Name: Toyota LandCruiser Prado Kakadu 2015 Review
Brand: Toyota

Toyota

Toyota LandCruiser Prado Kakadu 2015 Review

Lack of power and torque

Over-bonnet vision

No height-adjustable front suspension

Rear axle articulation

KDSS system

Crawl control

Cast an eye over the SUV market and you’ll see very few truly off-road capable vehicles. One of them is the Toyota LandCruiser Prado, and here we’ve got the most capable Prado of all, the top-shelf Kakadu.With a few hundred kilometres to get to the start of the off-road tracks of the Victorian High Country, it was time to get reacquainted with the Prado.The engine is hardly turbine smooth but for a diesel it is more muted than most. It doesn’t clatter and rattle away like a bag of marbles; more like a bag of M&amp;Ms. What is most apparent is that with the beefier power and torque numbers of many of its competitors, Toyota has fallen away from the pack. Overtaking or hill climbing requires a bigger slice of throttle than most other cur-rent SUV wagons. The five-speed transmission is no work of art either; it does its job in a work-man-like manner.The Kakadu has dropped price since the recent implementation of the Australia-Japan Free Trade Agreement. It is now $84,490, down from $92,120 (plus on-road costs).That is still a large wedge of money, and while it is cheap when compared to the likes of other du-al-range equipped large SUVs such as the Land Rover Discovery 4 SDV6 HSE at $95,730, it makes the $72,000 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland 3.0 turbo-diesel seem like a bargain.While the GU Nissan Patrol isn’t any longer offered in the luxury Ti spec, it is the only other large SUV wagon that is as bush capable.Before getting to the gnarly tracks in the Victorian High Country, it was a good time to consider the basic artillery every Prado has to tackle the rough stuff.