Long-Term Test: 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser

Inside Line concludes our 12-month test of the 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser. Over its 28,000-mile lifetime in our fleet, our long-term FJ bested the trails of Death Valley, Mammoth Mountain and Yosemite National Park. A couple of pesky rocks got the best of it, however.

Why We Bought It
When the first Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser arrived here in 1960, it got the attention of off-road enthusiasts right away. As the Land Cruiser evolved over the next couple of decades, people figured out these SUVs not only boasted 4x4 capability that rivaled Jeep, but also had the well-proven reliability of everything else that wore a Toyota badge.

The 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser is an all-new take on the time-tested Land Cruiser formula. It has the right kind of engine. It's a 239-horsepower 4.0-liter VVT-i V6 that generates 278 pound-feet of torque and has the broad, usable power band of its inline-6 predecessors. It also has the 4x4 capability. Plenty of ground clearance, a short wheelbase and an optional locker for the rear differential make it right at home in the dirt. It even has the look. Its retro-styling reminds us of the historical shoes this FJ is here to fill.

What the 2007 FJ Cruiser offers over its older sibling is a ride that's comfortable even when this off-road machine is outside of its element. Solid-axle Cruisers of the 1960s and '70s confidently maneuvered through creek beds and rock quarries, but they bounced and flopped about miserably on the highway. This new FJ has a double-wishbone suspension up front with a four-link live axle with coil springs in the rear, and it's calibrated for a compliant ride.

We purchased our Voodoo Blue-on-white FJ shortly after the new-generation Cruiser started arriving in dealerships in April 2006.

Durability
Our first memorable excursion in the FJ Cruiser found it among a caravan of SUVs on the roads of Death Valley, California. Video Production Specialist John Adolph alternated between our long-term FJ and his own '85 Toyota FJ60 throughout the trip. Adolph noted for our long-term blog pages, "I appreciated that the transfer case shifter was actually a manual shifter and not a flimsy 'Is-it-in-4LO-yet?' button on the dash. I'm used to four-wheeling with a manual transmission, so I also like the flexibility of selecting any gear from the Cruiser's five-speed automatic. We drove miles and miles of rutted, washboard roads, and the FJ just sailed along compared to my truck's teeth-rattling ride."

Inside Line's long-term FJ also took a four-day road trip to the snow-covered mountains surrounding Mammoth Lakes, California. Snow plows work overtime in the heart of ski season, which meant Senior Copy Editor Doug Lloyd needed only to drop the FJ into 4WD to handle the roads that drove lesser cars to tire chains. Lloyd told us in the logbook, "The heater and defroster worked incredibly well, and the low-range four-wheel drive, big tires and high ground clearance were fantastic through the snow and ice. In fact, we spotted a stranded motorist in a Toyota RAV4 and stopped to help dig her out and put her chains on."

We tested the FJ's on-road agility during a visit to Yosemite National Park. Senior Automotive Editor Brent Romans was behind the wheel one unforgettable morning after a night of rain. Romans writes, "Temperatures were in the mid-30s, so I put the FJ in 4WD-High for extra traction. I encountered a patch of black ice while coming around a corner and the FJ started sliding off the road. The antilock brakes were completely ineffective, and only with some quick steering-wheel work was I able to avoid a collision with a large oak tree." Toyota's stability-control system had disengaged when Romans shifted out of 2WD, which is what you expect in a 4WD truck.

The FJ doesn't exactly handle like a sports car at freeway speeds, but it's amazingly comfortable and easy to drive around town. Maneuverability is hampered by some obtrusive blind spots, however. In one of the CarSpace FJ Cruiser forums, timgg writes, "When do blind spots constitute a serious safety hazard? Yesterday my neighbor backed his FJ into the street sign in front of my house and knocked it over. Fortunately it was a sign and not a person."

Whenever the traffic ahead kicks up some debris, the FJ's nearly vertical windshield registers some heavy impacts, and on two separate occasions the windshield was chipped pretty heavily by rocks. We paid a company that does mobile repair for automotive glass to fill the chips, but a third incident with a rock negated our preventive measures. This third rock played connect-the-dots with the previous chips, so we finally were forced to replace the entire windshield. Toyota of Santa Monica did the job for a staggering $1,438, though we later learned that there's a $500 replacement windshield from the aftermarket.

At 18,000 miles we experienced a blown tire, and it was so badly shredded we were unable to determine the cause. We spent just over $220 to replace the tire.

Total Body Repair Costs: $1,438 to replace a cracked windshield
Total Routine Maintenance Costs (over 12 months): $448.34
Additional Maintenance Costs: None
Warranty Repairs: None
Non-Warranty Repairs: $220.73 for a tire and $90 to repair two small windshield chips
Scheduled Dealer Visits: 5
Unscheduled Dealer Visits: One to replace a cracked windshield
Days Out of Service: None
Breakdowns Stranding Driver: None

Performance and Fuel Economy
The FJ Cruiser's final results from the test track show almost no change from its first trip to the track.

Acceleration to 60 mph took 8.3 seconds and the quarter-mile fell in 16.1 seconds at 85.5 mph. The FJ's brakes showed decent stopping power, slowing the 4,300-pound SUV to a standstill from 60 mph in 132 feet. This places it between the competitive Hummer H3 and Nissan Xterra, which measured 142 and 127 feet, respectively.

Toyota's intrusive stability-control system hampered our dynamic testing of the FJ Cruiser, and the electronics limited skid pad performance to 0.68g, which is on par with its peers. Meanwhile, the FJ's slalom speed of 56.9 mph is equally average.

Our fuel economy over 28,163 miles averaged 17.3 mpg, just above the EPA estimate for city driving. A 23.8-mpg run on the highway was our best and easily higher than the 21 mpg recorded by the EPA. Throughout the life of the FJ we used only the recommended premium grade of fuel.

Best Fuel Economy: 23.8 mpg
Worst Fuel Economy: 11.8 mpg
Average Fuel Economy: 17.3 mpg

Retained Value
We purchased our well-optioned FJ Cruiser in April of 2006 from Carson Toyota in Carson, California. We paid $32,102 and rolled the odometer 28,163 miles by the conclusion of our test. Edmunds True Market Value^® at the time of this story evaluates this car at $23,644. That is a depreciation of roughly 26 percent.

In comparison, we expect our recently acquired long-term Jeep Wrangler Unlimited to depreciate 23 percent under the same conditions.

True Market Value at service end: $23,644
Depreciation: $8,458 or 26 percent of original paid price
Final Odometer Reading: 28,163

Summing Up
We spent 12 months and 28,000 miles in the Toyota FJ Cruiser. It proved just as capable as its predecessors while off the beaten path, but it has an element of comfort on the highway that previous-generation FJs never delivered. Big blind spots require extra caution around town.

The original Land Cruiser became a real icon (not one of the pretend icons you see so often these days), and old FJ40s are now being refurbished to like-new condition and introduced to a new generation. Though the Toyota FJ Cruiser looks a little too cute for us, it absolutely lived up to its heritage and then added an extra dimension of around-town usefulness. This is the kind of 4WD vehicle you can drive every day, not just when you feel like getting dirty.

Edmunds purchased this vehicle for the purposes of evaluation.