Toyota Land Cruiser vs Mitsubishi Pajero

What's the difference?

The Toyota LandCruiser 300 GR Sport is a total knockout when it comes to its looks, comfort and practicality. It’s stupidly easy to drive and has a fuel efficiency that should make you swoon but the servicing is a bit annoying and it’s not the most affordable option on the market. However, even though it hasn't benefited from any updates this year, you don't feel like you're missing out on any luxuries.

My son adores it, wants it and will be very disappointed when we hand it back. Naturally, he gives it a 10/10.

The Mitsubishi Pajero Sport GLS 2WD seven-seater is a well-built and well-priced family-friendly wagon.

It's nice to drive, has a rather comfortable interior and – bonus – the vehicle on which it's based has proven credibility as a no-nonsense and highly functional touring vehicle.

But in 2WD guise it's missing something: namely Super Select II, which accounts for a considerable chunk of the 4WD Pajero Sport’s appeal – so the absence of that in this 2WD version is a significant negative, in my books.

The not-so-subtle point I’m trying to make? Sure, the 2WD Pajero Sport is a few grand cheaper than its 4WD stablemate and it's a solid value-for-money buy as is, but I reckon paying the extra cash to get your hands on a Pajero Sport that's equipped with Super-Select II is the better bet.

Design is 100 per cent subjective. I love the look of the LC300 GR Sport because it features what I feel is a timeless, handsome shape.

For some, it may look too big and brutish, because you could throw a bunch of beefy words at it, and somehow, they’d all fit the roadside presence of this extra-large SUV.

What visually sets the GR Sport apart from its siblings are the multitude of black accents across the body from the rear badging, wheels and arches, door handles and roof racks. The grille is also distinctly different in its horizontal design with the Toyota badging capitalised in a bold white font for extra effect. 

Head inside and the cabin looks ruggedly capable with the dimensions of the centre console and dashboard complementing the external looks.

Technology looks upmarket, joinery is solidly put together and the leather upholstery adds to the plush comfort of the seats but there is a sense of capability in the physical buttons and dials still found on the dashboard.

Which is where I start to really like the LC300 GR Sport because everything is where you expect it to be - this is not a car you’ll get flustered in but nor does it have that generic Toyota look.

The Pajero Sport is 4825mm long (with a 2800mm wheelbase), 1815mm wide and 1835mm high. It has an official kerb weight of 1980kg.

I don’t mind the styling of the Pajero Sport. It doesn’t look as bulky as many of its rivals and it manages to have a rather contemporary, but comfortably middle of the road, presence.

If you’re that concerned about keeping up appearances, perhaps take a look at a Pajero Sport in the metal, drive it, imagine yourself living with it day to day, then make up your own mind whether you think it suits you or not.

Easy.

The front row is roomy and even with a co-pilot, you feel like you have yards of space to settle into. The seats offer a wide seat and plush padding, as well as heat and ventilation functions which adds comfort for longer trips.

Individual storage is good with a large glove box, two cupholders, two drink bottle holders and a large middle console that also features a 'cool box' function for drinks or snacks.

The comfort of the front is replicated in the backseat, which deftly accepts the height of my 183cm father. The width of the seat can easily accommodate three adults in relative comfort or, if you have a few tots in tow, three child seats.

Amenities and storage in the back row are what you'd expect for a top model in this class. The rear outboard seats feature heat and ventilation functions and there is dual air-conditioning and climate control, as well as, four directional air vents.

The fold-down armrest features two cupholders while the doors hold a drink bottle each and a small storage bin. There are also two map pockets and you can access the middle console cool box with a rear-mounted button.

The GR Sport does remind you that it's a big car with its 235mm ground clearance and my seven-year-old son declared I needed to hold all of his stuff this week as getting in and out is a ‘two-handed- operation'. Like him, I too am grateful for the grab handles and side steps in this car.

The technology is well-rounded and simple to use. The 12.3-inch touchscreen multimedia system looks great and is responsive to touch. It has built-in satellite navigation and a Toyota Connected Services app with three years of complimentary updates. There is also wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, AM/FM radio and DAB+ radio but there’s not much else to access in this system.

The mostly analogue instrument cluster features a 7.0-inch tech screen and this is where you can do a lot of your customisations with display and safety.

The charging options are solid up front with the choice of a USB-A and C port, 12-volt socket and a wireless charging pad. The rear gets two USB-C ports and a 12-volt socket as well.

The boot is cavernous with its 1131L of luggage capacity and that’s with all seats in use. The squared shape of the boot and the 90-degree angle the boot lid opens to are quite practical, especially when fitting bulky items or loading things in the rain.

All GR Sports come with a powered boot lid and a domestic 220-volt socket for charging larger items while adventuring.

