New Toyota LandCruiser delivery time keeps growing

Toyota Australia says a handful of early-bird customers will be parking their shiny new Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series in their driveways before Christmas this year.

And it claims that reports of LC300 buyers waiting years for delivery are wide of the mark.

But many customers will be facing considerable waiting times for the all-new turbo-diesel V6-powered off-roader due to the production halt in Japan resulting from the global semi-conductor shortage, and some new orders may not be filled until closer to 2023.

If you order certain variants of Toyota’s most advanced, most powerful and most expensive LandCruiser today, you may be forced to wait up to 12 months for delivery, according to some Toyota dealers.

Contrary to some reports, Toyota did not scrap or reset its 300 Series order bank on October 1, when it apologised to patient Aussies in the queue and told its dealers not to promise delivery times to customers until further notice later this month.

Rather, the thousands of customers who have placed orders for the new LandCruiser, which received more than 10,000 expressions of interest even before local specs and a drive-away starting price of nearly $100,000 was announced, will keep their place in the queue and Toyota dealers continue to take new orders.

But an ETA for those deliveries won’t be forthcoming until at least November, when production is expected to resume, and until then the 500 or so examples of the new LandCruiser already in Australia will be reserved for dealer demonstration and press evaluation purposes.

Before Toyota Australia put a gag order on its retailers discussing delivery times with customers last week, one dealer source told carsales the previous seven-month waiting time for popular variants like the GR Sport was blowing out.

“Some LandCruiser Series 300 models were are looking at eight to 12 months [delay],” they said.

However, less popular LC300 grades such as the entry-level GX – priced at $99,458 drive-away – could be delivered in “five or six months, best-case scenario”.

“We’re still taking orders and if production goes faster, we might get better delivery times,” the dealer noted.

However, the situation may become more challenging going forward as the COVID-related global semi-conductor shortage continues to hinder vehicle production worldwide.

Global microchip shortage explained

The dealer source explained that tracking details of ordered vehicles comes directly from Toyota via email and that dealers were often provided with specific details on the whereabouts and timing of individual customer vehicles.

However, those details are no longer being delivered by Toyota Australia, which last week said delivery times for any customer vehicles would not be advised they were allocated a specific build date.

“Unfortunately, customer deliveries have been delayed because the factory is unable to produce right-hand drive LandCruisers in September or October,” warned Toyota Australia’s head of sales and marketing Sean Hanley on October 1.

“Right now we’re expecting production for our market to resume in November,” he said, adding that a handful of early orders may be delivered to customers by Christmas 2021.

“Because this is an evolving situation and to support our customers and dealers we will not be confirming orders until they can be matched to a specific production month.”

Toyota Australia is currently holding the biggest order bank in its history and the longest waiting times are being experienced by buyers of the LC300, followed by the LandCruiser 70 Series and RAV4 Hybrid (both up to 10 months).

But LandCruiser customers could be forced to endure delivery delays of more than a year if semi-conductor supplies don’t improve and if 300 Series demand increases in major markets like the Middle East.

Toyota closed 14 of its Japanese factories in September, cutting its global production by 40 per cent, and is idling all of them for several days again in October due to chip supply issues.

The Japanese auto giant is announcing staff COVID infections almost daily, but so far there have been no further factory closures beyond those announced on September 17.

Toyota said it will provide its next production update later this month, when it’s hoped the resumption of RHD 300 Series production will be confirmed for November.