Toyota Land Cruiser: 7 Of The Most Reliable Model Years To Buy Used

Toyota, along with its luxury brand Lexus, has long been seen as one of the most reliable car brands on the market. Whether it's making sedans, pickup trucks, or SUVs, the Japanese automaker has truly cracked the code on making vehicles that last many years and put a lot less pressure on their owners' wallets at the mechanic. Their reliability is a major reason why five Toyotas are among the 25 best-selling vehicles in the United States.

The Toyota Land Cruiser was first known as a Jeep way back to the early 1950s, and it's had a long run since then. Although it's historically sold just a few thousand units per year, it remains an important symbol of the company's legacy. Because it's a Toyota, you should also expect the same reliability that you would get in all of the company's other vehicles.

The Land Cruiser is an intriguing prospect on the used market due to its durability. That said, you can't just go buy any Land Cruiser off the lot. There are more and less reliable model years, and if you want your investment to last, you want the best one possible. Based off of the number of complaints submitted by drivers and the number of recalls each year has been issued, we're going to spotlight seven reliable Land Cruiser model years for your garage.

[Featured image by Vauxford via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]

The earliest model we're going to spotlight is the 1989 Land Cruiser. This is the final model year for what many  consider one of the best generations of the Toyota Land Cruiser. The 1989 model year straddles both the station wagon J60 style and the heavy duty J70 as well.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there have only been three complaints made against this particular model year in the 35 years since it has been on the road. All of these issues had to do with the vehicle's fuel system, particularly concerning a leaking fuel tank, and these were actually all solved by a recall issued against it back in 1991. If you are looking at a 1989 model, it would be wise to know if the example you're looking at has been remedied by this recall. Of course, judging the mileage and history of the prospective purchase is important, but on a build level, there is very little to criticize when it comes to the 1989 Land Cruiser.

[Featured image by Guyon via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 2.0]

Before we get to the more modern Land Cruisers, there's still one more from the 20th Century that deserves some shine as a fairly reliable model year, and that would be the 1995 Land Cruiser. A key way to know how reliably a company has built a vehicle is by how many recalls have been issued against it. If it needs to constantly be updated and corrected, it shows that there's clearly something faulty at the core of it.

When it comes to the 1995 Land Cruiser, not a single recall has been issued in its 30-year life, which is pretty rare. That doesn't mean that no one has found any fault with the SUV, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has only fielded eight complaints for the vehicle, which is still quite low. There's no real consistency to the complaints, but three of them do concern a problem with the brakes, particularly with a delay in braking at either very high or very low speeds. If the 1995 Toyota Land Cruiser catches your fancy, you may want to give some extra consideration to the brakes. Otherwise, it's shown to be quite reliable for drivers.

[Featured image by Ethan Llamas via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]

The 2004 Toyota Land Cruiser arrived towards the end of the decade-long run of the J100 generation that began in 1998. On its face, Toyota didn't do much to separate this SUV from its predecessor. There was no major update or facelift, and this generation on the whole has faced a number of mechanical issues. That makes it all the more surprising that the 2004 model has remarkably few complaints, especially for a vehicle that's now over 20 years old.

In that time, only one recall has been issued for the 2004 Land Cruiser. This was to address the issue of some side curtain air bags deploying inadvertently, and it took until 2016 — 12 years into its run — for this issue to be worthy of a recall. Beyond that, only four complaints have been made against the SUV to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is amazingly low. Three of these complaints concern the brakes, so that's something to keep an eye out for. Beyond that, there is very little to complain about when it comes to the 2004 Toyota Land Cruiser.

[Featured image by OSX via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | Public Domain]

When a car company decides to revamp one of its vehicles for a new generation, it's typically because the model it has is seen as out of date. However, the other side of this is that sometimes the final year of a generation can be so refined that it actually outshines its unproven, more modernized successor. That's exactly the case with the 2007 Toyota Land Cruiser, the final year of the J100 generation.

The number of complaints made to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about this model year is incredibly low. The database lists that there are three complaints, but if you actually look into the individual listings, two of these are the same complaint from the same vehicle on the same day. In actuality, there's just two. That person experienced a sudden stoppage of the vehicle and another had a suspension issue that caused the front to sag. Outside of those two, nobody else has had anything major to report to the government body.