The interior has a practical and familiar feel about it. Sure, it’s a bit on the basic side of things – with cloth seats and rubber floor mats – and it certainly lacks the plethora of soft-touch surfaces some of its more expensive rivals may have, but this interior’s life-friendly sense is a bigger positive for it than any posh addition could be.

The front seats are rather supportive, with a real snug feel to them, and are manually adjustable, which is fine with me.

The reach- and height-adjustable steering wheel has paddle shifters for when your driving takes on more of a sense of urgency. 

The dash and 8.0-inch touchscreen media unit has an integrated sense to it. And this cabin’s all-pervasive sense of familiarity continues here with all of the buttons and dials easy to spot on the fly and, more importantly, operate without fumbling around for them.

Driver and front passenger have access to media and aircon controls, among others, as well as cup-holders in between the front seats, a bottle holder in each of the doors, and small spots here and there for your wallet, keys etc.

The second row is suitably comfortable and I sat behind my driving position and there was plenty of head and leg room. It’d be much squeezier for those of us who stand at six-feet (182cm) or beyond.

Second-row passengers have access to a fold-down arm-rest with cup holders, air vents and there are USB charge points and a power socket in the rear of the centre-console. 

The seat-backs have map pockets and the doors each have a bottle holder.

The second row is equipped with three child-seat top-tether points, and two ISOFIX points. It is a 60:40 split-fold configuration.

Passengers in the third-row seat have access to cup-holders and air vents, but that’s little compensation because the space back here is on the wrong side of tight. 

The third row is a 50:50 split-fold configuration.

In terms of packability, the rear cargo area’s volume is listed as 131 litres when all three rows are being used as seating; 502 litres when two rows are in use; and 1488 when the second and third rows are stowed away. 

Annoyingly, the third row is a real bugger to stow away and doesn’t fold flat into the floor. Maybe I’m missing a trick but this third-row strife was a source of more than a bit of frustration for the photographer and I – and we’re both experienced vehicle-based travellers.

The rear cargo area is equipped with power sockets and tie-down points. There is a shallow underfloor storage box back there as well.

Our test vehicle – a Mitsubishi Pajero Sport GLS 2WD seven-seater – has a manufacturer suggested retail price of $49,190 (before on-road costs).

But our wagon had a stack of accessories, which included alloy front protection bar ($3879), towbar kit ($1386), towball cover ($7), rear cargo liner ($205), and carpet mat set ($230). That total accessories cost of $5707 (price includes recommended dealer fitment cost) brings this vehicle’s as-tested price to $54,897.

There is a 2WD GLX spec, a five-seater, which is slightly cheaper than our test vehicle, with an MSRP of $44,440.

The standard features list on the GLS is generous and includes an 8.0-inch touchscreen multimedia unit (with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and satellite navigation), dual-zone climate control air conditioning, a power tailgate, privacy glass, automatic rain-sensing wipers and dusk-sensing headlights and, of course, seven seats.

I’ve mentioned the accessories above – and there are lot more of a variety of those available from Mitsubishi as well as from Australia’s bloody awesome aftermarket industry – so let’s get cracking with the yarn proper.

The LC300 models all share the same 3.3-litre V6 twin-turbo diesel engine that produces a hefty 227kW and 700Nm of torque. Making it powerful enough to easily handle its 3.5-tonne braked towing capacity.

The GR Sport has a 10-speed auto transmission and has a full-time 4WD system with high and low range. It also has front, rear and centre diff locks, so adventuring pursuits should be a breeze but check out Crafty’s off-road review on this model for more 4WD insights.

The Pajero Sport has a 2.4-litre, four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine, which produces 133kW at 3500rpm and 430Nm at 2500rpm, and it has an eight-speed automatic transmission.

This 2WD variant does not have Mitsubishi’s impressive Super-Select II 4WD system, of which I’m a big fan, and that absence is a substantial negative against it, I reckon. But more about that very soon…

It's big and has a lot of power, so it should be pretty thirsty ... right?

Wrong! The official combined fuel-cycle consumption figure is 8.9L/100km and my real world usage came out at 9.8L/100km after doing a mix of long open-road trips and some urban stuff.

Based on the official combined fuel cycle and the two fuel tanks, which equal 110L, you’d be able to get a theoretical driving range of 1236km.

The 2WD Pajero Sport has an offical fuel consumption of 8.0L/100km on a combined cycle. 

On our test, which included a stint of dirt-road driving, we recorded fuel consumption from fill to fill of 9.2L/100km.

It has a 68-litre fuel tank so, with that sort of fuel-consumption figure, you can reasonably expect a driving range of approximately 690km from a full tank, but that’s factoring in a safe-distance buffer of 50km.

The GR Sport is a massive car but it doesn’t handle like one. That's not to say it handles like a small car but it doesn't feel like a truck to drive.

