That fuel-door release eluded many drivers and was one of several ergonomic quirks in the cabin. The driver is surrounded by a vast number of haphazardly grouped buttons - for audio, climate, navigation, and off-road mechanicals - labeled with indecipherable acronyms and abbreviations. Editor-in-chief Jean Jennings went so far as - gasp! - to recommend that everyone actually read the owners' manual. Despite the ergonomic issues, the interior materials earned praise for matching typical Toyota quality standards.
Yet the Land Cruiser wasn't totally faultless. From the day it arrived, our Four Seasons example suffered from a disconcerting driveline clunk when accelerating from a stop. During the first oil change, the driveshaft was lubricated to address the problem, but the noise continued for the truck's entire stay. We wrote it off as a design matter rather than a mechanical defect when we experienced the same issue in a Lexus LX570, the Land Cruiser's under-the-skin twin.
The bland and bulging styling earned few fans, and almost everyone agreed that the softer curves belie the vehicle's off-road heritage. While its hardware and history imply that the Land Cruiser was built to crush rocks and cross deserts, its styling pegs it as a typical mall-going, kid-toting SUV.
Carrying large loads was made difficult, however, by inefficient packaging. The Toyota's exterior gigantism isn't evident in the interior, where cargo room is dismal. "Anything this big and heavy should have a log cabin's worth of room inside," opined Sherman. "This one does not." Although most modern SUVs fold the third-row seats into the floor for cargo-hauling duty, Toyota chooses to flip the seats up against the sides of the cabin (a longtime Land Cruiser tradition). Stowed like this, the seats seriously eat into storage space. Packing for weekend getaways with four people proved surprisingly tricky, as bags quickly filled the narrow rear cargo hold. Removing the third row is possible, provided you're willing to break out a tool kit. Second-row seats tumble forward or fold, but they don't sit level with the load floor.
Although our Land Cruiser was delivered with leather, a fourteen-speaker audio system, keyless ignition, a moonroof, navigation, and a rear DVD player, many of us had a hard time justifying the $71,252 price tag. For that money, road test editor Marc Noordeloos wished for rain-sensing wipers, xenon headlamps, nicer leather, and a heated steering wheel. Inevitably, the Land Cruiser drew comparisons with significantly cheaper domestic competitors. Toyota's Sequoia may be the true parallel for the large SUVs from Ford and General Motors, but our logbook was filled with comparisons to Chevrolet's Suburban. Consensus says that a Suburban will carry more, tow almost as well, and return the same or better fuel economy for about $20,000 less. ...next page >>