Toyota FJ Cruiser Review // Why Are These Almost $50,000?

crank it over crank it over it's all starting i don't know james what did you expect no i know but i thought because of its age you know and it's pedigree i just take the land cruiser go get help okay you're watching throttle house i'm thomas and where's james and this is the overpriced fj cruiser [Applause] but is it overpriced because it's now reaching a near legendary status oh yeah and i'm james and since i'm down in california and thomas is stuck in cold canada because of a flight mix-up he decided that as canadians do he would embrace the winter by trying an fj cruiser this one has been gracefully lent to us by the folks at mtm auto house here in toronto a vehicle that has now become a hot topic of conversation because on the used market it costs as much as a new ford bronco why well because as i've said before it's dope as luck is a four-letter word that does not apply to one who seeks to buy an fj cruiser because it's not just mustached dark rim glasses flannel-wearing outdoorsy overland enthusiasts that buy these i've seen every type of person driving an fj cruiser so no matter where you look these are pricey especially now but there's a reason for that if you're new to farmhouse we do car reviews track tests and quite a lot of messing around so subscribe and hit the bell [Music] i'm sure a lot of you know by now that this off-roader almost didn't happen they made a concept premiered at an auto show no intention to really build it but everyone loved it so much that they caved and put it into production and i'm glad they did because it has that kind of go anywhere attitude that you can only get from a big dumb off-road truck on the road four liter v6 260 horsepower 271 pound-feet of torque and you can get an fj cruiser with full-time all-wheel drive like a center torsion differential like we have in our 4runner but this one has the good old-fashioned transfer case with the you know four high and four low manual handbrake then a locking differential this is the one you want for actual off-road stuff but that does mean that on the road right now it's rear-wheel drive only and i've been spinning tires 4-liter v6 260 horsepower 271 pound-feet of torque it's got everything you need to go anywhere and yet here i am driving it on a road but that's okay because i kind of like driving it on the road there's something what's the word uh therapeutic about driving a vehicle in an environment that it wasn't built for i don't know why but i kind of you always have this sense of like well i'm driving it here now but just wait until you see what i can do in that field over there or going up that hill i don't know i just like it james called me and he asked what's it like to drive because he's never driven one but he asked if it's like our forerunner i said no it's not it's more wranglery than that although it's not as wranglery as a wrangler but it's definitely more wranglery than a forerunner if that makes any sense i will say because of some of the aftermarket lights on this and the fact that the windscreen is near vertical uh it is kind of like trying to drive the broad side of a barn there's lots of wind noise it doesn't feel like it slips through the air at all and this windscreen is a known to crack very frequently and b it has three windscreen wipers it's the only way that they could cover the entire thing with wind speed wipers which i guess makes it the uh the total recall of windscreens but it's got more torque than you even need for an off-roader doesn't exactly sing but it's got that kind of punchy low down displacement 4 liter v6 it's not a small engine steering actually quite a lot of feedback but that's just because it's old and you know the transmission stays mostly out of your way i think i'd prefer this with a manual though just because it would be more fun but the best part is you constantly get this sense of occasion when you drive it because it really does feel different the visibility is bad and i've got this huge gauge pod up here with my temperature my pitch and roll and a compass and when it comes to the interior it's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it's old and cheap but that's not true it was designed like this there's no carpets you can hose out the interior the seats feel and look like you could replace them for 130 to the toyota parts desk that's probably true and everything is comically oversized these buttons for my four-way and my rear window defrost are massive they're the size of a toonie if you've ever been to canada and the climate control knobs are hilariously big that's because they're designed to be used with gloves on why would you not do that you know what is dumb is modern cars that are everything in the touch screen but the button's this big and you're going over bumps and you can't hit it just give me a just give me a four foot long fan adjustment why not it's easy i like it this one actually has an aftermarket android tablet deck thing which sadly works better than a lot of modern entertainments so i don't mind that at all and it is worth