The power is effortlessly gutsy and there's no issue keeping your speed consistent on hills. The 10-speed auto transmission manages its gear changes and power hits smoothly. The rumble of the V6 engine is also quite therapeutic when it comes time to tackle an overflowing causeway or muddy road.

The GR Sport feels solidly grounded and even on winding roads, the roll in corners isn’t bad at all. Less so than a Prado, actually. 

The ride comfort is very good in the GR Sport grade as it has special adaptive suspension and that means that you really aren’t bothered by the road surface. Besides some whistling from the roof racks, there’s also little outside noise and it feels refined in the cabin because of it.

The wide windows and high seating position offers great visibility all around but I'm very aware of how large the car is as I can't see my son when he walks around it. The sensors alert you but make sure all kids are accounted for before you start moving.

Despite its size, the GR Sport is very nimble to manoeuvre with a small 11.8m turning circle and steering that is responsive.

Parking has been no issue for me this week and while the 360-degree view camera is a bit too fish-eye lense for me, its clear and you get used to it pretty quickly.

This is mostly a smooth driving wagon while tackling daily duties on the blacktop and with some highway stretches thrown into the mix. 

Steering has a nice weight to it and the Pajero Sport is a nimble, highly manoeuvrable SUV, with a turning circle of 11.2m, even if it does start to reveal more than a bit of body-roll through more aggressive driving. No surprise and no worries – this is an SUV after all, not a sports car. 

Also, worth noting is the fact that our test vehicle’s alloy bullbar made it heavier at the front end thus affecting its handling somewhat.

Throttle response is sharp and the 2WD Pajero Sport retains the line-up’s punchy turbo-diesel engine and teamed with the eight-speed auto it makes for a quietly effective, rarely stressed working partnership, rather than an energetic match-up.

The suspension set-up here – double wishbones with coil springs and stabiliser bar at the front, and three-link, coil springs and stabiliser bar at the rear – yields a very firm ride and one which can tend towards jarring if you’re traversing chopped-up back-country bitumen or really anything beyond bitumen that's in good nick.

The tyres – Toyo Open Country A32 (265/60R18) – are well-suited to bitumen, not so much to off-roading, which is perfectly reasonable for this 2WD vehicle. Also, this rubber is on the correct side of quiet.

As mentioned earlier, Mitsubishi’s Super-Select II 4WD system is missing from this variant, obviously, as this is a 2WD. And that’s a crying shame because even if you never venture off the road, Super-Select II is very handy. In Pajero Sports equipped with it, you can drive in 4H (4WD high range) even on bitumen or any high-traction surface because 4H in this vehicle means that – and I’m directly quoting Mitsubishi’s offical system explanation here – “all wheels are driven via the transfer case with an open centre differential, this means all four wheels will send power to the ground while still operating independently of one another”.

If you drove like that in most other 4WDs – at speed in 4H on bitumen or the like – you’d risk transmission wind-up, but there’s no danger of that in a 4WD Pajero Sport because its centre diff is open, not locked, when 4H is engaged.

This gives the driver increased traction and so better control and that means it’s a safer all-round driving experience for everyone involved.

Unfortunately, none of those benefits are available in this 2WD variant.

Having said all of that, this Pajero Sport is very drivable, functional and still manages to retain respectable, if not high, levels of refinement.

The Pajero Sport has a five-star ANCAP safety rating based on testing in October, 2015.

Safety gear includes seven airbags (driver’s knee, driver and passenger front, driver and passenger front sides, and curtains) and this Pajero Sport’s suite of active safety and driver-assist tech includes AEB, adaptive cruise control, trailer stability assist, rear view camera and rear parking sensors, but it somehow misses out on blind spot warning and rear cross-traffic alert.

The GR Sport comes with a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty and if you stick to your service schedule, you get an additional two years of engine coverage.

There is capped-priced servicing for up to five years or 100,000km, which entails a total of 10 services or two a year as servicing intervals are a pain at every six months or 10,000km, whichever occurs first.

Services are $400 which equates to $800 per year, which is a bit expensive but not outrageous for the class.

Pajero Sport 2WD is eligible for Mitsubishi's so-called "10/10 Diamond Advantage" package, which includes a 10-year/200,000km warranty and 10 year/150,000km capped price servicing. But you need to ensure you get the vehicle serviced at an authorised Mitsubishi dealer to take advantage of the 10-year warranty plan.

Each capped price servicing extends free roadside assistance by another 12 months.

The servicing schedule and costs per service are: $399 (at 12months/15,000), $399 (24 months/30,000km), $499 (36 months/45,000km), $699 (48 months/60,000km), $499 (60 months/75,000km), $699 (72 months/90,000km), $499 (84 months/105,000km), $999 (96 months/120,000km), $599 (108 months/135,000km), and $699 (120 months/150,000km).