Here’s Why You Need to Buy a Toyota FJ Cruiser

It's time to show off on Sunday, w

here

everyone has a chance to show off their own car and

here

's this week's winner. I

need

ed to get a new car and I really didn't like the idea of ​​leaving the dealership and keeping my car. It depreciated immediately, and that's when I came across the FJ Cruiser. I was looking for something that was incredibly reliable and made from common model parts. The FJ is made with 4runner Tacoma and Tundra parts so they are easy to get, it's very unique. It's fun and it really holds its value because they last forever, which explains why they've been going up in value since they left the North American market in 2014 and the global market in 2018, they've actually appreciated it and after owning it. for about a month I can see why, luckily I was able to find one with only 10,000 miles on it, and it's practically new, it's unique, it's over the top and I love it, thanks to Scotty Kilmer for inspiring me to buy a used truck, in 2007 the FJ Cruiser debuted At the Detroit Auto Show as a concept vehicle, Toyota never intended to build the FJ

cruiser

, but it received so much attention that the normally risk-averse Toyota Motors took a chance and decided to mass-produce it.

To produce it, the FJ Cruiser has its roots in two of Toyota's most iconic trucks, the fj40 Land Cruiser and the prado Land Cruiser, both renowned for their reliability, off-road capability and absolute durability, and to preserve this they built the FJ

cruiser

. at the Prado plant in Houma Japan and by Hino Motors, where they also used the body-on-frame design and suspension of the Land Cruiser Standing on the FJ, the FJ was actually designed and tested in Southern California, which has sense. It belongs here, it's really fantastic for weekend activities, it excels in sand, gravel and dunes but also makes it a very good daily driver, it's incredibly safe and the off-road capabilities can cope with Los Angeles which is terribly kept. roads, another big advantage of the FJ is how versatile it is and how many modifications are available to accommodate all that versatility depending on what you want to do with it and again Toyota did something a little bit contrary to character, the company tried something.

They had never tried it before, that is, during the design phase, they invited spare parts and accessory manufacturers to come and take action, so that spare parts would be available immediately after the launch of the FJ, and this has really created a very large market situation in modifications, so if you don't like something about the FJ you can change it as a tribute the FJ cruiser has a headlight and grille assembly that is the same as the one on the fj40, which was originally designed to resemble the eyelets of a samurai warrior mask, as it was initially built as a military vehicle, another interesting note about the FJ is that it is the only model in the Toyota fleet that actually has Toyota written on the grill instead of having the Toyota emblem. the hood scoop doesn't work at all, but hey, it looks cool.

The FJ also has a very angled windscreen much like the Land Cruiser fj40 and there are three wiper blades, one of the downsides to this setup in terms of windscreen angle. that small stones and gravel could kick up and almost every FJ owner I have spoken to has had to replace their front windshield, if not once then several times, and they are not cheap, FJs come standard with a roof rack on The roof, is a very attractive looking roof rack, but unfortunately it creates a lot of noise in the cabin along with the very sloping front windscreen and is quite useless.

If you're camping or overlanding you'll want to get an aftermarket roof rack, the FJ is sort of a four door, it's actually a two door with two smaller or suicide doors that really aren't convenient for seat passengers rear, especially if you have a family or kids, but they look great and open wide if you're in a tight parking spot, as is often the case in the FJ, unless you're off-road or in a river, it would which you can do because the seats are waterproof, the floorboards are all plastic allowing for very easy cleaning, the FJ is actually Designed to handle up to 28 inches of water with a raised air filter and body designed to expel water, Akio Nishimura, the FJ's lead engineer, said plastic may look cheap, but in the end it's much easier to clean, the FJ.

It comes with a traction control off button, a rear differential lock and track control which is really all you normally

need

, the four wheel drive controls are manual, the engineers really wanted you to have the feeling of be in a four-wheeled vehicle. Drive the vehicle instead of using the electronics, and you'll notice the fake buttons on the dash that are for mods, light bars, etc. The FJ also has a 115-volt, 400-watt power inverter that's great for camping and power tools. , Toyota's factory radios are pretty good, it's a six disc CD changer. I mainly used the Bluetooth but it has good sound, there is a rock crawl indicator which I have no idea how to use, an outside temperature indicator which I also don't know how to use because I live in Los Angeles and an illuminated compass, the driver has his own glove compartment in the FJ Cruiser which is actually good because there is no storage in the FJ so I will take what I can understand, apparently many of the FJs come as standard with a sat nav unit and that is where it is so You can monitor the road and reference your location.

At first I thought, they just didn't have a Lot in 2012, you know, it's really sparse and simple here and then I see things like an auto-dimming rearview mirror and a rearview camera and I realize the other things were real decisions that They took, Toyota long before it became popular and other similar types. trucks, they put an inverter in the back and you know it's great for camping, a lot of people use them as refrigerators but there's not enough room back there for more than two people on a weekend trip, if you have a family it's not the thing. ideal. vehicle for road trips, etc., but with these two guys it's just the right size, in 2008 Toyota released the trail team edition of the FJ cruiser, only 2,500 will be made each model year, which contains Toyota Racing Development components such as a 17-inch alloy.

Toyota Racing Development tires and brakes, sporty Bloustein shock absorbers, rock rails, a skid plate along the undercarriage and several other amenities to further increase the vehicle's off-road performance, for the trail equipment edition that Toyota abandoned the iconic white hood that you'll see on most FJ cruisers and painted the trail team models in a solid color, each year a specific custom color in 2012 was Radiant Red, and added those accents to the seats and on the 2012 is the only edition. To have the accent on the steering wheel, they also darkened several components such as the mirrors and decorative parts of the body.

When I bought the FJ, the Bluestein shocks had been removed. Fox 2.0 shocks were installed with a coil and two-inch level and lift, the FJ. The Cruiser is powered by the Toyota 4-liter variable valve timing v6 engine, which generates about 239 horsepower at 5,200 RPM and 271 pound-feet of torque, in the city you get about 17 miles per gallon, in the highway around 22, not that As bad as I would have thought it would be, I have had other SUVs that were much worse than this, it is a pretty efficient engine and as you all know it is very very reliable and hopefully it will last For quite some time, the FJ Cruiser is a truly unique vehicle, so it's no surprise that it has created a unique community of enthusiasts around it.

You can find a really great group at FJ Cruiser forums.com where there are people from all over the world who own an FJ and come together to help each other. Thanks again to Scotty Kilmer for inviting me to his channel, allowing me to show off my new 2012 Toyota FJ Cruiser Trail Team Edition. Well, that was this week's video and remember to have the video of your car highlighted here on my channel. Check this out, so If you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring the bell.