Toyota Prado

We are truly impressed with this 4x4. We've done a circumnaviation around Australian to the most remote rough locations and couldnt fault it. We have a 2003 GXL 4L - it is thirsty but you have the power and grunt to go where you want. Highly recommend!

In August 2018, I upgraded our 4x4 to a brand new Toyota Prado GXL. BEST decision I ever made. The car is a dream to drive and definitely looks the part too. I keep hearing all this hype about DPF issues, but I cant say that I have experienced any issues so far. The car has just clicked over 16000km and I have owned it for about 2 weeks short of a year. Only thing I don't like about it is the service intervals. Every 6 months - c'mon Toyota. Other than that I love it!!

We love our PRADO! We use our car for commuting and 4x4 adventures. We've added 33" BFG K02 AT tires and a 3" lift kit plus ARB bull bar etc. We also had the ECU remapped that gave us 30% more power. WOW! What a car. We've not had one issue with the car. Fuel economy is better after ECU remap - pays for itself. Quality Toyota build is confidence inspiring. Plenty of leg room for teens in the back who are over 6". Plenty of room for luggage too making it the perfect family adventure vehicle.

After test driving around 10 different types of SUV finally settled on a new Prado GXL. Not the fastest but by far the most comfortable in that price range and below. Purchased from Maitland Toyota in 2017. Have been very happy with my purchase and an excellent car for country roads and long range touring. Recently sold and the resale was excellent as well. Highly recommended to test drive if you are considering a new large SUV.

I bought this car to tow a caravan and use it for light to moderate off road work. The Prado really surpassed my expectations for towing, the V6 towed my 16 van really well. Last December I left Nullarbor road house heading west into a strong cross wind, 44 C outside and the aircon on full blast. The temp never got past 94 c, digital readout from the OBD11 Port. Yeah the fuel consumption wasn't great, but the Prado pushed on without a complaint for 2.5 hours.
I use the car for work every day and its comfortable and reliable despite 227000 km.

Well, after a long time buy and sell, like, dislike, hate, regret, I finally put down a significant amount to buy a new 2019 Toyota Prado VX, after doing more research, I should have purchased the Kakadu as Toyota quietly removed the KDSS suspension from VX and only available with the Kakadu now, then the options with the offroad and DVD things, I think it is better to reward yourself with the Kakadu, but the VX is good enough if not plenty from the GLX.
The reason for saying this is 10k difference from VX to Kakadu is nothing by the time you put in extra accessories, I just only put in the towbar, dash cam, windows cover things and it is already 1.5k, and I am looking at the smart bullbar from ARB soon, if you look on carsales you will see a lot of guys spend 10k (normal) just to accessorize their Prado, believe me, it does not take long to go through that 10k, so I rather spend another 10k for Toyota to fully equipped the car for me( to the Kakadu I mean), then I will fill in the rest

Another one is I'm not doing offroad much, maybe 1-2 a year max from what I can see, so if you want a review from someone who mainly the Prado for urban driving then this is it

I have it delivered on July so still new to the car, will update when the time goes by

The first thing is I get this
https://3dmats.com.au/product/to-fit-prado-150-series-2013-2018-kagu-carpet-3-rows
The mat is superb, and it have edge to contain all of the spills , OMG, this will save you a lot of time cleaning up, I did check all of the other products, none with that price tag and the quality, this is highly recommended, I have beige interior (most of the car now black leather), and the mat is totally complement my interior, the original Toyota is in the storage now of course. The only other mat if you need is the leather cut and tailor but maybe a bit costly

The first thing I want to mention is always Fuel consumption, well, believe me, I have a Nissan Elgrand 3.5 L, it is absolutely a dream to drive the Nissan Elgrand (petrol), with all of the bell and whistle, I do a trip to Sydney and most of the time is spending time in the petrol station to fill up the tank, so to me mileage is very important, I opt in for the one with the tyre at the back, even though it is sometimes take space to open, a bit of blocking on the view, but like someone said, the Prado is not a Prado without that spare tyre thing, and you have the second tank, all up 150 liter of fuel or something. Compare to the Audi Q7 3.0 TDI that I have before, it works out 10l/100km and pack more power/grunt/punch, hats off to German engineer on this, with the Prado, you have to look at 12-15l/100km combined, I use the Prado a lot on freeway so it goes down to 10l/100km, but in the city, yes, look at somewhere 14l/100km at least, my old Navara 2013 ST is 8.5l/100km, I miss that Navara dearly, it is the first car that I have for 5 years, but I don't wanna drift away too much here

Will update more when have time

this car is not really remarkable in any way shape or form, but is very capable, comfortable, and safe car to drive. servicing so far has been great and fairly reasonable in terms of pricing.

