Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series order book won’t reopen this year

Sales of the 2023 Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series won’t re-open by the end of this year as expected, but Toyota Australia has promised to reduce the lengthy wait times for RAV4 Hybrid and Camry Hybrid customers from 12-24 months to less than six months by mid-2024.

Toyota Australia temporarily closed its 70 Series order book in late July 2022 in order to reduce a long backlog of orders stretching well into 2024, meaning all new customers will receive the upgraded and more expensive model announced in May.

Then in August 2022 it said the LC70 sales pause would continue for at least another 12 months, and in January this year that it would last at least another six months.

Now, Toyota has indicated the trusty 70 Series won’t be available to order until next year, as it works to clear ‘thousands’ of back-orders for a utilitarian vehicle that dates back to 1984 but is still delivered at the rate of about 1000 a month Down Under – excluding wagon versions.

Asked this week when the LC70 sales stop will be stopped, Toyota Australia sales, marketing and dealer development chief Sean Hanley told carsales: “I think we’ve got another six months to go at least – six months before we look at taking it off or reviewing it. It’s not going to come off any time soon.

“The reason for that is we’re committed to trying to fill the orders we’ve got, which is in the many thousands. But don’t draw conclusions of six months being the thousands, because you’d be wrong. I’m simply saying that’s the point in time that we’ll look at it again.”

Hanley confirmed the LC70 dual-cab, LC79 single-cab, LC76 wagon and LC78 Troop Carrier would continue with V8 diesel power for the foreseeable future, despite reports it would downsize to a mild-hybrid four-cylinder diesel engine, which he previously told us Aussies were ready to embrace.

“No change. 70 Series is strong in Australia. It will continue, V8s will continue and whatever we do with 70 Series beyond that you can be sure of one thing – it will deliver the capability that our customers want in this market,” he said.

“I’m not confirming anything. I’m simply saying whatever we do with that vehicle, Australian consumers can be confident it will deliver the capability that they require for what they do with those vehicles.”

Toyota Australia has repeatedly apologised to its patient customers for long waiting times across its line-up since the COVID pandemic began in 2020 and while delivery delays for the LandCruiser 300 Series have reduced to less than 12 months, new orders for the RAV4 Hybrid and Camry Hybrid are still taking 18 to 24 months to fill – and much longer in some cases.

As we’ve reported, wait times for new Toyota vehicles currently range from four to six months for HiLux, five to six months for Fortuner, at least six months for HiAce, six to eight months for Kluger, 10-12 months for Kluger Hybrid, 8-12 months for Yaris and Corolla, 10-12 months for C-HR and Yaris Cross, 12 months for Prado and Corolla Cross, and 24 months for Corolla Cross Hybrid.

Hanley said that unlike the 70 Series, hybrid RAV4 and Camry sales would not be halted “because we have a very limited capacity – a very defined capacity – on 70 Series, whereas the others we have flexibility. We’ve got more chance of securing more supplies. It’s getting better.”

And he promised that freer supplies in the second half of this year – in tandem with a new vehicle allocation system for dealers – would further shorten wait times.

“I expect better supply from this month onwards. From June onwards we expect to be incredibly busy,” he said.

“We have deployed an allocation system with our dealers where we’re really trying to focus on the older cars on some models that have long waits and we’ve had some really good success in the last few months, where in partnership with our dealers we’ve cleared a good proportion of those long wait cars.

“We deployed a new sales process that tells customers this car is going to have a wait time, this car could change spec, this car could change price. But the reality is we’ve still got a big order bank, we’ve still got a wait time and we still have to work through it, but we’ve been very transparent about that.

“On certain models, where we had the big long waits – which is RAV, Camry, LandCruiser 70 and LandCruiser 300 – we’re focussing on trying to clear the tail,” said Hanley, adding that orders received since the new allocation process were protected against general price increases but not against price hikes associated with model changes.

Hanley cited long wait times and increased demand in Australia as the reasons for increased supplies in the second half of this year.

“What’s driving it is our order bank. We’ve worked very hard with our parent company. We’ve articulated every other week and month that we have a big order bank and we’re trying our very best to fill that order bank and get cars to customers as quickly as possible, and our parent company has been most helpful,” he said.

“Because we’ve got a big order bank, we’re able to fill more orders. COVID labour restrictions have also improved and semi-conductor supply is getting better by the day, so all that’s helpful.

“We have a very strong order bank and we have a very good relationship with our parent company. Of course other markets are fighting for cars as well, but we are among the top 10 strongest markets for Toyota in the world.”

Toyota Australia’s sales boss predicted that delivery wait times would reduce to somewhat normal levels by mid-2024, but the bad news is that ‘new normal’ will still be up to six months for most models.

“The dynamics of buying a car post-COVID have really changed. Market expectations are a little different now. It will always be super-competitive, but I think people will wait for the right product,” said Hanley.

“Depending on the vehicle, three to six months is not unreasonable in a post-COVID world.”

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