A single recall has been issued for the 2007 Land Cruiser by the NHTSA. Luckily, it isn't for anything too major. It's a labeling issue that said the vehicle could handle a heavier load than it actually could. This is an issue that may not ever affect you if your used model hasn't undergone the recall change yet.

[Featured image by OSX via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | Public Domain]

The J200 generation of the Toyota Land Cruiser that began in 2008 is the longest-running of any generation for the SUV and features some of the most reliable model years that have ever been produced for the vehicle. Because the generation is so long, there are distinct micro-eras within that time, as the Land Cruiser has gone through several updates and modernizations in those 13 years. The first significant revamp occurred in 2013, but if you want a used model from the early J200 period, you need to look at the 2012 Land Cruiser.

If you thought the number of complaints for the 2004 and 2007 model years were low, the 2012 model is even better. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has zero reported complaints from drivers for this model. CarComplaints, another place where drivers can freely submit problems with their vehicles, also has received zero complaints for the SUV. Toyota has put out its own communications about possible issues that could occur, but from the driver side, there's nothing on these aggregators.

To be fair, the NHTSA has recorded two recalls for the 2012 Land Cruiser, and they're both for important issues. Both concern the vehicle's air bags, with one being an incorrectly installed air bag and the other being a sensor wire that could break that would not deploy the air bag in a crash. Once these issues are dealt with, though, it's smooth sailing.

[Featured image by OSX via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | Public Domain]

The J200 generation of the Toyota Land Cruiser received another significant refresh for the 2016 model year, including a brand new grille design and headlights. While that one was fine, it's really the 2017 model where you'll find the impressive reliability and lack of reported issues. When it comes to recalls, the 2017 Land Cruiser has only been subject to one by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This is actually the same recall that could affect the aforementioned 2012 model where a sensor wire could break, causing an airbag to not be deployed in a crash. All Land Cruiser models from 2008 to 2019 are subject to this recall. Besides that, there's nothing else specific to this particular model year.

This model doesn't have zero complaints like the 2012 Land Cruiser, but it still has only four complaints made against it to the NHTSA. Three of these complaints are airbag related, and once they undergo the fixes that the recall calls for, these vehicles should be fine. The only non-airbag related complaint was a problem with the driver's seat preset. Other than that, the 2017 Land Cruiser is golden.

[Featured image by Ethan Llamas via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]

Toyota briefly suspended U.S. Land Cruiser sales in 2021 (though the Land Cruiser returned in 2024), but the year before, we got another tremendous entry with the 2020 model. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, not a single person has made a complaint against the 2020 Land Cruiser. The fact that this generation was able to have more than one model year that could achieve this just shows how Toyota is ahead of the pack when it comes to reliable vehicles. The drivers over on CarComplaints have also not submitted a single problem with their models. Yes, this is the most recent model on this list, but that's still five years of being on the road with no major reported issues.

Bolstering that even further is the fact that the NHTSA hasn't issued any recalls for the 2020 Land Cruiser. The only source pointing out the possibility of any major problems with this SUV is Toyota itself, relaying communications about issues drivers could see pop up from its own testing. Every car brand does this with every car they make. In this case, though, those possibilities aren't being reported by drivers. As far as we can see, the 2020 Land Cruiser is about as reliable as it gets.

[Featured image by オーバードライブ83 via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]

Despite the Toyota Land Cruiser being around for over 70 years, finding definitive consensus on the reliability of the full-size SUV throughout the years is rather difficult. Sources such as Consumer Reports and J.D. Power that survey owners on their opinions of the vehicles they drive — including their quality and reliability — have little to no information about most older Land Cruiser model years. While some of the older models can make for great hobby cars among enthusiasts, they aren't necessarily the best choices for folks just looking for a solid SUV on the used market. So, in order to determine which model years would represent the most reliable for the Land Cruiser, two major factors were taken into consideration.

First, the number of complaints a model year received was a crucial factor. The lower the number of complaints, the more reliable the model year is. These complaint numbers were collected from sources such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and CarComplaints. Because the Land Cruiser is a low-selling vehicle, the variation between a good and bad year isn't especially wide, but any vehicle that has a zero or near-zero number of complaints to these sources is one that shows a certain degree of reliability. The other important determining factor was how many recalls a model year has been subject to. Just like with the complaints, it's better for that recall number to be closer to zero, showing a quality build. After taking both of these elements into consideration, these seven Land Cruiser models were chosen.

[Featured image by Turbo-myu-z via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]