I have Removed this post pending further investigation.

Now I just have to fill up the rest of the post with other words until I reach thirty. Nearly there, almost there.

Purchased a 2018 GLX Prado and absolutely love it.
Had read a few negative reviews - so we were concerned...but we could not be happier with it.
We have done over 15000km - long distance driving - off road driving - water crossings without issue.
Very comfortable / plenty of room / great on fuel / lots of extras!!
Highly recommend the new Prado.

We replaced our old 90 Series (1999) Prado with the new J150 Prado just after my first attempt to retire. There is just the 2 of us - wife and hubby.
I like the body and suspension but really dislike the 2.8 litre engine. In my view, it's under powered. Just cruising around town at 80kph the slightest incline will have the eco light go off and start dropping gears. Connect a trailer with weight and it's all over so we will never tow on our travels - that decision is made. I believe a vehicle of this size and type needs a 3.2 to 3.5 litre .
I am not a fan of the auto braking and some of the other 'saftey' features and appreciate that some folks need them to operate but I wish they could be over ridden when required.

As previously posted, we've had this Prado from 2001 when it was 3 months old... cannot speak highly enough to say how well engineered and comfortable this genuine 7 seater for 7 average adults, has turned out to be. "4R Motors" in Seaford 3198 has meticulously serviced this every 5,000 kms without fail. All it has ever needed is Oil and Filter every 5,000. "Forte" Fuel System Cleaner is added every 10,ooo kms. Auto gets new oil every 80,ooo kms. Both Diffs and Transfer gets new oil every 80,ooo kms.
Abnormals amount to 1 new Radiator and 1 new AC Compressor at 180,000kms. Elec aerial motor has failed, so we just manually adjust when needed as its a huge job to renew, and reception has not been affected, so why worry?
Cannot believe how easily it tows 4 tonne of firewood to Mt Hotham every year !
All in all... would not ever sell this vehicle. it's now April 2019. She's 18 y/o and a member of the Family.
I pity the "yuppies" who have long sold this model for a new one every 5-7 years as so many do for the sake of "keeping up with the Jones's"... new cars have just got worse every year on many levels,

In 2016 I handed over the keys on my beloved 120 Prado for a new Prado 150. My 120 had served me faultlessly for 13 years and I was expecting the same from the new one. I use this vehicle to tow a horse float and general running around. I found very quickly that the gearbox was nothing short of terrible. Constantly hunts for gears. Touching the brakes going downhill and the vehicle drops down 2 - 3 gears enough to cause bruising on my collarbone from the seat belt. It then holds this gear to the very bottom, sometimes getting up to a screaming 4000rvs before letting go violently slamming me back in my seat. Toyota's response was "it is working as it should". While towing and crawling up to a set of lights the car started to shake violently (think earthquake) - Toyota could not find anything wrong. I constantly hear the sound of a chain being dragged along under the car - Toyota cannot find anything wrong. My warrantly was running out in two months. I took it in to get the brakes checked because they were grabbing badly. Toyota's response "the brakes are working perfectly". I lost faith in my car (I am a 66 year old woman on my own) I lost faith in Toyota. I have traded the Prado in on another make.

We have had our prado for a few years now and we cannot fault it. It is very comfy, spacious and is a dream to drive. The downer is that it has the same old standard Toyota stereo so no Bluetooth/AUX/connection.

Was a good car at first but after some time and what I’m told is a failure in the diesel particulate filter system the fuel consumption sky rocketed and it felt like I was driving around with the hand break on !

I have just installed my old TomTom and bluetooth hands free kit (blueant) into my 2018 Toyota Prado. The in-car system is just so bad that anything else is better. I drove a Hyundai i30 hire car today with the appleplay system which was brilliant. Why Toyota did not run with this I don't know. The phone system is unusable while driving and when using the voice control system you may drive 2km before the system responds to your command. I honestly don't think Toyota ever tested their system outside of the showroom. I have 1000+ contacts in my phone and it takes 5 mins for the phone to synch each trip.

