The Toyota Land Cruiser has a globally recognized reputation for its exceptional reliability, durability, and off-road capabilities, making it appeal to off-road enthusiasts as well as everyday drivers looking for a big, capable, comfortable SUV. The Land Cruiser’s reputation is known across the world, even in remote regions with minimal roads and vehicular infrastructure. Not only are Land Cruisers the big SUVs Americans know and love, they come with Toyota’s quality standards, which are a cut above almost every automaker. With those bona fides, it’s easy to see why the Toyota Land Cruiser maintains its value years after being bought new. According to Kelly Blue Book, Toyota Land Cruisers depreciate around 26% over three years while similar four-wheel-drive SUVs with historic nameplates like the Jeep Wrangler and Lexus GS lose 30% and 29% respectively.
Toyota introduced the first vehicle in the Land Cruiser lineage in Japan in the 1950s as a bare bones light-duty military vehicle, but after some revisions it was sold to the public, and by 1965 it was the most popular Toyota vehicle sold in the United States. As future generations reached production the Land Cruiser became larger and more civilized, broadening its appeal to include family duties, too. All the while, it proved its rock-solid dependability in some of the most intense climates and terrains on the planet and earned a well-deserved reputation for being virtually unstoppable.
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It’s worth mentioning that this bulletproof reliability reputation is primarily based on experience from earlier model years. The Toyota Land Cruiser was redesigned last year and is now offered exclusively with hybrid powertrain that uses a turbocharged inline-4 paired with an electric motor, and it hasn’t really been around long enough to know if the new powertrain is as reliable as the V8 in older Land Cruisers. Toyota has a stellar reputation for building reliable cars, but the outgoing Land Cruiser’s 3UR-FE 5.7-liter V8 is known to be one of the most reliable engines ever produced by the Japanese carmaker. Consumer Reports ranks Toyota’s cars as being the second-most reliable vehicles on the used market, and states that previous generations of the Land Cruiser are known for their high resale values thanks to their reliability and desirability among enthusiasts.
Alongside the Land Cruiser’s bulletproof V8 and rugged all-terrain capabilities, U.S. market Land Cruisers are large and luxurious, which broadens their appeal among family buyers seeking a tough truck. Aside from truck-like handling and poor fuel economy (it is a heavy body-on-frame truck after all,) Toyota Land Cruisers are brilliant trucks that provide owners with hundreds of thousands of luxurious, adventurous, and trouble-free miles. Perform regular oil changes and maintenance and a V8-powered Land Cruiser will happily last into the 200,000 mile club and beyond. In this case, you get what you pay for.