Howdy friends -
I’m happy to be back in the Toyota family. First time in the Land Cruiser lineage.
I owned a 4Runner from 2013-2020, only had to do routine maintenance on it, and sold it for $1k less than I originally paid. Because I’m a filmmaker and road trip across the country with my gear, in 2020 I was lured into the cargo capacity upgrade and couch-like comfort of a Kia Telluride. But after 87k miles covered by warranty yet littered with service struggles the shine was gone. While waiting a month for a back ordered transmission to arrive my eyes wandered. I created spreadsheets. I ran numbers.
I found other vehicles that had better cargo space, better fuel economy, or better payload capacity. But the Land Cruiser resonated with me to the point I stopped caring about the pros and cons of other makes and models.
Am I willing to lift hundreds of pounds of filmmaking gear an extra four inches over the lip of a hybrid battery? Hell maybe it’ll be good for me.
I empathize with the misunderstood, so the Prado/4-banger/turbo/hybrid/faux narrative only made me want to love this thing even more. Finding and reading through this forum has been a nice source of info and even some laughs. Especially when the Telluride comparison thread was suggested. What kind of consumer would ever entertain such different vehicles? slowly raises hand I guess I did. But when my work vehicle is out of commission I’m losing money, and I always want to be able to get to and back from my shoots no matter what. The choice became clear. My Telluride chapter is done and a new chapter has begun.
Comfort concerns disappear in the rear view as my wife falls asleep on the drive home from the dealership. My first 500 miles have been a blast as I watch the boost and battery gauges tag team launch my Land Cruiser through the Texas hill country. I finally bought a vehicle for me.