Would not lock into top gear until well over 100km/hr, and then would change down when it saw a hill in the distance. Fitted a scanguage to watch the transmission temperature, and was horrified to see the temperatures while towing, and that was using the gear recommended. The only way to stop it changing and the torque converter from slipping was to tow in 4th gear at about 90km/hr.
Would not tow my small Tvan without great input from right foot, (old 120 series Prado was much better)

The prado is quite a surprising little package, after having owned several full sized cruisers from 60 series to 105 series I decided to downsize to a 120 prado and the power you get for the fuel usage is fantastic. Some people may find 13.7l/100km average bad but compared to my 1fzfe cruisers at 25-26l/100km I am amazed! Cheap to run, chain driven V6 (no timing belt) smooth and quiet, I can see these becoming the new 80 series in the next 5-10 years in terms of a reliable, decent tourer that honestly I can see easily covering 500,000kms without fail. The 5 speed auto grearbox is the pick of the bunch having a low 1st gear and lower reverse than the old 4 speed. Amazingly these 120’s can be had for under 10k with less than 250,000kms on them and that’s a great cheap entry 4x4 for a tourer or mild 4x4 wagon. These are no patrol or 105 series cruiser on the real tough tracks but seeing as there is usually a good on road drive to get to the tough tracks the Prados do the road and 90% of the 4x4 tracks in much more comfort and economy than the live axle 4x4s.

Highly recommend for a family 4x4, try and get one with traction control (Vx, grande and late gxl with safety pack) as this makes them much more capable off road. If getting one without factor in a rear locker $2k if you want to push it past it’s maximum flex.

I had a Prado 150 in 2015 but as soon as I drove it from the showroom I knew it was a lemon...back and forth about 20 times and they diagnosed a drive train fault that they repaired by installing a dampening device to the chassis....it thankfully got rid of 80% of the vibration through the steering wheel...the other 20% when I changed tyres.

I was a little apprehensive picking this new 2018 July compliant car! The sales process was done by phone aside from the paperwork side of things, everything happened smoothly enough. The sales staff were helpful and went through everything. The revised model has some nice touches of silver plastic that seemed to freshen the dash up and gave it a lovely, solid feel. I broke up what was before quite a dark, cheap feel.

As I left the dealership today I drove along the 80km/h zone couldn't feel anything....no vibrations, no steering wheel shudder...nothing! I literally held my breath as I got to the freeway and approached 100km when in my old Prado the vibrations started. Thankfully, nothing close to a vibration and I can't tell you how happy I was to cruise along at a 110km and feel what my 2015 should of felt from day one. The standard tyres create some road noise so I'd recommend a test drive in a 110km stretch of road to see if you find it annoying. I was fine with it and where I felt it could be improved, I'll work on that in the future.

This upgraded model is wonderful and while I miss out on the techno pack of an auto, I read enough to feel put off an auto with all the overheating commentary.

I also noticed that the DPF had kicked in and I think its been altered now to burn more regularly, I clocked up 300km driving from the dealership and when I got near home I noticed the DPF doing a burn by the increased rpm (upto about 1100km). I could smell the burn off with my window down and stationary but it wasn't offensive or intruding into the cabin with the window shut.

The one thing I noticed that was different from my old Prado was that I felt a solid object at the top of the drivers seat that took some time to get used to. I'm a hulking great unit so I noticed almost immediately that it lacked padding or support at the top of the seat. However, as I drove along, I got used to the change in feel and the electric lumber support helped to adjust to a really nice driving position.

I sat comfortably in the cabin, instrument dials ahead of me, laid out well and subtle changes to make them look almost european in design. Subtle changes to instrumentation as well made the car overall look really refreshed and of good quality.

Overall, really impressed with the latest model and (touch wood) blissful, stress free driving (although I will have to cope with Sydney drivers LOL!)

A BRAND NEW LANDCRUISER PRADO 2018 - paid almost 70k - not happy with the new Vehicle I purchased on September 2018.

Just done 2500 KM
Irregularities in gear shifting.
I was hearing unusual sound while starting the engine.
Took it to the dealer and they said the “ENGINE MOUNT” needs to be replaced (Unbelievable).
Very furious and disappointed with Toyota.
For the price and reputation I did not expect this from Toyota.

I purchased this vehicle for daily commuting & as a tow vehicle. As a daily driver I love this car it's comfortable has all the options you need good fuel eco Great Car, BUT as tow vehicle i'm very disappointed!. I tow a Jayco Journey 19.5ft Caravan weight fully loaded 2.7t, when towing this van my Prado uses 22L to 26L per 100Ks traveling at 90khp on my last trip talking to landcruiser 200 owners towing bigger vans then mine, they were doing better at around 22L to 24L per 100Ks doing 110 to 125kph. The Prado tow Capacity is 3,000Kgs now but to to tow anything close to that the car 2.8L engine is working very very hard and sucks the fuel. it's a pity because I truly love this car, but I might have to look at maybe upgrading.