So, as I start turning right now,
10:56crawl control is deciding how quick we go.
10:59So, I'll turn that speed up a little bit.
11:00But what I can feel right now is that back tyre locking,
11:05and the car is kind of shunting around here.
11:15And we're doing a U-turn right now
11:17on what feels like half the turning radius of what we were doing before.
11:22So, you may think to yourself, what use is this?
11:25Well, if you do come to a section on your off-road track
11:28where you do have a tight turn and you can't unlock your diffs,
11:31this is what's going to help you get around there.
11:34So, really cool setup,
11:35and I haven't seen this in other four-wheel drives before.
11:37It might be available on others,
11:38but I've only really seen it on the Land Cruiser,
11:40and it's definitely a handy function
11:42if you are doing some off-roading on a tight course.
11:46OK, it's time for our next test.
11:47This is where we're going to see
11:48how the front and rear differential locks help us
11:51when we get to situations
11:52where we've got tyres off the ground and that kind of thing.
11:54Now, this hill in front of us, it doesn't look all that scary,
11:57and I know for you guys that are big into your four-wheel driving,
11:59this will probably just be a walk in the park.
12:00But what this is going to do
12:02is really test the limits of the car's ability to maintain traction
12:06when there's just varying loads on each tyre.
12:08So, first up, I'm going to go up in low range with the centre diff locked,
12:11and what we'll see is just the wheel spinning
12:13as the car grapples to get traction and make it up there.
12:16Then we'll come back down again,
12:17and I'll lock the front and rear diffs,
12:19and then we can see how that compares.
12:21So, let's give this a shot.
12:22All right, so, I'm going to climb up here,
12:26and as we get to this section,
12:29the car's going to drop away a little bit there.
12:32Continue climbing here.
12:35OK, so I can feel that wheel just slipping there as we climb.
12:39And then we'll just manoeuvre our way up the top here.
12:41So, basically, it worked, it was fine,
12:44but it did feel a little bit sketchy,
12:46and if you were in a position where you had to keep powering on
12:49and it started getting more and more technical as you got closer to the top,
12:52you'd probably want to have locked your differentials
12:54before you actually started,
12:56because once you're on the move,
12:57it's pretty tricky to get this stuff happening.
12:59So, let's give that another shot.
13:00This time around, I'll lock the front and rear diffs,
13:02and what we'll see is that the wheels are all turning at the exact same speed,
13:07because when you do lock a differential, like your front differential,
13:09it's sending 50% of torque to each wheel.
13:12Same story at the back.
13:13So, that means if one wheel is turning at a certain speed,
13:15the other one is turning at the same speed.
13:17You'll never have a condition where,
13:18even if you have a wheel in the air,
13:20that it's turning any faster than the other wheel on the same axle.
13:23So, let's give that another shot.
13:25OK, so what I've done now is lock the front and rear diffs.
13:29That means everything is going to be moving at the same speed,
13:32and in theory, that should mean that we can walk up here
13:34with a whole lot more ease.
13:36So, let's see how we go.
13:41Wow.
13:44Wow.
13:46I am seriously impressed.
13:48It literally just walked up there without even trying at all.
13:51That's seriously remarkable.
13:53So, look, you don't often find a front diff lock on a consumer car.
13:58A lot of people add them in later on to help them off-road,
14:01but look, based on what we've done here,
14:03I think it shows that it makes a really big difference,
14:05and if you are serious about off-roading,
14:06this is something that you definitely want to add to your Land Cruiser.
14:10Unfortunately, it's only available on the GR Sport,
14:12so you're going to have to get this one if you do want the front diff lock.
14:16Well, I hope you enjoyed that.
14:18It was good fun exploring all the systems in the new Land Cruiser
14:21through our sort of light off-road course.
14:23I'm actually looking forward to seeing what the 4WD experts do with this,
14:27like the 4x4 27 guys when they go do insane stuff,
14:30but just as an average person doing some fairly basic and average off-roading,
14:34the stuff that's fitted to this is insane.
14:36I just think that it can really go anywhere that you need it to go,
14:39and then when you need to go that little bit further,
14:41it's got all the controls you need to play with to make it all happen,
14:44and it's all pretty idiot-proof as well, and a lot of it is practical too.
14:47So, let me know in the comments section below,
14:49what do you reckon about the new Land Cruiser?
14:51Is the GR Sport the way to go?
14:52It comes with literally all of the off-road equipment,
14:55or are you going to go spend a little less in the range,
14:58because it is getting a little pricey now?
15:00And as a reminder, we have a detailed review of this.
15:02There's a link down there in the description.
15:04If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and share it with your mates,
15:08and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.
15:11But until next time, take it easy.