Car Advice
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One month after purchasing our brand-new LandCruiser 200 Series Sahara, we hitched a caravan and embarked on a four-week trip from Melbourne to the Red Centre. The Sahara was amazing in the way it towed the three-tonne caravan. It was both the towing ease and, more importantly, the weight of the Sahara itself that kept the caravan very stable in every situation...
Why did I buy a Toyota Prado? Let’s address the elephant in the room to begin: it wasn’t for the badge or the price. Everyone knows that Toyotas by nature are overpriced. So why did I buy it then? Seven seats, lots of cabin space, comfy seats, economical engine and reliable off-road abilities...
Overall, the Landcruiser 200 provides the rugged and robust design Toyota is well known for. The 4.5-litre V8 provides grunt whenever required, perfect for when towing a heavy load, although the turbos give a little lag when punching the accelerator. For the size of the Landcruiser the engine provides relatively economical fuel consumption, whether it be city or highway driving...
This a totally awesome vehicle. It's excellent for long trips with great comfort and plenty of power. I picked mine up second-hand with 300,000 kms on the clock and she still drives like a new car. It has a had a suspension upgrade as well as a three-inch exhaust. The 1HDFTE is an awesome motor, very reliable and with heaps of grunt...
Before I start, I must inform you that I'm a 14 year old boy. No I'm not the one who wrote the BMW x5 review, I am the Sri Lankan counterpart who is also a massive car nut. I'm writing this review because there aren't much reviews on this exact varient of the Prado and because I have nothing else to do these school holidays...
Okay, so it's not actually my personal car but I did choose it and it was effectively mine for a month. Yes, I had an outback assignment to complete at the edge of the Great Victoria Desert and to my mind the LandCruiser was the logical choice...
The 2016 turbo-diesel GXL is the only TD in the range with eight seats, which is what our large family requires. The GXL allows us to enjoy getting out and enjoying inaccessible areas such as National Parks and sandy beaches, as a family. In addition to steep descents when using low 4D in some tricky National Parks roads, the crawl control also works effectively on very soft sand...
My Prado is a great all rounder and while it doesn't set the world on fire in any one area, it can do almost anything. I bought a runout 3.0-litre one after the great run we got out of my wife's 120 series (seven years,never missed a beat). I tow a 5.5 metre boat and do a 130km commute to work and it still averages 9.5 L/100km...
I bought this vehicle after reading every review I could find on these kinds of cars; the Everest, Disco4, Pajero Exceed (former owner 2009), Trailblazer and Isuzu. The Prado is a good car, and I am very happy with it so I thought I'd write more about the perceived merits/ demerits in this car compared to the others that I have seen on countless reviews...
In the UK we get the Active, which closely matches the GXL. I have been running mine for 3 months and very pleased with the economy (6l-8l/100km) depending how I use it. Using it on the farm it is better than my previous two Land Rover Discoveries (like the time I was idling and the engine let go at 25,000 miles...
We have bought the 2016 Prado Kakadu in Feb this year. We have towed with a 1 tonne camper van and didn't even notice it was there. We crossed over the range from Armidale to Port Macquarie and it handled the windy roads with ease. We travelled over 1000kms towing and still made half a tank sitting on the speed limit and driving to the road conditions...
