Toyota Builds A Better Pajero

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday August 8, 1996

John Carey

The LandCruiser Prado 4WD outguns Mitsubishi's long-lived and popular wagon in every way. John Carey reports.

Toyota has built, with its new Prado, a four-wheel-drive that is cheaper, roomier, safer and more pleasant to drive than its main opposition, Mitsubishi's Pajero. Is it better? You bet. It's poised to be an instant hit in the leafier suburbs. Its ruggedness and full-time 4WD system mean it will be the vehicle for those treacherous conditions outside kindy.

Toyota's research indicates 50 per cent of Prados will be bought by city slickers; the vehicle's eight-seat capability will be a major purchase factor. Pajero seats seven, at best.

The cheapest Prado variant, the four-cylinder RV, seats five and has a big luggage area uncluttered by additional seating. At $37,000 for the five-speed manual version and $2,400 extra for the four-speed automatic, the RV is a relative bargain. The price is low, but it is a high-quality drive.

The 2.7-litre engine is a beauty, with much better performance than its size and cylinders suggest. There's some irony in Toyota's use of dual balance shafts - a technology associated with Mitsubishi - to keep the big four smooth and civilised.

With twin overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder and a high compression ratio - features more at home on high-performance engines - the 2.7 pulls like an ox from the start. By four-cylinder 4WD standards, it performs with verve. The easy shifting manual highlights the 2.7's abilities, but it also works extremely well with the electronically supervised auto.

For $2,660 a safety package of dual airbags and anti-skid brakes can be added to the cheapest Prado. Not so the third row of seats - yet. Customer pressure may alter this.

The cheapest eight-seat Prado, the $39,990 RV6 manual, is obviously a serious threat to Mitsubishi and Jeep - which have reduced prices of their equivalent Pajero and Cherokee models. In the RV6, automatic transmission adds $2,400, dual airbags and anti-skid $2,660 and air-conditioning $2,191.

The 3.4-litre V6 of the RV6 bristles with advanced techno-logy: double overhead cams, four valves per cylinder, direct ignition system, air-assisted elec- tronic fuel injection and a very quiet hydraulically driven cooling fan.

Quietly powerful with impeccable technical credentials, the smooth and suave 3.4-litre is also reasonably fuel efficient. Over more than 600 km of testing, an RV6 manual consumed 14.0 L/100 km (20.2 mpg). This is an impressive result from a vehicle weighing 1,805 kg. It means the RV6 manual can go more than 1,100 km between fills. Like the other sixes, the GXL and VX Grande, the RV6 has a massive fuel capacity of 159 litres. No other brand boasts such capacity.

There's remarkably little mechanical noise from the Prado's engine, transmission or full-time 4WD system, and hardly any tyre racket. The subdued whoosh of wind around the boxy, unmistakably sturdy body is the most prominent element in the sound mix at open road cruising speeds.

Bumpy roads don't disturb the Toyota too much. It may lack the comfort of, say, a Commodore; nor does it jerk and jump like some other 4WDs. The suspension allows the wheels a generous amount of vertical motion, which aids on-road comfort (and off-road ability) but makes the handling somewhat ponderous.

It rolls when cornering, the effect magnified by the high seating position. Stable and predictable, it doesn't actually grip the road as well as a typical sedan, despite its big, expensive tyres.

Inside the Prado, seating is comfortably upright and the surroundings are spacious. The cargo area, huge in the RV, can be made huge in the RV6 by folding the split third-row seat to the sides. The Prado's cargo capacity, on casual examination, appears to rival the larger, more expensive LandCruiser 80 Series wagon.

Quality isn't really an issue. Inside, standards of materials and assembly are uniformly high. The instrument panel is typically neat and logical.

The Prado, Toyota claims, has been designed to meet every safety regulation anticipated during its shelf life. It boasts an energy absorbing crumple-zone. This technology is hard to build into 4WDs, which have a separate rigid chassis with a body bolted on. Clever engineering enables the Prado to meet anticipated offset-front impact, roll-over and side-impact standards.

Pre-tensioners, fitted to the front seatbelts, cinch down the belts in a crash and limit the distance occupants are flung forward on impact. Options include dual airbags and, importantly, an airbag-compatible bullbar.

For safety, refinement, structural integrity and price, Prado has Pajero well and truly beaten. Toyota's dilemma is that it may have built a 4WD that's much more attractive than its best-selling LandCruiser 80 Series wagon as well ...

PAGE 12: Marketplace - save thousands on 4WDs.

VITAL SIGNS

Engine

2.7-litre four-cylinder

or 3.4-litre V6

Power

112 kW (four), 132 kW (V6) both at 4,800 rpm

(average)

Performance

V6 auto 0-100 km/h in 11.5 seconds (good)

Brakes

Front discs/rear discs (good)