Will the Australian team that worked on the 2022 Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series follow Kia and Hyundai's lead with a local tuning program?

Toyota Australia is taking a different approach to its local tuning programs compared with its South Korean rivals, Hyundai and Kia.

The latter two sister brands put most of their respective models through a rigorous Australian ride and handling program that adapts things like suspension and steering to local conditions.

Kia puts almost all of its models through this program, with the exception of the Niro and Picanto, while Hyundai has changed up its approach.

It used to put the vast majority of its new models through the tailored tuning program, but now it feeds information back to its Korean headquarters during the vehicle development stage for most models. Some new Hyundai models will still go through the full local tuning.

Toyota’s local product planning and development team were heavily involved in the development of the new LandCruiser 300 Series since the start of the model program back in 2014. And local engineers work, in some capacity, on most global Toyota off-road and commercial vehicles, including the HiLux ute.

However, Toyota Australia’s head of vehicle evaluation, Ray Munday, says while the local team has the know-how to run a full Australian tuning program for each model, it is not on the cards.

“The capability is within the evaluation team to do the suspension tuning, we have done that in the past. It kind of happens by default in that Australia is recognised as a place that develops global product, so the spec that’s developed here then ends up rolling out, so, it’s more local influence over global product. That’s the mantra,” he said.

“Rather than having the need for a specific tune, we have found the tunes that work here, will work in – especially the southern hemisphere areas – a very, very similar tune.”

Mr Munday added that it’s not just commercial and off-road models that the local team work on. There are many passenger cars and SUVs in Toyota’s global portfolio that have had input from the team in Melbourne, adding elements of a local tune to models that are sold all around the world.

“The deepest involvement is with commercial and off-road vehicles. But throughout the history of the vehicle evaluation group, there is a lot of information that has gone back (to Toyota headquarters in Japan), and we do work with the target setting on those vehicles, we have in the past, so the calibration on those global vehicles has the Australian market taken into account.”