noting that there is a ton of space in here i have more headroom than i need i've got lots of legroom lots of arm room and our audio guy can fit in the back kind of this fj has a small lift kit so i can't fully comment on the ride but i will say that since it has a solid rear axle and independent front suspension like the new bronco it feels stable at speed and confident enough in the corners you get the sense that these are popular because they balance off-road abilities with daily comfort quite well but that's not the best part about them the best part is the almost timeless styling this thing looks like it's meant to do what it's meant to do i think it looks pretty awesome james would hear he'd tell me what the color is since he's not here i'm going to call it blue um anyway this one's got lots of aftermarket stuff right aftermarket snorkel whole bunch of aftermarket light bars who doesn't love light bars like the more the better really it's got some wheels that i'm not a huge fan of and like this is something i didn't even know existed but this has got suicide doors right look at that it's just there's just so much cool stuff about it right make sure you get that in the right order but i think it's one of those vehicles that has genuine road presence like real road presence it doesn't look like anything else on the road which just automatically makes it cool and it's actually interesting because it seems like toyota is going to kind of keep this this retro look into the future because we've seen an ev concept of one of these and i asked toyota if there's gonna be an ev fj cruiser and they said to me no comment and then they winked i mean i assume they winked it was over a phone call but like this has got so much other stuff on it that i mean i can't stop looking at it look i've got a ladder back here and everything right oh like it's really who doesn't love a ladder right and it's got a car top here what's up i was just knocking out 20. anyway the reason that this looks like such a retro off-roader is because this look wasn't invented for this truck [Music] it's based on this which is a 79 fj40 land cruiser now somehow this costs about the same as the fj that thomas is in but it's 33 years older but because it's a toyota it doesn't look a day over 32. now this has an inline six and it has a whopping 135 horsepower 125 horsepower but like the fj cruiser thomas is in torque is the most important thing here of which it has 200 pound feet that's almost double the amount of horsepower because this car is very much an off-roader and if you can't tell that from the numbers you certainly can't tell by driving it i've got a four speed manual here so it's straight forward for first the whole thing's rickety it feels like a tractor got this giant diameter steering wheel which has i think by the owner's manual two and a half inches of play either directions there's like anywhere you are there's five inches of just steering wheel play it's full of high-tech features i haven't got apple carplay but god forbid i get warm on a long drive through the mountains i've got this little door down here kick it open and boom cold air all over myself how do i close it i probably i think i gotta pull over and do it i'm not i'm not gonna like thomas i've got a vertical screen which i'm sure also cracks all the time i put my foot to the floor yeah it's not it's not fast it's not climbing over rocks it's not a baja racer remember this thing which by the way is absolutely hilarious to drive was built to do what it was supposed to do what it said on the box and it was supposed to do it for a very very very very very long time and here we are 33 years and 70 000 miles later if this odometer is correct and hasn't rolled over multiple times and it's still working i have complete faith in this car it's so impressive i feel like i could go anywhere really really slowly one of my favorite mountaineers has a saying when he's talking about climbing big himalayan peaks he said getting to the top is optional but getting back down is mandatory and when you're venturing out into the wilderness with a vehicle getting to your destination is optional but getting back home is mandatory and if i was going to put my faith in any vehicle to get me back home safely i think it might be one of these i don't think you can put a price on that well i mean you you can thomas because they're like 40 grand now no that's not what i meant never mind thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Throttle House

Views: 1,007,672

Keywords: Toyota fj cruiser, fj40 landcruiser, toyota land cruiser, toyota fj new vs old, toyota fj cruiser 2012, toyota fj cruiser best years, fj cruiser off road, fj cruiser mods, fj cruiser lift, fj cruiser crawl, fj cruiser vs jeep, fj cruiser vs 4runner, fj cruiser snow, landcruiser off road, land cruiser build, fj40, best off road truck, off road toyota, f series toyota, fj cruiser review, fj cruiser driving, fj cruiser camper, toyota fj cruiser build, camper trucks

Id: agAinmq1isc

Length: 12min 27sec (747 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 26 2022